Day 3 Beagle Channel and Glacier Alley

Overnight we sailed through the Magellen Straight and entered the Beagle Channel.  I woke at 3.30 and the sky was full of stars.

This mornings activities started at 8.00 with wildlife watching on the deck with the on-board Ornithologist and Whale & Dolphin expert.  We saw a humpback whale, Black Browed Albatross, Giant Petrel and Storm Petrel before breakfast.

Humpback whale video


Black Browed Albatross

At 11.00 the ship entered Glacier Alley, a 150 mile stretch of water that contains a series of impressive glaciers, most named after European countries, for example Spain, France, Germany etc.  2 of them run into the sea where icebergs have broken off and are floating away.  This is part of the Patagonian Ice Fields.  



This afternoon we saw more Humpback whales, giant Skuas, kelp gulls and - the icing on the cake - Magellanic Penguins which are extremely small and swim on the surface, diving under water when the ship gets too close. 



Magellanic Penguins

This afternoon we learned what the on-board scientists were doing during the voyage and how our participation is needed through citizen science projects which we will get involved in over the coming 3 weeks.

One is collecting samples of sea water from areas that we will sail through and extract DNA to find out which creatures that have passed the area. 

Another is shooting harmless harpoon darts into whales and dolphins to get tissue samples which will show the health of the animal and identify what it has been eating.  We were shown how to take photos of whales on the voyage and upload to a database where they will be identified and tracked.

Other projects are studying the density of plankton in the sea, sending underwater drones to capture life under the sea and the e-bird project to study the numbers of birds we see.  

Later we passed the Argentinian town of Ushuaia, where the original cruise should have left from, and anchored off the town of Puerta Williams while formalities were completed to allow us to leave Chilean waters.  We set off again at 7.00 towards the South Atlantic Ocean where we will start our crossing of the Drake Passage in the early hours of the morning.

At dinner we were treated to a magnificent show by a pod of dolphins alongside the boat.  There were at least 10 of them.




Comments

  1. Viki6 February 2022 at 02:03

    Wow!!! That’s a great video of the Humpback Whale 🐳

    ReplyDelete
  2. splottdad9 February 2022 at 09:35

    :-) envious looks, facing south west from Wales!!

    ReplyDelete

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