Today started with an announcement from the "disembodied voice on the bridge" saying that we had made it to our stopping point for today much earlier than anticipated. It was 7:30 a.m. Yesterday, the captain said that we should arrive in Hope Bay on the Antarctic Sound about 10 and would start Zodiac tours of the bay at approximately 11. Since our group was the first group to go out today, we were happy to have the late start. When the captain, then later the expedition team leader, made the early announcements this morning, we just were not ready to get up and face the cold ride. We passed on the Zodiac tour and watched the Adelie penguins swimming and porpoising from our warm suite.

A side note on the “disembodied voice from the bridge”: The captain has a fun sense of humor and introduces himself in various ways when he makes announcements. He uses “disembodied voice from the bridge” about half the time, but also calls himself other things. I think the only time he said “this is your captain speaking” was on the first day. When we stop for landings and Zodiac cruises, the ship does not drop anchor. She simply sits in place, occasionally drifting in a semi-circle giving us an ever changing view from our suite. The captain and the rest of the bridge crew keep the ship in a relatively constant location so the zodiacs can pull alongside to load and unload passengers.

After all the Zodiacs were reloaded on the Seabourn Quest, we had the opportunity for a scenic cruise of the Antarctic Sound which is full of huge icebergs. They are quite magnificent with the lovely cerulean blue tones of ancient ice showing through the cracks in their faces. Many of them are larger than our ship. The tabular icebergs have regular, rectangular shapes and look to be recently broken off. Others are more worn through melting and refreezing creating unusual, lovely sculptural shapes. I took a number of photos, but it is impossible to tell just how large they are in the photos without any form of reference present.

This evening we went to the usual 6:30 p.m. recap and briefing. The waiters were at the entrance with trays of warm drinks again. They have offered gluehwein, hot buttered rum, and hot cranberry cider on different days. All of them are good. The briefings always start with Iggy reminding us of the most important things we saw today and what to expect tomorrow including the times for each group to disembark. Iggy is followed by three or four other members of the expedition staff doing brief, five- to ten-minute talks about a topic in each ones area of expertise. We've heard about types of ice, varieties of whales and what they eat, birds that are seen in the areas we will be passing through, and so on.

Tonight, one of the talks was Luqui discoursing, complete with slides, diagrams, photos, and charts, on penguin excrement. We have witnessed the penguin call of nature, and now we know as much as Luqui does about it. He can explain the viscosity (something like olive oil), size (40 cm. long spray on average, but can be up to 90 cm.), and color, among other properties. Red means they have been eating krill. White means they have been eating fish. They do manage to keep from pooping in their own nests; even the tiniest chicks have their tail feathers pointing outward. However, their neighbors may give them a good spray at any time. “They don’t seem to mind,” Luqui says in his matter-of-fact manner spiced softly with his Argentinean accent. The smell near the rookeries is powerful. And one of the expedition team members, but I can’t remember which one, says, “There is no mud in Antarctica.” If it looks like mud, it is wet guano. Luqui ended his talk with, “Bon appetit!” as everyone filed out to go to dinner. We went up to the Observation Lounge to relax with a drink and to give Alexandra time to finish freshening our room, then ordered room service.