11/02/17 Punta Arenas and the Magellan Strait
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After four flights we finally reached our destination of Punta Arenas, Chile, situated on the north side of the Magellan Strait in deepest Patagonia. Here we joined the Fred. Olsen owned cruise ship Boudicca on my latest speaker tour. Among other things I would be lecturing on the birds and cetaceans of the region. I was accompanied on this occasion by my fellow ecologist and cetacean enthusiast Anthony (Anno) Brandreth. Ship business prevented us from exploring ashore so we had to content ourselves with a session viewing the Magellan Straits from Deck 10.
Brown-hooded and Kelp gulls were much in evidence, as was Chilean Skua, Souther...
On the 20th September I joined the Fred. Olsen MS Boudicca at Newcastle (accompanied by my wife Adele) as a Guest Speaker. The cruise tour would take us out to the Azores in the Mid Atlantic, followed by Madeira, then onward to the canaries and then back up to Newcastle via the Portuguese coastline.
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Boudicca in Newcastle
The prospect of so many sea-days; crossing some of the best cetacean waters on the planet, plus the chance of encountering migrating seabirds was too tempting to resist. As we proceeded out of Newcastle and down the North Sea the first of many Northern Gannets ghosted alongside the ship, some being harried by Great Skuas but the first real highlight was an unidentif...