The Last Desert: On the Boat Day 3

Today we got up at 8 30 ate and went back to bed at 9 30. Great times. The only thing we have to do is watch DVD's and we only have 3 sh*t ones. Pete and I sat through alexander yesterday and it temporarily ruined my life until it ended and i remembered where we are going. Around 12, some whales appeared around the front of the boat. Im not going to say too much, instead have a look at Alex's photos in the photo section of the website www.4deserts.com. I was hanging off the bow with him as a 20m humpback whale and its calf came out of the water to exhale and dive back down and under the boat back and forth for about an hour. We were so close we had to stand back away from it to get any of it in shot. Truly unbelievable experience for which we shut off the engines & drifted for a while. We have literally just seen the first site of land 2 full days and 18 minutes since we left. It looks like an enormous white sail rising 6000 feet straight out of the sea. If where we are headed provides wildlife and scenery like this it will stack up to be some trip. That besides running around in the snow and ice for hours on end day after day. That also begins tomorrow. We are being told 5 hours in the morning on an island and then a possible 2nd stage in the afternoon on the mainland although it is unclear how long that might be. Frankly I can't wait to compete in the third desert in the series of 4 & give it everything. It has been a long year with 1200 miles of racing but what a finale to 2008 this should be. If we are to run 250kms however we will need to do it in 4 days. That breaks down into some painfully tough back to back mileage days but.... Fortitudine Vincimus. Through Endurance we Conquer (Shackleton's family moto).