Falklands here we come !

Our first docking was in Montevideo, a small town with not a lot to do so we decided on a good walk through the dockyard piled to the sky with containers, then through the town to the shoreline.  It was nice to sit and birdwatch. We got talking to a lovely couple from our ship who lived in Belton! It's such a small world.

Back to the ship after a few hours, probably for more food! Later in the afternoon we set sail and were on our way south, out of the mouth of the River Plate into the Southern Atlantic and heading towards the Falklands which we would reach in two days. There was little bird activity so we ate more food !

The following morning we were up at 5am, very excited and longing to get on deck to see what was about. Karen pulled the curtains to have a look at the sea, checking the swell and shrieked 'whales'. We could see blowing in the distance but we were travelling at a right old speed so wanted the whales to breach.......oh my lord above, it was only 3 KILLER WHALES !  It was the sight of a lifetime, one that will stay with us forever. We couldn't have asked for a better start to our trip.

So, on deck we were for the day with whales everywhere, blowing and breaching. A magical day. We met our fellow whale and bird watching travellers on deck and we were soon shouting 'whale' constantly throughout the day. This was by far the best whale day and although we saw them every day throughout our journey, they were never in these massive numbers.

Photography was difficult from the ship as were steaming ahead at a good speed  and we also had to guess where they would next breach but Simon managed a few quality shots. They were also very difficult to identify but we all agreed that we saw Southern Right, Minke, Fin and Sei during our time onboard, and we added our Killer Whales to the list.

As we sailed further south, the birds started to increase in numbers and species until we were in albatross and petrel heaven, literally 1000's of them everywhere we looked. It was certainly a birdwatchers paradise onboard this ship.