Day 10 - Scotia Sea

Date - 25 November, 2016

Weather - Cloudy, some rain and cold

Seas - Choppy seas with swells

We now will be at sea for the next two days heading south west until we reach land. Because we have moved into the open ocean the water is more choppy and it is sometimes difficult to walk in a straight line as the ship moves over the swelling waves. Breakfast was served at the later time of eight o'clock and Henk and I were the first through the restaurant doors when they opened. It seemed that many passengers had taken the opportunity to sleep in after some early starts and busy days at South Georgia.

We were kept occupied throughout the day with lectures from the specialists on board. The two lectures in the morning were a presentation on the Albatros and the second on the importance of krill for marine life. Both were excellent presentations. Krill is ice-dependent as it feeds off the algae which grows on the underside of ice. It's frightening to think that with global warming and the ice melting that the krill's food source will be depleting. Krill is vital for ocean life and a surprising number of marine animals depend upon krill as its food source. The Scotia-Weddell Seas which we are currently sailing through is the major nursery ground for the Antarctic krill. 

The afternoon's lecture was titled "Rock and Ice - The Crystal Desert". It was good to have a description of the Antarctic continent with its various regions prior to our visit to the Antarctic Peninsula. We learned of the different types of ice we will be encountering as we move further south including brash ice which breaks off from the glaciers, sea ice which is formed differently from brash ice, pancake ice which is plate sized and curls up at the edges, berry bits which are chunks of ice and growlers which are dense ice sitting low in the sea. 

Our recap and briefing came before dinner and we find this daily session very useful to remind us of what we have seen and what we are going to see. There are approximately 450,000 breeding pairs of King Penguin on South Georgia. St Andrew's Bay and Salisbury Plain has a combined total of 230,000 breeding pairs which would explain why we saw a lot of penguins! These numbers are increasing because of the rat eradication programs. We also had a session on the successful rat eradication program on Macquarie Island south of New Zealand. 

Also at recap we were told that we have left South Georgia one day earlier to beat two lows that are close by and the ship is now making its way to the South Orkney Islands to try and find some protective harbours. The ship usually doesn't call into the South Orkney Islands and we may have an opportunity to land there if a safe harbour can be found. After the South Orkney's we will be heading for Elephant Island where Shackleton's men remained whilst waiting to be rescued.