We now have another two days at sea as we leave South Georgia and head for
Elephant Island and the Antarctic peninsula.
It was nice to have a day to relax and reflect on our 3 day wildlife fest in South Georgia and prepare for our next landings - this entailed having more bio security checks to make sure our outer clothes take nothing rogue to the Peninsula and doing some of our own washing - luckily they have a small laundry room on our deck which is one of the most visited places by passengers only probably outdone by the restaurant!
We had two lectures, one from Sven Voege a modern day adventurer who has sailed small yachts in both polar regions talking about both poles - the key difference between them is the Arctic is sea surrounded by land whereas the Antarctic is land surrounded by sea; and another lecture from Claudia Holgate talking about the secret life of birds in the south.....even explaining how penguins keep their feet warm - they have a slightly warmer body temperature than us at 40 C and a clever hear exchange mechanism.
During the day we ventured on deck twice as whales were spotted, always remembering to don warm clothes first - firstly we saw fun whales in front of us and later we saw a pod of killer whales - both great sightings.
As today is also New Year's Eve the ship was in celebration mode - one of our fellow passengers - a doctor, lecturer and part time magician gave us a very good magic showy his was followed by a 6 course banquet - small courses luckily which we finished just before midnight. We then went to the Panorama lounge where the normal subdued piano playing had been replaced by a disco to bring in the new year. That said we and several others celebrated with the Captains announcement and then headed to our cabin leaving the floor to our younger fellow passengers.......the noise was also playing havoc with John's ears!
Today's photo is a macaroni penguin taken yesterday at Coopers Bay.