22 March – Anticipation day
Written by Maeva
Today marks the last day in Ushuaia and the first day on the ship to Antarctica – how exciting! However, we did only get to board the ship in the afternoon, so we had to keep ourselves busy. Luckily, Will offered to teach us the secrets of bird identification. Quite a challenge for several of us! We all headed to Ushuaia harbour with our binoculars and tried to name all the birds around us. From the imperial shag and the Magellanic penguin to the dolphin gull and the Antarctic tern, we manage to get a grasp on the main features required to tell these species apart. To the delight of the team, we also spotted several South American sea lions playing around a few hundred meters away from us!
The rest of the day went by quickly, between enjoying a “last” meal on land and wandering through souvenirs shops. We also took advantage of the available internet in several coffee shops before not being able to share our stories with friends and family for the next few days – the adventure awaits and such expedition is all about living the moment, so we will not be in touch individually until we are back!
At 4pm, it was finally time to embark on the vessel that would take us to the southern-most place any of us has ever been. We were all shown our cozy rooms and between some safety briefings and captain’s cocktail, you could find all of us on the deck already looking for sea birds and marine mammals on the horizon. The excitement started right away as after less than 15 minutes into our journey, we had already spotted two humpback whales, black-browed albatrosses, South American fur seals, South American sea lions and a Burmeister’s porpoise!
In the evening, we were treated to an amazing 3-course dinner and had a meeting to organize the first morning observation shifts for sea bird and marine mammal surveys in the Drake Passage. It was a day of firsts for many of us – first whale, first bird identification experience, first penguins – and we cannot wait to see what nature has in store for us in the next few days!
