Feb 24

         Today is February 24, 2009. We are making three stops today. They are at Prion Island, Hercules Bay, and Grytviken. I heard that the day was going to be very beautiful.

         Today I skipped breakfast and woke right before our excursion to Prion Island. At Prion Island they have a lot of nesting wandering albatross. They are the largest flying birds in the world and also have the largest wingspan - up to 12 feet from wing tip to wing tip. They are mostly white. As they mature they turn snow white. They have black on their wings when they are younger. I saw an albatross that was almost snow white! He is older than I am! Albatross’s can live till they are well over 50. They spend almost their entire lives at sea – flying for hours or days at a time – and come ashore only to have chicks. They are amazing birds.

         After we looked around a bit we went back to the shore of the island. A little fur seal jumped in my lap! He was very cute. Pete gave us a little zodiac cruise. He took us through a bunch of rocks to see different birds and things. Once he dropped all the people off at the boat, he let me drive the zodiac.

         I got to drive through all the rocks too, to practice my maneuvering skills. It wasn’t that hard to move through the rocks. He then took me to a little cave. It was really neat. I got to drive the captain of our ship back to the boat. He had decided to make a landing and I got to drive him back. I was a little nervous. But he said I did a great job.

         I then headed back to the boat I had a good morning. After lunch we were going to go to Hercules Bay. We couldn’t land though because of the hurricane force winds. Instead we went to a place were there was 25,000 fur seal pups. We sat down with about 1,000 of them. Every now and then about 200 pups would come rushing onto the shore from the water. It was funny to watch so many little seal puppies.

         We sat down with them for about an hour and a half. They were very playful. Once we got back to the boat my dad and I went to the lounge to play yahtzee. It was fun because Mary (our 92 year old friend from the boat) came down to play with us too. We played until the recap started. Once the recap of the day was finished it was time for dinner. I had a good day.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily