Breakfast was the usual, lunch fennel soup (excellent), beef and chick pea stew (skipped), dinner sweet potato soup (very good) can''t recall the entres ice cream sundaes for dessert.
The morning was a zodiac cruise for about two hours in search of whales. We didn't see much other than a few clameater seals and a leopard seal for the first hour or so. A few birds. We finally located a humpback whale and I got some decent shots of a good part of its head as it came fairly close to our boat. No tail shots this time but some fin and hump ones. At one point it was so close that I couldn't fit the whole body in the frame with my big lens at 80 mm.
As usual I skipped the afternoon excursion. I was told that it was the least interesting of all of the excursions as there wasn't much to see other than a shipwreck and a few pieces of old whaling boats.
The main excitement of the day was the first time they had tried a "polar plunge" from the gangway of the ship. About twenty or thirty people decided to take part and were tied to a rope with a safety harness and, wearing a life jacket, jumped (one at a time) into the ocean. Various "diving" techniques were employed (see the photos) but the one thing in common was that people didn't remain in the water for very long. Those who took the plunge were rewarded with hot chocolate containing a liberal dose of brandy. Given that there are limits to both my courage and my foolishness I decided to forego the opportunity.
For the first time I went to the after dinner "program" in the bar. It was a "Liars' Club" and ocnsisted of three of the crew each telling three stories, two o fwhich were true and one was not. The audience had to choose which of each of the sets was the lie and the crew member who had the least number of people pick th elie was the winner. Often funny and entertaining and only lasted a half hour or less and then it was back to my cabin to work on photos and then off to bed.