We woke to wonderfully calm seas on the first day of our crossing to Antarctica, a great gift in the latitudes where the westerlies often blow at gale force.  Albatross and petrels circled the ship as we began our breakfast and before we finished the meal the seamen on the bridge spotted a large group of fin whales. 

There were at least a dozen magnificent animals, the second largest of all whales, moving in tight echelon as they made shallow dives to feed on swarms of krill that we could see on the echo sounders, about 50 meters down.  Fin whales are sometimes called the “greyhounds of the sea”.  They can move very quickly when they are traveling, so close sightings of them for any length of time are fairly rare.  But this group was entirely occupied having their own breakfast and surfaced repeatedly very close in front of our bow.  Our expedition leader, Lucho, called us all out to the decks to enjoy the spectacle and many of us grabbed our parkas, cameras and binoculars and went out into the brisk beautiful day.  But, a few of our company were still a bit sleepy and seemed to feel that coffee and Sara’s excellent omelets were a higher priority, so Lucho made a second, very clear announcement: “Breakfast is over!  The whales are feeding, you are not!”  The excitement in his voice got everyone moving and we had a fantastic time watching and photographing these wonderful animals for over an hour.  There was even one brief sighting of a blue whale within the group!

The rest of the day was more relaxing but no less delightful.  There were several entertaining presentations, a chance to relax and work on our photos from South Georgia and the Falklands for a group feedback session with the photo team in the evening and a special tea-time served behind the scenes in the laundry and the storeroom.   This was a bit of a mystery at first, but turned out to be both delicious and a lot of fun.  We were escorted back to the work areas aft of the mudroom were we found the big sorting and folding table in the main laundry set with a white tablecloth and completely covered with petit-fours, cookies, truffles and cloudberry parfaits while next door, in the bonded storage room we were served our choice of elegant liqueurs.

We’re one day closer to Antarctica now, resting and refueling for the next phase of our fantastic expedition.