MS National Geographic Endeavour
Drake Passage
Monday, January 19, 2009

    I slept reasonably well overnight, but with lots of adrenaline still in my system, I was up at 05:00 and out on deck by 05:30. The ship was pretty quiet at that time, but the sun was already up. The skies are still overcast giving everything a neutral gray cast. We have been very lucky in that the Drake Passage is very calm by its standards, a one on a scale of one to ten according to the Captain. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some rolling motion and it took me a few hours to get my sea legs.

    I was excited to see the petrels and even a few albatrosses flying in the wake and around the ship. I, and most everyone, spent a lot of time trying to get photographs of the birds in flight. It is not an easy task, as you can imagine. During the day, I made about 500 exposures. So far, I have selected several of those as keepers, so it was a good day of shooting. I have had some nice conversations with several of the passengers and especially with Tim and Bob, the invited staff photographers. Both are very nice and very accomplished natural history photographers.

    After lunch, we had a seminar on Antarctic birds entitled “Seabirds: The Fit and the Fierce” presented by Karen Copeland, one of the naturalists on board. She is an energetic speaker and passionate about wildlife, especially birds. If she sees you without your binoculars around your neck at all times, she will admonish you.

    Following “afternoon tea”, we had a seminar jointly presented by Tim and Bob on the basics of using your camera in the Antarctic (and in some cases just the basics of using your camera). They covered camera settings, lighting, and gave the usual hints about what makes good composition. They did a very good job, especially considering the tremendous range of cameras and proficiencies. It’s great that one is most familiar with Nikon equipment and the other Canon. They have made themselves available at all times to anyone with a question. I’ve seen them show as much excitement explaining to someone how to turn on their camera as they show in discussing advanced action photography tricks and tip.

    Because of the calm passage, the Captain’s cocktail party and dinner was held this evening. In the last few crossings, they had to wait until reaching the Antarctic Peninsula. In addition, the worst kept secret was announced: We will be making first landfall at Elephant Island, a place they have been unable to visit yet this season. Elephant Island played a part in the dramatic story of the 1914 Shackleton expedition. We probably will not land on the island, but if the weather holds, we may have an opportunity to view and explore the island from the Zodiacs. I say “worst kept secret” because the open-bridge policy means that a number of us had already looked at the charts with plotted courses and compared them with the GPS readouts. Word-of-mouth spreads quickly among the 100 or so passengers.

    Following the Captain’s dinner, we viewed an IMAX DVD documentary on the Shakleton expedition. What an incredible story!

    We are still making 13-14 knots effective speed and should cross into Antarctic waters (below 60 degrees south) sometime early tomorrow morning.