“Why do you
want to go to Antarctica?” people would ask us.
“It’s cold, expensive, and difficult to get to.” Our answer is “Why
not?” It’s changing by the day and is ground zero for what is happening with
global climate change. It has wildlife you can’t see at home and stunning scenery
that is hard to describe. Every person
we know who has been there said it was one of the best places they had ever
been. And so it was for us, too.
Those who had
been before advocated that we take an expedition type of trip on a small ship
specifically designed for icy polar waters and that we include South Georgia
and the Falkland Islands in the itinerary, so some of my comments and photos apply
to those places as well.
 |
| 18 days, 3,982 miles |
We went with
Road Scholar, one of the more affordable tour operators that met our criteria.
They teamed up with other operators aboard Albatross Expedition’s 175-passenger
Ocean Victory. It handled the rough seas of the infamous Drake Passage and
the Southern Ocean well (depending upon who you talk to—we didn’t get seasick),
and it got us into and out of some very tight and icy places. It took us 3,982
miles over 18 days.
 |
The Ocean Victory--our refuge
in a hostile wilderness |
Antarctica is
about the size of the United States and Mexico combined, but that all depends
upon which time of year you measure its snow and ice. It’s now dramatically
smaller in the winter than 10 years ago.
Although not part of Antarctica, South Georgia (1200 miles to the NE) and
the Falklands (750 miles to the north) are part of its weather and ocean
current systems and marine wildlife migratory patterns. South Georgia has a
population of 12 in the winter and 40 in the summer, mostly researchers and caretakers
of an historic abandoned whaling village. The Falkland Islands have 3800
residents, mostly in Port Stanley. Very British!
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| Iceberg off Spert Island, 6:00 AM |
Geography
aside, the scenery is stunning, absolutely stunning! We thought it
would be a monotonous landscape, but it changed nearly every hour with the
lighting, ice formations, and sea color. And none of it is manmade.
And the
animals! There isn’t a huge variety of animals compared to a place like
Costa Rica, but that is more than made up for in quantity where we would walk
among massive penguin colonies. We never got tired of watching the seven of
nine species of penguins and their young chicks. But we did we tire of their
smell, which made our parkas and rain pants stink up our cabin temporarily. Nor
did we tire of sea lions, seals, seabirds, and frequent whale sightings—including
a very rare sighting of three blue whales off the coast of South Georgia, which
some of the seasoned crew and guides had never seen before.
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| Fur seals and King penguins on South Georgia |
In Antarctica,
we dropped anchor in about eight different places and boarded zodiacs for shore
excursions or zodiac cruises about twice per day. We had about six excursions
in South Georgia (nice to see greenery again!) including a hard four-mile hike,
and two landings in the Falklands with hikes of four and eight miles.
What was our
highlight or the trip? Every day kept getting better than the one
before. However, what we’ll remember the
most was a zodiac cruise in the north Weddell Sea at the tip of the Antarctic
Peninsula amid a field of icebergs, sea ice, and humpback whales. Even though
it was 8:00 pm, there was still a lingering twilight. We carefully climbed out
of the zodiac to set foot on an ice flow smaller than a football field. We were
among the first and the very last people on earth to ever set foot on that exact
spot and piece of melting ice. It was one of those surreal moments we will
cherish for the rest of our lives. This piece of melting ice was a good analogy
for how fragile Antarctica is right now, and it made us feel fragile on this
speck of ice in such a vast inhospitable place.
 |
The guides scouting out a landing site
on "our" ice flow |
Surprises?
One of our surprises about this trip so far is just how little free time we
had. When we weren't on shore or in the zodiacs, there was always a lecture
from one of the 18 guides/zodiac drivers from all over the world with a
combined Antarctic guiding experience of 129 years. Most of them also had advanced degrees in marine biology, geology, ornithology, oceanography,
and more. The most interesting presentation was on krill, the small crustaceans
that are the food source for many creatures up the food chain. The funniest was
about penguin poop projectiles.
We had two
special guests aboard. One was Alastair Forthegill, the executive producer of
BBC’s Frozen Planet series. He gave us insights into how they filmed various
scenes of the series and the Disney movie, Steve. The other was the head of British Bureau of Infectious
Diseases, the UK’s equivalent of Dr. Anthony Fauci. He talked about the spread
of Avian influenza which is now affecting sea mammals in the Antarctic region,
especially in South Georgia where we had to abort a shore landing because of a
huge die-off of seals.
 |
Fortuna Bay, South Georgia, where we had to
abort a landing due to a seal die-off from
the avian flu. |
Our favorite
communal part of the day was the 6:00 pm briefing where all 170 of us and the
guides gathered over drinks to review where we’ve been, what we saw, the
upcoming weather, and the plans for the next day.
It was a cat and mouse game with big weather and
ice situations, so our plans frequently changed, often serendipitously.
The things we
most love about travel is meeting people, culture, history, and
architecture—and food of course! While short of the architecture part, we’ve
met a lot of interesting fellow travelers and learned a lot about Antarctica’s
history and the stories behind its explorers and whaling. (Ask us anything
about Shackleton). And the food had a good selection of Indian and Asian food, some
fish species we have never had before, as well as tempting European deserts. Kathy
lost five pounds, I gained one.
 |
Firman, our cabin steward
from Jakarta Indonesia |
But on the
cultural side, we befriended several of the housekeeping and wait staff who
hail from India, Nicaragua, Indonesia, China, and the Philippines, and it’s
been fun learning about their families and lives at home and trying to brush up
on our rusty Indonesian.
They work nine
months of the year here and on arctic expeditions, but they all say they make
much more than they possibly could with a similar land-based job back home or
on a large cruise ship.
 |
Polar plunge. A video clip from
the vantage point of the
mudroom is on
the photo link below |
And oh yes, I
did do the polar plunge, along with about 80 other shipmates. They played the
Stones’
Start Me Up while we queued up in the mudroom. It was so fun. The
cold shock quickly wore off into a warm glow as we swapped stories with
complementary shots of vodka afterward. I should have done a cannonball.
These brief
words, my daily journal (available upon request), these photos, and five Facebook
and Instagram posts can’t begin to describe the totality of this experience. Our
expectations were exceeded beyond measure.
It was the trip of a lifetime!
"What We Can While We Can, What We Could While We Could”
Here is a link
to more photos and brief video clips, mostly in chronological order. They are
best enjoyed on something larger than a phone.
(Warning: The penguins really know how to ham it up!) About 5% of the photos in the link are not mine. For more commentary and
photos, please check out my five Facebook posts @ron.kelemen or my Instagram @kelemenron.
