Antarctica, South Georgia, and the Falklands--Lands of Exceeded Expectations

 “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!

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.

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.