Sea Legs

We are now at sea in the Southern Ocean. We left Ushuaia headed East by way of the Beagle Channel named for the ship (the HMS Beagle Captained by Fitzroy) that Darwin circumnavigated the globe in. The Beagle Channel is futher south than the Strait of Magellan and is an alternative route to bypassing Cape Horn. Our next landfall will be the Falkland Islands.

I stayed up late last night on deck looking for seabirds with a keen birder I met from England named John. He really knows his birds and has as much or more appreciation and anticioopation for what we will see than I do. We ticked off Southern Giant Petrels, South American Terns, Black-browed Albatross and Imperial Shags. But we stayed up late to catch a possible glimpse of Magellanic Penguins near a narrow passage before we left the Beagle Channel. As we got closer to thwe deeper water byond the narrows the air got colder, the wind picked up and a rain squall threatened ahead. we saw two small islands ahead covered in black and white birds, but as we got closer we could pick out Imperial shags (a.k.a. cormorants). but on the opposite bank, below a large sandy bluff we spotted the Magellanics. Fifteen or twenty stood on the sandy beach above the surf line in the fading light!

I went to sleep to the increased rocking of the ship now that we were in less protected waters and woke up this morning to bigger swells and unsteady footing. I am just getting used to the ship's movement and staggering around my cabin and down the passageways like I'm drunk.
When I first woke up I looked out my window and there riding the air above a swell was a Royal Albatross! Within a few minutes I saw a Cape or "Pintado" Petrel a beautiful mottled seabird.
I has taken a few hours and a little bit of queeziness but I think I have my "sea-legs" now.