DAY 9: ANTARCTIC CIRCLE: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

I did it!  I actually crossed the Antarctic Circle!  What an amazing feat although I really had nothing to do with it.  Who would have ever thought this small-town Texas girl would ever make it here.  Certainly not me!  But make it, I did.

The day started out with the announcement that breakfast was being served in the dining room.  Oops.  I hadn’t set my alarm so I was running late.  I had been so tired last night that when I came back to the cabin, I fell asleep typing my blog posting.  Doug and Chris had gone outside to enjoy a cigar and some Shackleton whiskey.  He woke me coming into the room.  I gave up the ghost on writing for the night and went to bed.  I slept hard.  I needed it.

So when the announcement woke me up, I jumped out of the bed and hurried through my morning ablutions.  We were only 10 to 15 minutes late.  Actually, we weren’t late at all because you could eat anytime between 7:30 and 9 AM.  Liz was still sitting there when we came in so we joined her.  Doug got his omelet and I got my oatmeal.  I’m so happy I can get it here.

For most of the morning we were sailing down to the circle.  Not much was happening and the seas were fairly empty of both ice and critters.  At 9 AM we made our way down to our lecture on exploration in Antarctica.  It was a plethora of names and dates.  Meru covered some of the early history which I had never heard about.  That was interesting.  I had no clue that explorations to this region began as early as 1769 when John Goode was sent to study the transit of Venus.  He was given a secret envelop with further orders to explore the Antarctic region.  Although he never saw land, he saw many fur seals which he faithfully reported back.  When he returned to the region, he found it full of seal hunters.

Goode was followed by Will Smith, not the actor although Meru used his face in the slide.  In 1819 Smith had the job to sail through to Cape Horn.  In order to avoid the awful weather around the Cape, he decided to sail further south.  He spotted the South Shetland Islands.  When he reported the sighting, nobody believed him.  To prove he had seen the island, he sailed back to verify them.  He sailed back a third time and this time he made landfall.

After Smith an explorer by the name of Bransfield came south to explore the Shetland Islands.  He is one of the people credited with seeing Antarctica first.  Bellinghausen sailed to the regions and saw lots and of lots of ice.  He didn’t realize there was actually land beneath that ice.  He reported the latitude and longitude.  He also circumnavigated the continent.  He spent an astonishing three weeks below the Antarctica Circle.

By the year 1820 sealers had gone to the continent and had slaughtered just about all of the fur seals.  What a crying shame.  In the same year, Nathaniel Palmer had gone to the continent and had built a sealing station in Deception Bay.  The bay was in the middle of an old caldera so the station was protected.  As he sailed looking for seals, he spotted the peninsula of the continent.  Of course he had to name it after himself—Palmerland.  In 1830 Graham spotted the peninsula and he name it after himself.  Ultimately the peninsula came to be known as the Antarctica Peninsula.

In 1923 an explorer named Weddell came down this way.  He discovered a large sea to the right of the peninsula.  Of course he named it after himself.  He was actually a merchant who just happened to have a passion for exploration.  Later in life he pushed to conserve the area. The seals they found in the Weddell Sea are also named Weddell-Weddell seals. 

The French were not about to be left out of the race for exploring and claiming Antarctica.  They came down between 1837 and 1840 and tried to circumnavigate the continent.  However, their way was blocked.  Dumont B’Urville named the penguins he saw after his wife—Adélié.

Charles Wilkes was a American who came down here for exploration in 1839.  He was the first to actually land on the continent rather than an island.  In 1843 James Clark Ross—British—discovered and named the Ross sea.  In 1845 the British put together a dream team of sailors and scientists.  In order to gain experience in traveling the frigid waters, they took two ships named the Erebus and the Terror (they has been Ross’ ships) to explore the Northwest Passage.  Unfortunately the ships got lost and stuck in the ice.  A rescue mission was mounted when people realized there was a problem.  The rescuers found some relics from the ship as well as some bodies.  Eventually they learned that the two crews had resorted to cannibalism in order to try to survive.  Obviously it didn’t work as they all perished.  So much for the dream team.

One gentleman by the name of Markham was on the rescue team.  He was extremely influenced by what he saw.  He became a member of the National Geographic society and pushed for an Antarctic expedition.  He wanted to bring the glory to Great Britain that the dream team had failed to do.  He had a list of people capable of leading the team and among them was the name Scott.  Markham chose Scott to lead his expedition as he felt Scott’s military experience would stand him in good stead.  Also among the team members was a young man named Shackleton.   

