Day 17 - A DAY AT sEA - FOR THE BIRDS

-Paging Mr. Hitchcock, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock!

Antarctic Petrel

Today, for the first time we actually saw evidence of a light snowfall on our patio. The air was chilly and the skies were grey and there was enough wind to bring the birds out to play.
We were happy to have another day at sea because we suddenly felt very tired and needed some time to recover from the aesthetic overload. We mainly used the time to catch up on downloading and culling through photos. Turns out that was a good idea since between the two of us our photos numbered in the thousands. Not surprising, but still. YIKES!
In the afternoon, the green group (ours) was called to the Club on Deck 5 for another Bio-Security Check for South Georgia. It was basically the same drill as before and by now we all better appreciated the importance of these checks since personally viewing the pristine environment of the Antarctic.
During our South Georgia pre-expedition briefing Robin West informed all of the passengers about Seabourn's Bird Strike procedures. Basically, we were told that the lights from our ship disorient the small petrels and prions and cause them to land on the ship or fly into the windows of the ship. Since the legs of petrels are not designed to walk, if they landed on our decks they would be unable to take off again. Therefore it was necessary to implement special procedures in which to darken the ship as we travelled in the evening. This meant that after dinner our cabin steward would secure our curtains closed for the evening and we would leave them closed until morning. No problem.
Robin also briefed everyone on our upcoming Zodiac tour in Cooper Bay tomorrow on the island of South Georgia. 
**Note: At the end of the cruise we were told there were ZERO bird strikes on our expedition! :-)