Fishing boats and Franklin Island
Hi to all my friends, especially Dominion Road School!
We spent another day at sea yesterday, and it was pretty rough. Sometimes the spray from the waves was bursting all the way over the boat! All the icebergs had disappeared, so there wasn't much to see. People read books, watched movies, listened to music and played cards and scrabble and other games. Because it was rough, there were a few empty seats at dinner time. I'm very glad I've got my sealegs and don't feel sick now.
This morning, the weather was much better. We had blue skies and sunshine and we could see a little island called Franklin Island up in front of us. We reached it in the middle of the morning and we met up with a fishing boat called the San Aotea II. One of the passengers on the other boat joined us on our boat, I can't wait until he sees how good the food is on our boat! Their boat was quite small — smaller than our ship, with a crew of 22. They left New Zealand 99 days ago, and have been down here for most of that time fishing for a kind of fish named Antarctic toothfish. These grow to about one and a half metres long, and weigh about 40 kg. Some of the people aboard our boat don't think anyone should catch toothfish. The people aboard the fishing boat think it's OK as long as they don't catch too many. We're going to try to find out about toothfish to see what we think about catching them.
We met some of the crew, many of whom are from a country called Tonga, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is really warm. The Tongans were a long way from home! Everyone was very surprised to see a bear this far south.
After getting Jack from the fishing boat, we went ashore at Franklin Island, where we saw lots of penguins and Weddell Seals. The seals were very relaxed, lying on their backs so that their tummies got warm in the sun. The penguins were curious about us, and came right up to us. Most of the ones we saw were chicks that are almost all grown up, and have all kinds of funny tufts of feathers all over them. They are black with white tummies and white circles around their eyes. Does anyone know what kind of penguins they are? Apparently they're the most common type in Antarctica.
Nearly time for dinner now, so got to go!
Love
SBxx
Dear SB
Hi its Elizabeth Gretton here I was just woundering if you could tell Nadine that it was really nice of her to send me back an email. I was just woundering what sea legs where
Kia ora Shackleton Bear,
As we shared your blog today one of the tamariki remembered seeing penguins with white circles around their eyes in one of our library Topic books. Were the penguins you saw Adelie Penguins?
Today we began to learn about Ernest Shakleton’s famous trip to Antarctica. We got to the part when their boat was stuck in the ice and they had a game of football on the ice to keep them happy. The book told us that on the 17th February the sun set for the first time around midnight. Shackleton noticed the birds and seals were leaving and it was getting colder. Have you noticed birds or seals leaving? How long does the sun set for?
How has your trip been has it been amazing so far have a great time.
Hi Shackleton bear
My name is Paige I go to Prebbleton school in Motueka class.
I did some research and the penguins you saw were Adelaide penguins.
I’m looking forward to your next blog entry. I hope my research is helpful.
Bye bye from Paige
Hi schakelton Bear we love reading your blog it is great to hear what you are up to. We like to hear how rough the sea was and we hope you didn’t get to seasick like the others. we are following you on your journy and we love to see what you are up to each day.
Lots of hugs
Kauri Class
xoxoxox