A day at sea during a long expedition is a good time to catch up on the details that were missed the previous days. Our travels during the last four days in South Georgia were amazing. The images, memories, and impressions were fresh in our minds. It would now be time to go through digital pictures, write a few postcards, perhaps read and write e-mails as we would be traveling hundreds of miles to the Falkland Islands. The Scotia Sea had a few different ideas for us, however. The early morning took us by Shag Rocks, a wonderful place for nesting sea birds and views were had of albatross and other sea birds as they used the National Geographic Endeavour as a wind generator. The winds were not very high so the black browed, grey headed, giant petrels and other used the air movement over the ship as a lift under their wings.
Later in the morning, spouts were seen in the distance and over a great distance they went as the whales producing the blows made tracks away from us faster than we could pursue. We did find a group of finback or fin whales with hourglass dolphins. The fins were also called the “greyhounds” of the seas. The finback was saved from slaughter early in the whaling day because of it great speed.
The rest of the day was spent marveling at more albatrosses, especially the black browed, as their formations grew around the ship as we headed to their breeding ground on the Falkland Islands.
