04 Apr 2017
The South West Pacific Odyssey Begins
1st April
Today (1st April) around 2pm all passengers arrived for the South West Pacific Odyssey expedition which includes visits to Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and PNG. After everyone embarked the Spirit of Enderby and got acquainted with each other, Matt Vance, the expedition leader, gave a word of welcome and introduced the whole staff. Around 4pm we left the port of Tauranga, with some beautiful weather, ready for our trip north. The upcoming days will be spent on the sea, before we arrive to our first stop at Norfolk Island.
2nd April
The second day on the sea was greeted excitably by the arrival of the Grey Turnlets, despite the drizzly damp conditions everyone was eager to get a sighting. Moving further north the birders sighted the Black / Parkinson Petrels and the recently discovered New Zealand Storm Petrels. This was also a great chance to carry out some very slow open ocean donuts with the ship, which gave some fantastic views of the NZ Stormies. Around 40 Storm Petrels were spotted, showing a true increase in numbers over the last 10 years. For the rest of the day we enjoyed the sun on the deck chatting, and sighting a very southerly White Necked Petrel, along with Bullers Shearwaters, Cooks and Grey-Faced Petrels.
Today we bid farewell to the 2016/17 southern season and set sail on our 'South West Pacific Odyssey' expedition. Keep an eye on future blogs to read…READ MORE
The Spirit of Enderby has successfully completed dry dock and is currently sailing north from the port of Lyttelton towards Tauranga. Our crew are r…READ MORE
Our Final Blog for the southern season. Tomorrow morning (the 15th March) we will arrive in Lyttelton. Passengers and staff will disperse to their fa…READ MORE