Finally in the Southern Ocean and heading for Antarctica

As promised, we are finally showing some photos! They should (I hope) appear at the bottom of this post. Today we are in 7 1/2 to 12 foot seas and larger breakers and there is constant rolling but it is not bad. We are currently in the Drake Passage (the bit of ocean between South America and Antarctica - around 58 degrees S latitude) and headed for Elephant Island. That is the humble bit of rock where Ernest Shackleton's men (british explorer in 1906) were marooned for 6 months waiting for rescue after walking across much of the frozen continent. Amazingly they all survived. There is an excellent movie all about it called "Shackleton" that is worth the viewing. Dale has been the resident scholar of the 2 of us and has been attending lectures on ice and wildlife so we have some sense of what to expect. We are told we will be in the midst of great chunks of ice and seeing many penguins, whales and marine birds such as albatross and petrels amongst many other things. Today we watched the ocean swell and break and roll and are glad we are not here in winter! THe view should get very interesting over the next three days and you can participate in what we are seeing if you want because there is a camera on board that continuously sends images via satellite so you can view what our Captain sees via the internet. If you want to look at the bridge cam go to www.princess.com , click on "ships" (in the center of page), then click on "Star Princess" , scroll to the bottom and you will see the bridge cam connection. YOu should have some views of ice and things. The weather is continuing moderate thanks to the summer (??) ocean conditions and today was a nice 9 degrees and being on deck was quite pleasant. We had another day of browsing our books, looking at some potential souvenirs and hanging out with some interesting people we have met. Tomorrow - wildlife and ice! We get less than 4 hours of sort of darkness at this latitude so there should be lots of time for looking and oohing and aahing. We will let you know what we find.

And now for pictures::