Good morning, good morning! The wake-up call came through and many happy faces showed up to breakfast. We were now far south off the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, still in the Drake Passage, and heading for the Antarctic Circle as our way point. The seas have mellowed considerably. Already before breakfast ended, the call came through; blows ahead, whales ahead!
Our excellent Bridge team navigated closer and soon we were able to confirm, it was a group of about 20 animals, including several mothers with calves. But which species? Yesterday we received a good introduction to whale identification and now it was time to test our newfound knowledge.
To identify fin whales out in the ocean can be a challenge, for one thing we are dealing with swell and wind which makes the ship unsteady as our platform and these whales are usually always fast moving. The Norwegian whalers called them ‘runners’ since they are such quick swimmers.
The captain took the ship into an ideal position and soon we had them by the bow and we were able to see the significant features. Being the second largest whale in the ocean, after the blue whale, the fin whale is a very large animal. They are grey and in faded light look almost dark. The blow is tall but today the wind was prevalent and made it more bushy. Two things stand out on the fin whale, a rather prominent slightly curved dorsal fin which you see in a split second after the whale breaks the surface, and if the whale shows its right-hand side, the very prominent white-colored lower jaw, the most significant feature for identification.
The morning was followed by a presentation by our Global Perspective Guest Speaker Ken Taylor, who spoke about climate change based on ice core drilling in Antarctica. The ice cores are a fantastic ‘book’ on how the climate has varied over almost 600,000 years.
Just like the fin whales we had lunch with a great feeding frenzy and this was followed by a presentation on Antarctic penguins. Then right before afternoon tea, our devoted captain spotted in the distance a group of logging killer whales and soon everyone was bundled up for a fantastic show. We had them around the ship and in fact some were even bow riding. Spectacular sightings. And shortly after that we were surrounded by a large group of Southern pilot whales in full feeding frenzy. They were followed by a large group of seabirds taking advantage of the food spill left behind.
Those interested in birds were of course all through the day able to spot many of these truly pelagic species, albatrosses, petrels, storm petrels and some even sighted our first penguins, a group of chinstraps.
The evening was our captain’s welcome cocktails and dinner, and for sure everybody had a lot of whale encounters to chat about. Early tomorrow we will cross the Antarctic Circle, so we can officially state we are in Antarctica. Yesterday we crossed first the Antarctic Convergence, which defines Antarctica biologically and later the political border set by the Antarctic Treaty.
