Downwind she rolls and rolls this morning. Light westerlies make for Europa to sail downwind. The breeze is light but the seas are high. Water climbs over port bulwarks, washes the deck and splashes over starboard side, and then again. Her braces square, staysails doused.

Uncomfortable sailing until mid-morning when the winds back to a southerly. Time for pulling her braces to beam reach and setting canvas again. The wind shift comes too with a better motion and drier decks. Despite the light winds, decreasing during the day to about 12 knots, we have sailed in the South Georgia direction 153 nautical miles during the last 24 hours, as the Captain informs us at our regular meeting after dinner.

302 nautical miles we have left behind since departure from New Island, 2000 meters are already below the quill as we left the narrow Falklands Continental Shelf, while we still sail at a scarcely 141 from the closest land, which happens to be where we started our voyage at Port Stanley.

Still a long way to go ahead of us along the waters of the Scotia Sea. Being in the open ocean, we started today with the Citizen Science Project on identifying and counting seabirds that can be seen around the ship at determined times.

A research project that tries to solve the puzzle of the distribution and movements of the seabirds in the open oceanic waters of those high latitudes, where not much data is available and not many ships sail.

For half an hour before the meals, we join our guides at the poop deck, cameras and binoculars at hand, and do our best to single out the different species.

The whole range of bird sizes flew around today. From the small but active and brave Wilson's Storm Petrel, to the world’s largest flying birds, the Wandering and Royal albatrosses.