Yesterday afternoon we left behind the Marquesas and set off to retracing paths of the first Polynesian voyagers. However, we know where we are going and are certainly traveling in style. Today is day one of our voyage to Hawaii. I love days at sea like today. For me, sitting on the bow in the tropics is serene. Life is not abundant, but there is plenty to see. Seabirds passed by throughout the day, but my pet highlight today was the various flying fish. They are challenging to photograph and some are stunningly beautiful. Tomorrow I am looking forward to doing it again.
- Daily Expedition Reports
- 31 May 2019
At Sea to Hawaii, 5/31/2019, National Geographic Orion
- Aboard the National Geographic Orion
- French Polynesia & Pacific Islands
Mike Greenfelder, Naturalist/Certified Photo Instructor
Mike learned early on that the best way to escape Ohio was to become a marine biologist. During college at Wittenberg University he attended a semester at Duke University's Marine Lab — that time only confirmed his love for all things oceanic and ma...
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6/4/2019
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National Geographic Orion
One Day Closer to Hawaii
We awoke again to gorgeous skies and relatively calm seas. Before breakfast, seabirds were swirling around the ship. What is their motivation for being here? Are they lost? And where might they be on their way to? Well, it’s anyone’s guess what they were actually up to, but needless to say that the birds out here were quite a ways from shore. Yet that is not so abnormal. These days at sea we have spent in the realm of the true seabirds. For these sky dwellers, land is merely a place to lay an egg and little else. Today, those of us on the bow saw birds coming and going from all directions. We saw petrels that nest as near as Hawaii and the Marquesas and as far as Chile and New Zealand. What is it they were doing? Likely seeking out food, or travelling to an area more fruitful to their searching. Seabirds are a challenge to photograph and identify, yet something we are all likely to do tomorrow as we inch closer and closer to our final destination of Hawaii.
6/3/2019
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National Geographic Orion
En Route to Hawaii
Day four of our expedition, National Geographic Orion brings us from the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia to the Big Island of Hawaii. Our small team of explorers kept surprisingly busy with activities on every deck of the ship from early morning to late at night. The energy of our high-spirited team rose in tandem with the warm Pacific sun. Many guests attended stretch class, hit the gym, and bird watched from the ship’s bow. Throughout the day we had fascinating presentations that were well attended, yet many of us also took time over research of our own, expanding our knowledge of the locales of this trip in the ship’s library. With sunny skies and the vast blue ocean at every vantage, it’s hard to stray from admiring our surroundings out here. Sea birds were observed and identified throughout the day, including the likes of masked boobies, black-winged petrels, red-tailed tropicbirds, sooty terns, and wedge-tailed shearwaters. One notable yet unexpected sight was seeing a cargo ship for the first time on our journey to Hawaii, named Forest Symphony and well on its way to Chile. We have seen almost no other boats or ships, making the sighting a rare one. By the end of today, we had already sailed over 1,300 nautical miles; near a quarter of which had been covered on Monday alone. The wind was noticeably stronger in the morning, averaging between 22 and 25 knots from the northeast, then easing off in the afternoon. All day we felt the ship moving beneath our feet with a swell average of 2 to 3 meters. Though there were moments of rain and wind, the ocean water temperature was a comfortable 84 degrees Fahrenheit. We are still in paradise!