In 1891 Markham’s team had explored what is now the McMurdo area of the continent.  They made their base there.  Then Scott made the decision to try to reach the South Pole.  Shackleton was part of that team as well as Scott.  The two clashed severely as Shackleton wasn’t military and had his own ideas.  Shackleton, however, was a natural leader and the men naturally him.  Not so Scott.  The push for the pole ultimately failed and Scott blamed Shackleton.  In fact on the return to the McMurdo base, Shackleton became so ill that he couldn’t pull his share of their supplies on his sled.  When the group made it back to McMurdo, Shackleton was sent home even though he had recuperated on the trip.  Later Scott wrote a book about the effort to find the South Pole and he blame Shackleton for the failure.  Shackleton was heartbroken over the accusation.

Shackleton eventually decided to lead his own expedition to the region.  He did come up short in finding the South Pole but did end up further south than anybody else.  He came very close to having to overwinter as he almost missed his ship back.  He funded future expeditions by writing books and giving lectures.  Scott and Shackleton were polite in public but let their vitriol fly when nobody else was present.  They were each determined to outdo the other.

In 1920 Scott returned to Antarctic for another try at the South Pole.  Meantime Amundsen who was Swedish had decided to give the South Pole a try as well.  However, first he realized that he and the men needed to train for it by going to the Arctic Circle.  He trained personally by going on any expedition he could get on.  Like I said earlier, he was on the failed Belgian expedition.  While in the Arctic, he learned various skills from the Inuit people. He learned from them how to navigate icy waters and how to dress for survival in Arctic conditions.  He learned how to use a dog sled.  He soaked up all the knowledge that he could.  Amundsen was quoted as saying that adventure was just bad planning.

Before Amundsen could mount his expedition to the North Pole, people were claiming to have already discovered it.  First Frederick Cook swore he found it.  Then Peary said Cook was lying and that he had found it.  Turns out later that neither had truly found it.  Nobody reached the actual North Pole until 1969 and then it was completely overshadowed by man landing on the moon.

Meantime, Amundsen decided to head south and go for the South Pole.  He gave his crew the choice to go with him or not.  They all chose to go.  The race was on as Scott was going for it as well and he was already at McMurdo.  Scott had taken motorized sleds with him but lost one when transferring it from the ship to land.  The other two wouldn’t work in the cold climate.  Amundsen brought sled dogs with him.

Scott hadn’t done a very thorough job planning out the try for the Pole.  He miscalculated supply needs, didn’t flag his caches of supplies well enough for the return to base camp….In the end Scott and all of his men perished.  Amundsen reached the pole and made it back home alive.  His sled dogs, however, did not.  Amundsen and his men ate them.  I believe that was part of the plan.  Not a part of the plan that I like!

Meru also told us some survival stories.  There was one expedition rescued by an Argentinian ship.  I fleetingly wondered it if was the ship we had seen in Buenos Aires.  Then there was the sad story of Mawson. He explored the McMurdo area.  Unfortunately one of his sled with all of their food and tents fell into a crevasse.  Mawson was the only survivor.  Of course the penultimate survival story was the Endurance expedition led by Shackleton.  Despite all of their hardships, he brought all of his men home.  Some survived this ordeal on die in WWI just a few years later.

While all of this exploration was going on, countries began making their bid for part of the Antarctic pie.  Countries were claiming segments closest to them.  Few overlapped and most were roughly wedge-shaped.  During WWII Great Britain was afraid that the Germans would use Antarctica to their advantage.  The Brits destroyed all of the old whaling buildings and built British stations there.  They also took down the Argentinian buildings.  However, when the Brits left, the Argentinians went back in and rebuilt their stations and took down the British ones.  Other countries began building bases in order to have a claim.  

The U.S. was the only major country that did not lay claim to any soil on the continent.  The push to claim the region ended in 1959 when the U.S.  called all of the countries with claims to a meeting to put an end to it once and for all. In a stroke of diplomacy the twelve countries all decided that Antarctica would be owned by nobody.  There could be no future claims and that all current claims were frozen.  Who would have thought a bunch of politicians could be altruistic!

