16 February 2022 – Wednesday – A Day at Sea

Although one would imagine a lazy day at sea with not much of interest, we were actually very busy all day. We have seen so much wildlife and so much beautiful scenery that it was time to gain further knowledge about all our experiences as well as our upcoming adventures.

Our morning sessions:

Naturalist Santiago, who comes from Chile, talked about the penguins of South Georgia and the Falklands. He also gave us a taste of many of the birds we might see. It was tantalizing.

Amy, from Marion MA, is an arctic dive specialist. She and her dive partner do buddy diving in the very cold arctic waters. Her topic was the mighty Antarctic krill. Krill are the “keystone “ species that feed many of the Antarctic inhabitants including whales, penguins and many sea birds. Many whales feed exclusively on krill. Krill are considered plankton because they are passively floating up and down the water column. They are about the size of a pinky finger.  They feed on algae under sea ice and supply iron as well as protein to the animals that feed on them. They are critical to survival for the species that rely on them. But krill is also being sucked out of the ocean by fishing boats. The krill is used for cosmetics, food for fish farms and vitamin supplements of questionable value. It’s a tough balance. 

The afternoon continued our education.

Kayvon, who is the other ice diving specialist, spoke about the anaerobic amazements: deep sea diving mammals. There are several animals who can dive to incredible depths as much as 2000 ft and stay down for 20-30 minutes. They store oxygen in their blood and muscles and completely collapse their lungs to counteract buoyancy. Their heart rates can drop to 4 beats per minute. It is incredible. Of course we humans can’t even come close to what marine mammals do even with SCUBA gear.

Bud one of our naturalists who lives in Colorado, then talked about Change: choices for the future, which was about how we can change our habits and needs for energy. It was fascinating to hear about all the technology that is now available and will improve to allow us to stop global warming. 

The day ended with the second part of the movie about whaling. There was more information about the amount of kill and the incredible profits from the business.

I am posting a few photos showing our captain, navigator and expedition leader, and then the very inventive things that our chambermaid has done with the stuffed toys we had bought for gifts….very amusing every night.