Today is a day on the bumpy Drake Passage.  We are told we are still lucky but some of the swells make us doubt our luck.  We are thrown about the ship any moment you aren’t sitting or lying down.  Kyle feels the queasiest while Leanne and Justin share the title of Iron Stomach. 

Looking out the window, we get a show of gorgeous large birds — a few different species of Albatrosses.  The wingspan on these birds can reach 3.5 meters or more than 10 feet!  They glide through the sky trying to keep up with the boats wind. It’s a beauty to watch the birds attracted to our vessel. 

The morning lecture is from Adele, who is from the UK, on Visual Arts in Antarctica.  We eat lunch with Adele a couple days ago and see told us that she is working on her PHD and using different forms of photography to track and document sun images and movement in Antarctica which was the basis of her presentation.

Sara and Morgan give their final workshop on acoustics summarizing their recorded data, the research their working on and questions they are hoping to answer. They talk about the acoustic communication of chinstrap penguins while swimming that we were with them when they recorded it.  

After lunch, the afternoon lecture is on Climate Change and the lounge is packed as it seems that every passenger is here waiting for the expedition teams’ big reveals on how to solve the climate change problem. The Viking Overlord gets up to kick things off and introduce the speaker Nozomi from Japan. As he’s talking, the loudspeaker booms out, “Dolphins on the starboard side!” The Viking Overlord is not pleased as he watches 90% of the passengers madly scrambling to get their mega cameras and dash outside for pictures and exclaims “Jesus Christ! I can’t believe this!”  This is the first time we’ve seen Dolphins on the 10 day trip so he has to put the lecture on hold.

After 15 minutes, the passengers get settled back in their seats, the Viking Overlord continues his introductory speech. Nozomi starts her potion of the lecture about how to lower our carbon footprint.  A few short minutes later over the loudspeaker, “Even more dolphins pods on the port side!” Everyone jumps back up and races to the other side of the boat. The Viking Overlord looks like he might well explode at this second interruption and throws his hands up in defeat. Nozomi seems a little rattled but happy to see us enjoy more wildlife. Once again, all the passengers return and she continues occasionally glancing up at the loudspeaker waiting for yet another wildlife announcement. 

The lecture focused on what we as individuals can do to help mitigate the effects of climate change.  It is then opened up to the audience for Q&A with a panel of expedition guides.  With such a charged topic, the questions are sure to interesting.  One woman asks why all the food served on the boat is from the Netherlands and not bought locally in Ushuaia.  One of the guides explains that the ship is owned by a Dutch company and sails from Amsterdam so the boat is loaded with food from the Dutch port. We think this is a reasonable answer but apparently not enough to satisfy this woman or her group.  “Well that doesn’t stop them from bringing less food from the Netherlands and buying more food in Ushuaia.  Kyle’s hypothesis is that the woman was the one who lost the photo contest as a result of collusion by the Dutch group and is making it clear she is no fan of the Netherlands.

The band wagon seems to be gathering momentum as someone follows up with, “well what about food waste – it seems like there is a lot of food waste of the ship,” and someone else pointing out “a lack of organic food.”  The Viking Overlord is clearly not happy with the direction the conversation is going and blurts out, “look, you people chose this nice cruise and for all the money you paid, would you be happy if we served you minimalist portions of perfectly average non-Dutch food?”                                                                                                                                 

That pretty much puts the food griping to rest and the topic moves back to climate change. The guides share two examples of climate change success. The first is the ozone hole over the Antarctica has slowly repaired. The second was the ten year project to address rat infestation in South Georgia.  Brought by European boats in 1800s, the rats decimated the seabird population. It took ten years but they did eradicate the rate problem.

Our final daily recap is a jovial champagne send-off filled with thank yous and much cheering for the captain, crew, expedition guides and hotel staff.  Morty “the whale whisperer” had posed a question to us last night – why are there no polar bears in the South Pole and no penguins in the North Pole?” He told us that it could be answered in one word and we should submit the answer during the day. We discussed it at dinner last night and have different theories.  Kyle is thinking it is related to evolution in that the South Pole has harsher climate and conditions and the Penguins evolved to survive them while polar bears did not evolve in the less harsh Artic conditions. With no Internet access, no-one can look it up.

Morty tells us his answer is Geography and explains that the Artic is effectively water surrounded by land and Antarctica is land surrounded by water.  This prevents migration of species. He says the closest answer he received was “Landscape.”  Turns out this was Corey’s answer!  He asks who submitted the answer but unfortunately, Corey had left to go to the bathroom and missed out on his 30 seconds of Antarctica fame.  

We enjoy a final family meal. The Baked Alaska dessert was a hit!  Everyone on the boat seemed overjoyed at our nearly perfect voyage to Antarctica.  We hang out in the lounge for one last time and talk to the crazy Swiss dude who has been the ham of the ship for the last 10 days.  We are thinking he is something like a 25 year old, stand-up comic, bumming around the world.  We are shocked to learn he is a 35 year old Orthopedic Surgeon in Switzerland. Yes, a reminder to not judge a book by its cover although Kyle continues to insist he looks 25.