Into the southern ocean

October 30: at sea day 2

We continue to have incredibly calm seas and beautiful weather (we fear that we will, at some point, pay the price for these amazing conditions we have been having).  We have not reached South Georgia as yet, but we have crossed the Antarctic Convergence — meaning we are in the Southern Ocean.  The water temperature is now a brisk one degree Celsius at the surface.  The west winds are typically quite strong since there are no obstructions for hundreds of miles, but again reasonably calm.  

We spent a fair bit of time on the bridge again today.  We were rewarded by seeing twelve sea birds including four new ones: grey-headed albatross, light-mantled sooty albatross, Kergeulen petrel, broad-billed prion.  We also came upon three mammals, two of which caused great excitement on the ship.  The first of the two was fin whales.  These whales are the second largest mammals on earth, they can be over 80 feet long and move up to 25 mph.  They are so big that their dorsal fin does not show until the head of the whale is well into the water.  They also have two blow holes (pictured below) with a splash guard in front of the blow holes to divert water away from them.  The whales we saw were about 60 feet long (picture below).  

The other mammal that caused great excitement, perhaps, even greater excitement, was a pod of killer whales.  The naturalists believe there were eight to ten members in the pod.  Killer whales are the largest member of the dolphin family.  They are matriarchal with the “grandmother” being the leader of the pod.  The killer whales we saw were type A — meaning they are primarily mammal hunters.  Sighting killer whales on this trip is not typical.  Once the pod was sighted, the captain of our ship diverted us from our course in order to follow the pod (photo below).

The last mammal, a fur seal, did not generate as much of a stir.  In fact, it was sleeping on the surface of the water while we were scrambling about the bow of the boat watching and capturing images of the killer whales.  This little guy woke up as the ship drew close to him.  He was rather surprised to be woken by such a large object bearing down on him (picture below).