Although the U.S. didn’t claim any land in Antarctica, during the Cold War they did do training down there to prepare for war.  It was called Operation High Jump. The first woman stepped onto the continent in 1935.  Her name was Caroline Mikklesen.   Her husband was a merchant.  In 1957 the first person crossed the entire continent.  Tourism began here in 1970.   In 1987 for the first time a woman headed a base on the continent.  She was Australian.  Anne Bancroft led the first all-woman expedition to the South Pole.  And just a couple of weeks ago  Barbara Hernandez did a 2.5 km swim in Antarctic waters as her way of asking for more protected marine areas around the continent.

The region has quite the history.  I was exhausted by the time Meru had finished her hour and a half lecture :-). We were suppose to have another talk, this one on geology, at 11 but Diego gave us a break and pushed it back to 11:30.  Thank goodness!  I needed to give my brain a break to digest all it had learned.

We spent the time in our room, occasional wandering outside to see the gorgeous scenery floating by us.  It was otherworldly.  Doug kept the TV on the navigation channel and after 11 it showed that we had crossed the Antarctic Circle.  We figured that was the real reason Andres’ geology talk had been postponed.  However, it was around 11:30 when I heard the ship’s horn blasting.  I think the captain was signaling that we had crossed the line.  Doug was out on deck so I took a quick photo of the TV for him.  

Not too much later Neil called for everybody to come down to the lounge as we had some important visitors—King Neptune and his wife.  It was a hoot.  The expedition members and trip leaders were dressed up like pirates (yes, I know.  There were no pirates in Antarctica🤪) and mermaids.  Pablo was Neptune and Maria was his “wife.”  In the background they played music from “Pirates  of the Caribbean” and then segued into the “Little Mermaid.”  We all had to swear our guilt to Neptune for eating sea food and not wanting to experience the Drake Shake.  He pardoned us.  Then to mark our transitions from landlubbers to “bluenoses” we had to kiss the ceremonial fish.  And yes, there really was a fish and yes, we kissed it.  Alright most of us air kissed it.  Nobody wanted anybody else’s’ germs.  We also were turned into bluenoses by the application of blue lipstick to our noses.  It took quite a while for this process so Neil played the piano and did a rocking good job of it.  He played with verve.  We heard “The Entertainer” and other songs that I can’t remember now.  I loved listening to him.  He played for quite a long time.  After everyone kissed the fish, we had a chance to take photos of Neptune and his crew.  Doug and I got a photo with Neptune himself.  It was a fun way to finish out the morning before dashing off to lunch.  Before we scattered for the meal, Diego announced that we were going to try to do a landing in Crystal Sound.  We were all excited about that.

King Neptune and his Crew for the Bluenose Ceremony

And lunch was worth going to.  The “Chef’s Action” center was doing stir fry today.  I could smell the garlic cooking.  Yum!  I had that and some salad.  After eating it was a waiting game.  We were suppose to have the first group land around 2 but Diego came on and said that Detail Island where we were going to do our landing was blocked with ice.  Instead we were going to sail further south and see what we could do there.

Sailing below the Antarctic Circle

Meanwhile, we kept busy admiring the scenery.  I saw a couple of whales which was nifty.  I even caught a seal on a tiny berg.  That was cool.  It turned out to be a crab-eater seal which doesn’t even eat crab.  It eats krill much in the same manner as a baleen whale.  Interesting.  The bergs and the snow-covered land formed a landscape that was nerve-tingling.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  There water was still as glass.  It was sunny.  The day was total perfection.  I wanted to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming.

At 2:30 Diego announced that there was too much ice in our new location so instead of a landing, we were all going on a zodiac ride.  We would be in the second group leaving around 4:30,  That gave us a good deal of time to get ready.  Around 3 we started piling on the layers.  I knew it would be colder just sitting in the zodiac than it had been climbing slopes yesterday.  I have four bottom layers on and four top layers.   Plus I packed my heavy duty mittens in my waterproof bag.  I was ready.  Doug and I ended up waiting for our turn out on the deck because it was just too hot indoors with all of those clothes on.

The ride itself was wonderful.  We had Luise as our drive.  We also had Lori who is the Asst. Expedition Leader.  Both were very knowledgable and shared some of that knowledge as we navigated the icy waters.  

