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February 6, 2000 |
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are we there yet? |
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Position: Falkland Trough Sea Today's Bird Sightings: Mammal Sightings: Today's Reading: The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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More good sleeping weather last night - smooth seas. After dinner last night Bob Burton did a lecture about working with seals and albatrosses on Bird Island. A lot of it seemed to involve getting the albatrosses to regurgitate so they could figure out what they eat. This made for many jokes this morning at breakfast. He had great slides of the different species he studied on this small island off the northwestern tip of South Georgia when he was with the British Antarctic Survey. This talk was way better, at least for keeping my attention, than the one he gave about wintering over on Signy Island. Despite the fact that it was after dinner, I stayed awake for it. It also helped that the boat wasn't rocking much. We're already over 500 nautical miles from our last land fall at South Georgia. We are supposed to arrive in the Falklands early tomorrow morning. I have to admit to getting a little restless and bored now that South Georgia is behind us. I was so geared up for South Georgia that when it exceeded even my huge expectations I think I got a bigger than normal letdown on leaving. Pat and Rosemarie Keough gave a slideshow and talk on their travels in Africa, Egypt to Zimbabwe, and Brent briefed us on showed us Birds of the Falklands - some fabulous slides. Between Pat and Rosemarie's African wildlife and Brent's Falklands birds, I felt like I might as well not even bother trying to photograph anything I saw. I get that way sometimes, especially after I've had a few creeping prideful thoughts that my photographs might actually be good. Right before lunch the sea was suddenly not calm anymore, to understate a bit. We ran into a squall. The wind picked up. The sky turned a much darker gray. We even had small hail stones. Waves of ocean spray hit the bow and splashed impressively against the windshields. We had an invasion of soft-plumaged petrels, too, getting blown around by the wind. I think I'm finally sure I really saw soft-plumaged petrels. Some days I haven't been totally sure unless somebody else was telling me that's what they were. I was glad to have gotten some birding in on the deck before the weather got yucky. With the ship bouncing around again, I opted out of watching the afternoon video about the 1982 conflict with the Argentines over Falklands Islands, called, prosaically enough, The Battle for the Falklands. I tried to read a book from the ship's library about Darwin in the Falklands, based not just on The Voyage of the Beagle, but all of Darwin's writings on the Falklands' geology and wildlife. I say tried because whenever I sit on the couch in the lounge I fall asleep. Besides that I found it hard to read with the ship bouncing. This is the only time during all the turbulence of the whole voyage that I actually felt twinges in my stomach. I didn't actually get seasick, but I was definitely made aware of the possibility. I feel impatient to get to the Falklands and I want to whine like a little kid: "Daddy, are we there yet?" |
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