Antarctica: In the Beagle channel

We finished the Drake passage last night, again a very mild crossing. I did fine without any seasickness medications. I spent most of the day today running around and trying to take photos of everyone and of the boat before leaving. It is a beautiful day and so much warmer than before. Watched the seabirds as they followed behind the boat and practiced with my camera so got some good photos of brown-eyed albatross, terns, shags, giant petrels, and a bonus treat of some magellanic penguins and peales dolphins. To the left of the boat we can see Chile and to the right of the Beagle channel we can see Argentina. Visited the bridge which is fun and I wish I could ask more questions but they were SOOOO serious. Since the crossing was done in record time, we are just circling in the Beagle Channel until we can dock tomorrow at 6 am. Sort of like sitting on a very lovely tarmac (with a bar, thankfully).

Carol talked today about the effects of longline fishing on the albatross population. Fishing boats will set out long lines with multiple hooks and the birds will go for the bait and get snagged. Studies have shown that the rate of death of albatrosses is 4 per 100,000 hooks set, which at first may seem low. But taking into account the 3 billion legally set hooks, the number of albatrosses killed is more than 100,000 annually. And that is not even counting the birds killed by illegal longliners! Some species, like the Chatham Albatross, has only 5,000 breeding pairs in total which all nest on a single small rock island off of New Zealand. 20 of the 22 species of albatross are endangered. There is a fund to help the albatross at http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/