At sea….a time for reflection on our most amazing journey to Antarctica
Today we begin our transit back to our starting point – Ushuaia, Argentina. Many on board have taken this day to regroup and recharge. After seven straight days of enjoying the sights and sun of Antarctica, many welcomed the slower pace of today’s activities and relished the rare opportunity to catch up on sleep, download photographs, and reflect on all we have seen and done.
This morning, our Swedish naturalist Stefan Lundgren shared his own reflections in a lecture recounting his early Antarctic career serving with the Indian National Antarctic Program. A rare opportunity for us to get a glimpse into the life of someone living and working at an Antarctic base coupled with living in a new cultural setting.
Mid morning, Sven-Olof Lindblad of Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic introduced a video which captured the focus and premise of the company’s “Climate Change Summit” held in the Arctic in 2009. The Summit consisted of a Lindblad-National Geographic expedition in which global leaders and luminaries were invited to focus on the subject of our planet’s changing climate. This forum for the top leadership of industry, government, and academia created an exclusive opportunity to discuss pathways forward in this time of environmental crisis.
Richard Maack, the Guest Photographer aboard, reminded us of his call for our “top three” photos which will be combined in a show to be held on our final night of the voyage. This call gently forced us to review all the images we’ve collected and perform the challenging cull to find our favorite images of the trip to share with our fellow passengers. This is no small task! As calculated by our staff’s Photography Expert, Eric Guth, we’ve collectively snapped nearly half a million images on this trip. We can hardly wait to see the collection of stunning shots tomorrow evening.
By afternoon, the seabirds began to increase in number as we crossed northbound through the Antarctic convergence. Our old friends, the albatrosses returned – those welcome companions of our southbound trip which now seems like a lifetime ago. The Southern Ocean, while still quite mild given her potential for power, asked us to once again find our sea legs and our Expedition Leader, Bud Lehnhausen, wisely set our afternoon for activities that could be enjoyed in public spaces or inside our cabins – whichever our well-traveled bodies requested.
Tonight, as we begin to head for bed, we once again are reminded of darkness. In our time in the Antarctic, we had to stay up very late to witness the sunset! Travelling north of the Antarctic’s political boundary at 60 degrees South, we return to a darkening sky – the natural environmental clues that it’s time to rest.
Thankful for a day of reflection, we look forward to our final day of this most amazing voyage!
