Thursday, 29th January, at sea. Early morning temperature 20, late morning 18 degrees

We have two sea days ahead. We reach Port Stanley on the Falklands on Saturday. We had an early start today. It was a beautiful morning and we saw Shearwaters – both Manx and Great – flying around the ship. It was absolutely glorious.

After breakfast it was a quick shower and then I was off to Ukulele where we have a new set up. The previous nice ladies who had held the fort during January have now handed over to other cruise goers who are keen ukulele players. It went very well and if anything was better organised. It was a good session, the only problem is they want to carry on until 10 so I have to do some fancy footwork before the end of the session to ensure that I get to Bridge in time.

New teachers have come to teach us Bridge. They have a very different style to Gerald, the previous chap, and there was a noticeable increase in the numbers attending. Longer term cruisers obviously had attended bridge sessions with these people before and knew them by name. We definitely felt we had to sit up and take notice! Having said this I think we learnt a lot and felt for those who started fresh with them today. I couldn’t help but feel that the whole situation would be a bit puzzling.

We were glad we had got at least a few tips from Gerald!

We met up with Maria and Matthew, our Bridge partners, for lunch as we hadn’t really had time to talk during Bridge, such was our tension about getting things wrong during the session! We have even been asked for our names and allocated a table number!! It sounds terribly official! It was good to spend time getting to know them better.

Keith wanted to do some writing, so I vacated the cabin but had to dress up against the cold! You can tell we are getting closer to Antarctic waters. The temperature has come down to 15 degrees, so a few layers had to be applied.

I sat on the upper deck for a bit, but got cold despite the extra layers so abandoned to the coffee shop for an hour. I checked in with Keith again and then took a couple of turns around the deck before returning to the cabin to prepare for supper.

All six were at the table tonight. Penny still has the cough and Michael seems to be going down with it now. Everyone recounted tales of their time in Montevideo and all seem to have enjoyed it. Whales have apparently been sighted today from the ship but regrettably not by us, but Keith has been doing some homework on the birds we have seen since we have been travelling and will attach them to this bulletin …

I’ve checked this list with people who know and with AI which has been absolutely wonderful for suggestions, double checking and confirmation. And we are looking forward to seeing even more species as we get nearer to the Falklands…petrels and maybe even … albatross. Apart from the first two, these are all new species for me…Ed

Kittiwake

Guillemot

Magnificent Frigatebird

Great Kiskadee

Lesser Kiskadee

blue and white swallow

Rough winged swallow

Picazuro pigeon

Spot winged pigeon

Urubu/Black Vulture 

Masked Booby

Snowy Egret

Brown booby 

Neotropic cormorant 

Southern Lapwing

Rufous bellied Thrush

Rufous collared Sparrow 

Roseate Spoonbill

Chimango 

Austral ground tyrant

Fork tailed flycatcher

Yellow rumped Marshbird 

chimango caracara

Swallows 

Eared Dove

American Kesterl

Southern Caracara

Hornero/ovenbird

Great shearwater 

Manx shearwater

Kelp Gull