Being in a zodiac you got a whole new perspective of the area we were in.  We were up close and personal with ice and apparently Luise is an ice expert.  They showed us the bergs and told us the different types from the dry-dock which had a hole in it that looks like you could dock your boat in it to the tabuleau which looks like a huge table to brash ice which are the tiny chunks floating in the water.  She showed us how you could tell the story of an iceberg by checking out its various water levels which leaves lines on the ice.  If there are vertical lines, those form from where air bubbles escaped from the ice.  The deep dark blue ice is more compressed and has fewer air bubbles.  That is really old ice.  New ice is cloudy as it is filled with air bubbles.  If you are quiet and listen, the water around you sounds like a subdued bowl of Rice Crispies.  It snaps, crackles, and pops.  This is the air escaping the ice.  Of course the bulk of an iceberg is below the surface of the water.  Although it varies, the general rule is that only 10-15% of the berg is above water.  We’ve seen some huge icebergs go by.  If that was only 15% of the total bulk, the thing had to have been ginormous.

Zodiac ride in Crystal Sound

It was an unreal feeling floating through the ice in the water, so close to icebergs you could almost reach out and touch them.  Most of it was brash ice but there were bergy bits as well as some darn large icebergs.  We saw a dry-dock berg that was highlighted with a pale blue.  Others had been sculpted by Mother Nature into strange and fantastic shapes.  The mountains surrounding us were white behemoths, dark gray rock bits adding contrast to the snow.  You could see the sun shining through the clouds on one tiny section of the mountain range.  Those mountains were touched with gold.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I had a swivel head as I tried to see everything.

As we motored along, you could feel the bump of the ice beneath your feet.  You could hear it as well.  The first time I thought I had dropped something by accident.  Nope.  Just moving over a bit of ice.    Luise pointed out a snowy petrel flying in the distance.  This is the only bird that breeds this far south.  They are completely white and feed only at the edge of the ice.  They are rare so we were especially lucky to see one.  We also saw skua and the tiny storm petrel which is so much smaller than the giant petrel.  It was amazing how one species of bird could vary so greatly.

Weddell seal on iceberg

The other group of zodiacs had spotted a seal lying on top of an iceberg.  When they finally started heading back to the boat, we were able to move in and see it for ourselves.  It was a beautiful Weddell seal.  The other side of the zodiac got to stand and take photos.  Then we got to.  The other side took so long with their pictures, I was afraid she was going to slide off the berg and vanish into the gray waters.  She did slip from one side of the iceberg to another.  It was fun watching her maneuver her massive body.  Weddells are the second largest of the seals, only beaten by elephant seals which we most likely won’t see here.

On our way back to the ship after what seemed like mere moments, we took some time to harvest a few bits of iceberg for the bar.  Plus is gave Luise a chance to show us new ice as opposed to old ice.  We hooked up with our fellow Green team zodiacs so she could share her information and the ice examples to them as well.  Then we had a moment of silence so that we could drink it all in.  I have to admit that my eyes teared up.  It is impossible to explain how powerful it is being here at the bottom of the world.  This land is immense, powerful, deadly, and unbearably beautiful.  I can well understand why the explorers of the Heroic Age kept coming back time and time again.  At that moment, I never wanted to leave.  Antarctica had captured my heart and part of me will always belong to her.

Expedition crew assistant leader Lori with old glacier ice

It helped that our zodiac ride today had been picture perfect.  Last time Doug and I did a zodiac ride in Antarctic waters, it had been sleeting, windy, and just nasty.  I was frozen by the time we got back onboard the Corinthian.  The ride was well worth the discomfort though because we saw a humpback do a spy hop just a short distance away from us.  It was fabulous.

This zodiac ride didn’t feature any astounding animals antics, just scenery so beautiful that it touched your soul.  It was a ride of a lifetime.  And it was with physical pain we had to end it.  Reluctantly we all cha chaed out of the zodiac and onto the ship.  A hot cup of spiced tea as well as a warm towel awaited us in the lounge.  Since we were last to go out, we only had a short time to get cleaned up.  Unbelievably it was already 6 PM.  

We both showered and then headed down for the recap of the day.  We stopped in the bar and I tried the Cape Horn beer tonight.  It was okay, too bitter for me.  At the briefing Diego gave us a short recap and then explained what we would try to do tomorrow.  It will be Adélié penguin day in the afternoon.  Tomorrow morning we will get to explore one of the old huts in the Argentine Islands.  I believe it is called House.

