Today was another exciting day at sea on the Caledonian Star, as we cruised south along the southern Brazilian border toward Uruguay. From early light throughout the day, we were accompanied by several species of albatross, the yellow-nosed from the island group of Tristan da Cunha, the black-browed from the Falkland Islands and the grey-headed from many of the sub-Antarctic islands. These huge seabirds with wingspans of 6-7 feet spend the austral winter months feeding in the warmer waters of these coasts, and they will return to their natal colonies after a few years at sea to court and breed themselves.
The most popular activity of the day, however, was moving back and forth to the bow of the ship to watch the many schools of bottlenose dolphins that approached us. We encountered several groups of 10 - 20 dolphins throughout the day, and they oftentimes leapt out of the water ahead of the ship or surfed in our wake, each of them jostling for position to ride in the pressure wave, or bow wave created by the ship which pushes water ahead and allows them a wave to play in.
Our web site photo today shows one of these coastal bottlenose dolphins leaping out of the bow wave to take a quick breath, only to return to the water to play in the surging wave beneath us.
