15th December - Today we are sailing from Montevideo in Uruguay to Port Madryn in Argentina. We are due to arrive in Port Madryn at about 11 o’clock tomorrow morning. Our position at half four was 39 degrees 49.59 South and 59 degrees 00.35 West. The weather has been sunny, wind force 4, temperature 18 degrees. The seabirds were amazing. I saw my first albatrosses!!!!!!!! – over 100 Black-browed and 5 Royal Albatrosses. The Royal is the bird with the largest wingspan of any flying bird and nothing could prepare me for what they look like, unbelievable. We also had hundreds of Great Shearwaters and smaller numbers of Manx Shearwaters, Giant Petrels, Pomarine Skuas, Magellanic Penguins and one Atlantic Petrel. We also had an small Eared Dove, like a miniature Turtle Dove, which flew along side the ship from dawn up until about 4 pm. It must have roosted on the ship when we were leaving Montevideo and woke up to find the land had disappeared! Strange thing it never attempted to land on the boat all day. We also had four pods of Peale’s Dolphins, the largest being of about 60 individuals. The crew and passengers on the ship are fantastic as are the rest of the expedition team. Gave my first lecture of the cruise also today and went down well. Having trouble getting images up on-line but hopefully will upload some soon. Bye for now.