Then Diego, Annick, and Meru did mini-lessons for us.  We learned that krill feeds off of algae which grows on the ice.  They can clear one foot of algae in ten minutes.  That’s pretty quick.  We also learned that some of the ice in Eastern Antarctica has been aged to 2 million years.  Holy cow!  Can you imagine drinking something with that ice in it?

Annick did a cute bit on whether penguins were monogamous.  Since today was Valentines Day, it seemed like an appropriate topic.  Her answer was that it depends.  That is the typical answer for most things down here on the bottom of the world.  The larger penguins such as the emperor and king penguins were much less likely to stay with the same mate for two or more breeding seasons.  That is what the definition is for monogamy in birds.  They have to stay together for two breeding seasons.  The smaller penguins such as the gentoo and chinstrap tend to stay together more.  In fact the chinstraps tend to be the most monogamous.  Over 82% of them breed two seasons or more together.  Monogamy as a whole for Antarctic penguins, however, is lower at a mere 15% as opposed to penguins in South America or Africa.

What are the reasons for the high “divorce” rate?  Sometimes it is because one of the partners arrives too late for mating season.  You can only wait around for your partner for so long before you need to breed to have success.  If you wait too long, the chicks won’t survive the winter.  The “teen-age” penguins typically switch partners a lot.  And some times it is a matter of failed previous breedings.  If a pair keeps failing to produce chicks, they switch partners.  For them it is about the biological urge to reproduce, not love.

I found it interesting that sometimes the chicks are not biologically the chick of the male that takes care of them.  Some times the male of a breeding pair will allow his female partner to mate with another male if the male brings rocks to help build the nest.  In effect they exchange rocks for sex.  In fact 15% of the Adélié penguins switch partners.  It is all able producing healthy offspring.

The recap ended up with a small bit on the film festival held every year in Antarctica.  Who would have thought?  I guess it is one way to break up the monotony of being here.  We saw the winner of the five elements category titled “Bad Hammer.”  It was hysterical and short.  They didn’t speak English but we clearly understood what was going on.  It was a great way to end the recap.

We all then trooped down to dinner.  I went with grilled chicken and a baked potato and veggies.  I did try the chef’s crush (salad).  The menu item names were definitely Valentines Day inspired.  It was cute.  The chicken was nice and juicy and tasted excellent.  I was glad I had gotten it.

Tonight we are steaming our way back up towards the peninsula.  Tomorrow we have our morning outing at the unoccupied hut and then the afternoon we visit with the Adélié penguins.  It sounds like another wonderful Antarctic day.

DAY 8: DANCO & NEKO HARBOUR: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

We have truly been blessed so far on this trip. Today has been glorious. Who thought I’d come to Antarctica and sweat. Shoot, for Liz it’s warmer here than back in Wisconsin. First thing this morning out on the deck though while the ship was moving, I was freezing! The temperature was definitely lower and the wind made it COLD!

When we first looked out our window, all you could see was fog which actually turned out to be very low lying banks of clouds. After we sailed through the bank, I was gob-smacked by the pristine blue water and snow-clad mountains arching into an achingly blue sky. It defies description. It was like being in a postcard. The scene was picture-perfect.

Sailing to Danco Island

Before going down for breakfast, Doug spotted our first iceberg and called it in to Reception hoping to win the iceberg competition. Liz had him beat. She saw it a bit after 6 and snap a picture that was time-stamped. She didn’t turn in her entry until breakfast.

Green group was going out first today on our excursions so after eating, we headed back to the cabin. I put on my parka and headed out to our deck to check out the scenery from Deck 7. Dang, it was cold up there! The wind froze me to the bone. But the view was worth every second of discomfort. Off in the distance I could see a whale spouting. It looked like there was more than one. I barely caught the tail of a tiny one. Against one snowy mountain, in stark relief were two cruise ships. One was too large for the passengers to disembark on the continent. They had to be happy with merely seeing this impressive land mass. The other ship was smaller and we could see zodiacs zipping folks back and forth. That would be us shortly. I stayed out marveling at the beauty drifting passed me for as long as I could stand the cold. It was going on 9 which is when we were suppose to reach Danco. I needed to start getting ready for the first adventure of the day.

