Day 27 Final Day At Sea - Life's Bounty

Thursday 2 February 2023

It is our last day of our adventures. It is a strange feeling. On one hand we are excited to be heading home but definitely sad to be coming to the end of this absolutely amazing inspiring experience. Unfortunately it will be another day of ‘nothing much to see’ as it is 13C, 100% cloud cover and drizzling. The dedicated birders will spend as much time out on the back deck as possible while the rest of us hope that they will share a few good photos.

We still have lectures to keep us amused. This morning Kate talks to us about Pterodroma Petrels – Conservation through translocation. This is a fascinating story of the Bermuda Petrel that was thought to have gone extinct in 1620 but in 1920 were rediscovered. There were very few individuals with an endangered habitat. Kate told the story of how they were translocated to a restored island (predator-free and exotic plants removed) to help build the population. They also had to make special entrances to their burrows to keep out other birds that came later to use the burrows and threw out the petrel chicks. This was one of the most critically endangered seabird species but is well on the way to recovery.

Later there is a Panel Discussion on “Subantarctic Islands and Beyond” which was a great discussion of legislation and practical aspects of preserving and enhancing the Subantarctic Island (not just the NZ ones). It was emphasised that this must be wider than individual countries as many of the species feed and travel well beyond these islands. Also discussed was the merits of keeping visitors away vs encouraging ambassadors for conservation activities e.g. predator eradication.

After lunch there is a showing of a movie Ice in the Sky, a French documentary film about the work of Claude Lorius, who began studying Antarctic ice and was the first scientist to become concerned about global warming (in 1965).

Later in the afternoon we have a showing of the much anticipated Expedition Slideshow – a compilation of photos and video taken by our crew. We are not disappointed. This is followed by our final recap and a Disembarkation Briefing – what we should expect tomorrow morning. We will have a much earlier start than we’ve been accustomed to as we have to have our main bags packed and outside our doors before breakfast at 7.00am. NZ Customs & Immigration will be on board from around 7.30 and we need to have the buses that are departing for Queenstown go by around 9.00am. Anne and I are going to Invercargill and our bus will be the last to depart. We are given colour-coded tags to put on our bags depending on our destination.

For the finale we have the Captain’s Farewell Cocktails & Farewell Dinner. After Genevieve and I featured in the Expedition Slideshow in our towels (from when we rushed from the spa pool to watch an emperor penguin), we had to prove that we did scrub up okay occasionally. It was a lovely end to an amazing expedition and it will certainly take us some time to get used to the real world again – particularly without the movement of the ship.