26th March 2018 – We Might Just Make It Through
We awoke Monday morning to our third (and final!) day on the Drake Passage. Lucy and I made our way up to the lounge for the necessary cup of coffee in preparation for our first bird survey of the day. Seven o’clock came and went, and we hadn’t seen any faces other than our own so Lars jumped on the opportunity to do his first bird survey (as observer) and joined us as we headed up to the bridge.
The sea conditions weren’t as bad as we had feared, and by 10am we were joined by the first team of marine mammal observers. We had managed to outrun the worst of the storm, thanks to the Captain and crew’s decision to depart the Peninsula a day early, and I, for one, am grateful for that decision. We had heard news that the sister ship Ortelius, following behind us, had been caught in the bowels of the storm and had had to cancel dinner and restrict passengers to their cabins out of concern for their safety. Luckily for us, we had avoided such experience. Instead, we got to enjoy a rather salty day of observations. Just to be extra clear, by salty day, I mean we got splashed by waves all the way up on the bridge wings. That added a little extra spice to our already bouncy day on the Drake.
While the conditions allowed marine mammal observations, they only just made the cut off for being surveyable. We hadn’t seen much and to help pass the time between surveys, Lucy and I started serenading each other with some awkwardly loud singing on the starboard side of the ship. The Drake wanted none of that and silenced us in one fell swoop with a massive, hair-soaking wave to our faces. A couple of hours later I was back up on the top deck watching for any sign of a whale. I had been on deck for only a few minutes when the call “sighting!” came from the portside observer. Shortly after the call, we passed within 200 meters of our first, and only, sei whale sighting. That was quite possibly my best timing of the entire trip; it’s too bad I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to get a photo!
Throughout the day the team grabbed every free minute we could to compose our evening presentation about our science activities aboard the ship. We’d spent days with our fellow passengers watching birds, whales and waves, and we now had the chance to show them why we were here. Our four representatives (Rob, Mikhail, Kirsten, and Rowan) did a wonderful job explaining the data we collected, how we collected it, and what we are going to do with it. The presentation closed with a loud round of applause and numerous compliments from the other passengers. We’d spent so much time together and it was wonderful to share our purpose with them.
Speaking of wonderful things: Staten Island. We’d had our Peninsula experience cut short, but the Oceanwide Expeditions crew did NOT plan on letting that be the end of our trip. Sebastián, one of the expedition crew, pulled some strings, and called the Argentinian Navy to get us permission to do a ship’s cruise around the northern side of Staten Island on the following day. We all headed to dinner, and then to our bunks, looking forward to the inaugural Oceanwide visit to Staten Island.
Written by Lisa Neyman
