Sorry, again no real pictures… as a full day at sea (crossing the Drake Passage).
So, remember that lottery thing we mentioned yesterday? We got results today, but we’ll save those details for a later date. We will say that we were selected for at least one of the excursions therefore had to attend debriefing/s for whichever one/ones we’re taking this week.
In the morning, we attended a “how to take great pics with your cell phone” seminar with the ship’s photographer, Oscar. He had a good point right out of the gate. Cell phone manufacturers promote how amazing the cameras are on phones, but they don’t tell you how to use the camera. Yeah, you can aim and take a picture without direction but there are so many features he mentioned that many in the seminar were unaware of. Granted, the average age of attendees is waaaay above our ages so they may not have been super tech-savvy. The best part of the seminar was when he mentioned exposure and how you can either let the phone do it or you can do it yourself. He took one pic with the phone’s settings and then said, “Ok, now I will expose myself”. We both had a hard time keeping a straight face!!
Jay attended a seminar on how glaciers are formed, led by a glaciologist (who knew there was such a thing?!). He was quite passionate about providing education on glaciers and icebergs. Couldn’t wait to see a glacier after that… or an iceberg…. Or both!!
Speaking of, at lunch time the captain made an announcement that an iceberg could be seen off the ship’s starboard side. Thankfully Tim knows which side is which, so he sent Jay to correct side. Yep, it was an iceberg – the first one we’ve seen!! Pretty hard to not get excited over something like that. It was a spectacular sight.
Sitting in the Explorers Lounge playing cards again this afternoon, we had amazing views of the aft side of the ship and started seeing ‘berg after ‘berg with varying sizes and shapes. Seeing the icebergs as well as watching the movement of the water (specifically talking about swells) is mesmerizing we couldn’t stop looking outside. And then the next first happened – we saw our first whale (tail)!! There was a small pod of whales surfacing about 200 yards from the ship. Due to the swells and the distance we could only see their tails surface and then quickly splash down. Based on the little we saw, we think they were blue whales.
One of the more exciting parts of the day was the daily debriefing for the following day. It’s our first day on the “White Continent”!!! We had some refreshers on what to wear, how to use the sailor’s grip to enter/exit the boat, etc. The most important reminder that we heard multiple times was “don’t sit, kneel, or crouch while on the continent”. A week before we left for our trip, an Avian Flu warning was issued and Hurtigruten (the boat owner) is very big in conservation (as any travel company visiting Antarctica should be) and wants to ensure we do nothing to take anything to the birds and that we bring nothing back on the ship with us.
Rather than close down the bar tonight, we closed down the Science Center. There weren’t any seminars or experiments happening so we took over that space to play cards. First we noticed that the Activity/Exploration Leaders were gone. These are the amazing folks who coordinate every detail of what we do onboard as well as offboard and, as a side note, are pretty danged good at their jobs. The next thing we knew, all of the lights with exception of tv monitors had shut off. We were convinced that we couldn’t end the game until a winner was crowned so we sat in the mostly dark room, playing only by the lights of the TV. Tomorrow’s shaping up to be a busy day but will undoubtedly be one of the most awesome days we’ve had on vacay.