Page 66 - 2003 - Atlantic Islands

morning lecture at 11 by Alan on Birds at Sea. Really didn’t learn anything from him

because we have heard so much of it before on the Hanseatic and in the Galapagos.

But he had some nice pictures and we were being supportive by attending.

After lunch we went to sketch class and learned that our next assignment will be to

try to understand body shapes among the birds so that we can draw approximations

of the birds we will soon be seeing on the Islands and around the ship. MJ also

critiqued some of our earlier efforts and we showed them to the group. I think that it

is safe to say that Kay is one of MJ’s favorite students and one in whom she sees

much promise and that I am absolutely the least promising in the group. She tries to

be kind and encouraging but she damns with faint praise and gives my work short

shrift indeed. Of course, that is better for the whole class because my efforts are

pretty poor specimens.

However, it’s still fun; I’m enjoying trying my hand at something so new and foreign

to me.

We then had about 50 minutes before time to attend Marco’s lecture on “Albatrosses

and Long Line Fishing.” Even though we felt that we should be supportive of him too

we just could not bring ourselves to attend a lecture on such a sad topic, plus we

already know much of the story, the statistics and the faint hopes of conservationists.

So in spite of our guilty consciences, we stayed in the cabin listening to Pavarotti,

reading and working on pictures.

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