Today was another day at sea, but there was a lot of preparation for our arrival in South Georgia tomorrow. Bio security is very important and we all had a mandatory briefing followed by our outer gear being checked to ensure we weren't transplanting seeds from the Falklands to our landing sites. Boots were scrubbed and some had pockets and velcro hoovered!
Now we are in the Antarctic convergence the outside temperature is definitely cooler and any call on deck requires the donning of our red parkas. Thankfully John got mine when we ran on deck to see Shag islands - so named as they are the breeding sites for blue eyed shags. We also saw smaller tabular icebergs and the usual array of porpoising fur seals and royal wandering and black browed albatrosses and prions flying around the ship. The lectures were on Ernest Shackleton - a man whose most famous Endurance mission failed but through his leadership and measured risk taking no lives were lost when the ship broke up in the Weddell Sea, the men relocated to elephant island and Shackleton with a few others braved the seas to get to South Georgia and then overland to the whaling station at Stromness to raise the alarm and get help. The final lecture dovetailed with the 30 minute video that had been running all day and was an overview of South Georgia's wildlife and geography.
I am looking forward to seeing the massive King Penguin colony tomorrow.....but as we went to bed though we had to put our clocks on an hour as South Georgia is in a different time zone.
(Today's photo is reflective penguins on the beach marking our arrival at Salisbury Plain tomorrow.)