Summer in the Southern Ocean – 6, Crossing the Southern Ocean

4^th – 5^th January 2024

Leaving the Falkland Islands, we were looking forward to passing the Antarctic Convergence and arriving at the South Georgia. South Georgia is a beacon of how to deal with invasive species and rebuild wildlife populations.

Our first day at sea allowed us to choose to attend lectures, use the gym and catch up with our blog. We were also obliged to join the bio security “party” to clean all our outer garments to be ready to go ashore and prevent cross-contamination. Avian flu is killing millions of birds worldwide and is killing birds and seals on South Georgia, meaning some of the landing sites are closed to visitors.

The Antarctic Convergence is where the warmer saline currents coming southwards from the tropics meet the colder and mainly non-saline waters moving northwards from Antarctica. It is often marked by fog as indeed it was when we awoke on our second day at sea after leaving Stanley.

We were hoping to see the Shag Rocks in the late morning but required GPS to know where they were. Visibility from deck 8 was about 100 metres! Our captain did a magnificent job of circling the rocks which extend 70 metres above sea level. We came within 800 metres as the cloud lifted and we saw the Rocks and the shags nesting on them in all their glory.

We decided to skip lunch and avail ourselves of the tiny gym when we thought it would be less busy, which it wasn’t until half way through lunch. This meant that Peter was in the shower and Lynne undressed when the PA system announced a sighting of humpback whales to starboard!

Fortunately, a huge pod of humpback whales, numbering over 30, had decided to follow the ship for an hour. We had plenty alongside our cabin on port side, just below our window! We’ve never seen so many flukes, snouts and flippers as they rose above the water before diving for food. How magnificent.