The day was spent at sea, making our way south towards Antarctica. Sea conditions were amazingly calm and the sun shone for most of the day, making bird watching one of the most popular activities on board. We also monitored sea surface temperatures to note our crossing the Antarctic Convergence Zone, the boundary between warmer northern waters and the ice-cooled waters of Antarctica. Between roughly 57 and 57.5 degrees south latitude (a distance of about thirty miles) the water temperature dropped from six degrees to two degrees Celsius, marking our entrance into the Antarctic environment.
Some of the larger birds we watched today are pictured here. In the center is a wandering albatross, showing the underside and the top side (left to right). Dark tips to the tail -- field marks that help distinguish the wandering albatross from the royal albatross -- can be seen in the right-hand picture. These species can have wingspans in excess of eleven feet, and both spend a large part of their lives circumnavigating the great southern ocean.
Going clockwise from the bottom right corner we have a southern giant petrel (wingspan of six feet), a much smaller pintado petrel (also known as the cape pigeon), an uncommon all-white form of the southern giant petrel sitting on the surface, and in the upper right corner the dark bird is a white-chinned petrel flying with a wandering albatross. Not pictured but also seen were: Wilson's storm petrel, black-bellied storm petrel, prion species, sooty shearwater, and greater shearwater.
