At Sea

Firstly, we are now on the first of two days at sea, I think I wrote yesterday that we only had one.  So it was nice not to have to wake too early to get our gear on & be downstairs to board the Zodiacs by around 8 am.  We do get off to a slow start with everything at the moment, by the time lost things are found then lost and found again!!!!! a certain amount of frustration has built up!!! The ship is great, staff very attentive but it is definitely not a cruise for the feint-hearted.  Because of the lectures and daily activities the fact there is no show at night or casino or dancing classes or bingo or art auctions etc hasn’t been a problem!!  

After breakfast we attended a lecture on the Falkland Islands Fishery, presented by Luke Kenny from Ireland.  He talked predominately about squid, squid and more squid.  Squid forms the backbone of the islands’ economy and Luke has spent time on the squid boats doing scientific research over the years.   Most interesting. The next lecture was entitled ‘South Georgia Habitat Restoration Project and Rat Eradication’.  This was presented by Ollie Prince from the UK and George Lemann from Australia (Bowral, to be exact). This was an outline of the most ambitious island eradication project ever attempted.  Previous programmes have been successful on Campbell Island off New Zealand and on Macquarie Island and have been executed by a team of New Zealanders.  So the programme set out for South Georgia was a massive task because of it’s size but it would seem that the eradication has been successful too.  George and Ollie will be disembarking when we get to South Georgia and will remain there for about 3 months on a maintenance mission.  The story of the rats and mice was amazing, they were devouring all the bird eggs and chicks and were in plague proportions.  So it wasn’t simply a matter of setting a few traps as we might do at home, rather taking huge buckets of pellets in baskets and dropping by helicopter !  Reindeer and rabbits were also eradicated from the island by a team of sharp-shooters.  Because of this we have to take all our outer gear to the mud room this afternoon for a biosecurity check - washed, brushed, vacuumed for soil, seeds, insects or any other foreign bits and pieces!  

Another lecture at 5 pm on the geology of South Georgia.  This will cover such things as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and creeping glaciers.  George has just gone, I might have a creeping forty winks!!!!!!!