We are now very close to South Georgia! (About 18h to go!) The weather is sunny and we have again a calm sea!
Yesterday I started exercising in the gym. I am currently not in great shape so I started with 30min bike at 200 Watt and 15min running hills and 14kmh fastest pace! But I will improve over the next days. This morning I did another 45min of cycling at 5am! Today I had some music and then it is easier staying at 220 Watt the whole time! I missed the sunrise at 4:50am though! Going forward I plan to do sports each day for at least one hour! Otherwise I would be getting fat here as there is too much delicious food! Also I need to stay in shape as I have some ambitious plans for 2015! First I want to finish the Stockholm marathon below 3h and then I would like to be in the Top10 at the Laugavegur Ultra in Iceland! In former times I achieved rank 4, but nowadays competition is much stronger with over 300 participants and some very talented young Icelandic runners!
I have a break in photography as I concentrate only on the landfalls and am not going for "flying birds". This costs time and most of the shots are for the dustbin! At the Falklands I missed a few frames with the Rockhopper penguins, but on the other hand I was lucky with other frames! On one I have some penguins in the forground and the Ocean Diamond ship in the background! :-)
Welcome Antarctica!!! Since yesterday we reached Antarctica ocean zone, as the water temperature dropped from 11 degrees to about 6 degrees! South Georgia lies within Antarctica zone! Falklands not!
James Cook's sailings in the 18th century were presented in the lecture yesterday. Very interesting! He discovered South Georgia in January 1775.
Interesting facts: Male Elephant seals weight 5000kg! King penguins are going for divorce in 80%, so they always go for a new partner in their next breed! They usually have one egg. The smaller penguins lay 2 eggs, an A egg and a bigger B egg. Usually the A egg or A chick will be abandoned and they concentrate on their bigger B egg!
Today are many lectures! The first one is an interesting one from Jonathan Shakleton on his cousin Ernest Shakleton! Jonathan lives in Ireland and he is a very entertaining speaker! Later there will be lectures on penguins and also on photography! But the photography lessons are on a very low level so far! I think I will not attend them anymore!
On Friday at 4am we should reach South Georgia and I plan to get up very early to photograph in the early morning light! Maybe there is even a nice sunrise! South Georgia must be an amazing place! I have seen already many pictures and I will read a book on it today!
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