This expedition, which many of us consider the best trip among the wide range of destinations our ships visit all over the planet, is slowly coming to an end. It now seems ages ago when we were so surprised by the hidden jewel that the Falkland Islands are; the vastness and wildness of South Georgia and the massiveness of the Antarctic Peninsula…time goes very fast in good company and with such amazingly long spell of good weather!
During the morning, the calm and misty waters of the Drake provided plenty of time for reflecting over the last weeks and nothing better than a tour over the amazing images that our National Geographic photographer ‘King of Panoramas’ Rich Reid presented us with to bring back to life some of the best moments.
In the afternoon the mist departed and, although still calm, some of the flying wonders of the Southern Ocean started to show up. Sometimes up to three magnificent light-mantled sooty-albatross delighted us in the bridge with their effortless flying, even in the perfectly calm wind conditions, covering huge distances over these seemingly endless ocean to find some food. Groups of the now familiar and beautifully patterned pintado (cape) petrel and the fast moving prions and a few storm petrels also joined the calm scenery of the “Drake Lake.”
We are making good speed over waters that were and sometimes can be extremely treacherous producing some of the biggest seas known. With a bit of luck we should be able to arrive to the Beagle Channel’s eastern entrance early enough to spot some of the wildlife and gorgeous scenery at the end of the South American continent, at some stage tomorrow morning.
