Day 9 – At sea heading north
Saturday 10 January 2026 – written by Kate
We spent the day at sea, heading back up north along the Peninsula. The day of sailing gave us a great opportunity to collect lots of data during our seabird and marine mammal surveys. Despite a bit of swell, the Antarctic weather continued being very kind to us, making for some good spotting conditions. Surveys began at 7am with a quiet start, but we were soon rewarded for our patience with humpback whales aplenty! First there was one, then another, then another… Until we found ourselves travelling through consistent patches of whales for several hours!
Different members of the team were able to observe a wide range of behaviours, including lunge feeding, breaching (where whales leap fully out of the water!), and lots of fluking, where the whales lift their tail before diving. With some whales coming quite close to the ship, we could take some fluke photos which can be used to identify individuals and their movements, something called photo-ID.
Calmer conditions in the afternoon meant the humpback sightings continued, with even a minke whale swimming alongside the ship. Survey teams were also treated to a close encounter with a brown skua, which hovered above the deck for a few minutes, allowing us to get a good look at its identifying features and to truly appreciate its size – after all, these birds do feed on penguins!
In the times between survey breaks, we continued to clean and collate all of the data we have been collecting on our expedition. This included plotting some of our sightings and survey tracks on a map to start to get an idea of what we are seeing where, and in what quantities.
After some pretty special sightings yesterday evening, the team decided to get stuck in with some nighttime surveys – after all, we have 24 hour sun here, so ‘night’ is no different for us! Sightings slowed a little, but teams still managed to see humpback whales, with the later team enjoying stunning icebergs, eerie fog patches and the high peaks of the Antarctic Peninsula peeking through the clouds. Everybody was then able to get some well-earned sleep before a busy day of excursions tomorrow!
