Our First Day at Sea

We spent the day at sea, moving south toward Puerto Madryn.
In the morning we heard talks on the history and geography of Patagonia, on Puerto Madryn and Ushuaia, and then on Patagonian wildlife – Ralph finished up the last one alone as I left for a watercolor class. We learned quite a bit. I admit that geography has never been my strong point, but it surprised me to see that although Patagonia is the most southern population center in the Southern Hemisphere – below all of Africa and also farther south than Australia – Cape Horn is no closer to the South Pole than Canada is to the North Pole. The land masses in the Northern Hemisphere extend much farther north than those in the Southern Hemisphere reach south. The good old Gulf Stream makes the eastern coast of North America, and the coasts of England and Norway much more temperate than the Patagonian area, which has no such warm current. Whatever – since it’s still the end of summer here we should not encounter truly cold temperatures. In fact it should be in the high 70’s – low 80’s when we see the penguins tomorrow.
After lunch we spent a lazy afternoon reading, saw as movie at 7:00 (The Social Network) then ran in to dinner a few minutes late. Tomorrow morning we gather early to board the bus for our trip to Punta Tombo and the penguins.