At Sea / Drake Passage
After a very restful night, we awoke feeling the gentle rise and fall of National Geographic Explorer sailing along through benign seas as we made our way back northward through the legendary Drake Passage. A pre-breakfast trip to the bridge reacquainted us with some of the inhabitants of this wild and windy place. Birds that we had not seen during our time along the Antarctic Peninsula. We were back in the realm of the albatross and petrel. Black-browed, grey-headed and wandering albatrosses crossed our wake and circled the ship. They were joined by great numbers of Pintado, or cape petrels, a lone Antarctic petrel and my personal favorite, most graceful of all seabirds and arguably the most beautiful, the light-mantled sooty albatross.
This day was really our first chance to relax and reflect on all we had seen and done during the past action packed week. Among the penguins and pinnipeds and ice floes and isopods. An entire new world has opened up to us and memories from this voyage will be with us for the rest of our lives.