Big cruise ship motoring by Antarctica

You really do have to start preparing early. It takes a while to climb into long johns, fleece leggings, two pairs of socks, fleece shirt, fleece jackets, parka, life vest, boots….. Of course as soon as I got into it all, I had to pee. Doesn’t that always happen! I managed though. With everything on, it was too hot to stay inside so I went out to the deck. Then I headed down to the bar to take a photo of the map where they are plotting our journey each day. I thought that would be a good way to document our journey. I’ll take one every day. However, in reality it was difficult to get a good picture because everything kept reflecting on the map. I’ll try it again later when the sun is in a different spot. Maybe then it will work better.

Since I was already out on Deck 4, I checked the view from outside the lounge. Not a soul was out there which I found amazing. I had that glorious view all to myself. It was just me, the sun, the sea, the sky, and the magnificent mountains of snow and ice. I was in heaven.

I flitted around over the entire ship and finally landed outside on Deck 3 where we go to board the zodiacs. I found Liz there and we watched a small humpback as he/she came up to breath. We were patient and were finally rewarded with the flukes. That is always so special, no matter how many times you are privileged to see it.

Humpback whale

It felt like forever before we were called to start loading up. The fog this morning had slowed down our progress to Danko Island. I probably started getting ready too soon as well but you hate to wait until the last second to start putting on all of the various layer. But now it was finally time to load up. Liz and I had come into the lounge through the door which we would now exit through so we stayed by the scanning machine. You have to get your card scanned before you go out and then again when you come back in so they can keep track of who is off the boat and who has made it back onboard. The only bad thing about the system is that you had to figure out a place to keep your card that was easily accessible but where it wouldn’t accidentally get lost. I could just see me pulling gloves out of my pocket once on land and losing my card. Doug had discovered a small pocket on one side at the top of the parka. It wasn’t really big enough to be useful but was good place for your key card. It’s just a bit hard to get to it when you are wearing the mandatory life vest.

Anyway, since we were right there, Liz and I were scanned first and thus were first on the zodiac. Before we climbed onboard, Neil the cruise director, made sure we all had on our life vests correctly and told us when to go down to the zodiac. Once down to the zodiac level we had to step into a shallow pan of pink disinfectant. We are trying hard not to contaminate the continent. And because of avian flu, we couldn’t sit on the continent either like we did last time. If we fell or placed a bag on the ground, the expedition crew had to disinfect the area.

I’ve been on so many zodiac rides by now that getting on and off are a breeze. I did my four steps to get on, plopped my fanny down, and scooted. Easy peasy:-). The ride to Danko was easy as well. The water was like glass—smooth. There was no wind at all except what the zodiac created. The day couldn’t have been better. The fog and clouds had burned off and we had glorious sunshine dazzling our eyes as it reflected off of the ice. It couldn’t have been more beautiful.

Visit to Danco Island

The zodiac ride was over in a jiffy and it was time to flip the feet and legs over the side of the zodiac and splash our way onshore. There was a small gravel beach at the base of a snowy incline. Along the right side of the beach were bunches of gentoo penguins. Surprisingly several of them had built nests there and a few had small chicks. The expedition people said this was quite unusual. And we knew from our previous trip that chicks born this close to winter have almost zero chance of survival. They won’t be big enough once winter is here and they take to the sea. It was really sad. Nature isn’t alway fair. However, in order to not disturb the nesters, we had to be very quiet. You could take pictures but you just had to keep the noise down. You could stay on the beach or you could follow the path of poles and orange chain up a slope to get a view of the island and see another rookery.

Gentoo penguin and parent

All of the expedition people told us that the path was slippery. They were not exaggerating. The path was literally ice. It was a bugger. I truly didn’t think I was going to make it. I felt like such a wimp. The first part wasn’t too awful but by the time I reached where Pablo was standing, I was slipping more than making progress. He helped me up further along the trail but he was sliding as well so I could just see both of us sliding down the incline because of me. At a bend in the trail, I stopped. There was still a good way of uphill to climb and I didn’t think I could make it. Plus I was worried about coming downhill in this slippery mess. Oy vey! Doug was ahead of me and went on up. He successfully navigated his way further and yelled down to me that it wasn’t so bad. After watching 70 year-olds heading up the icy path, my pride took over and Pablo and I continued up. We did reach a point where there was enough snow rather than ice that I felt confident enough to strike out on my own, I warned Pablo I would very likely need assistance again on the way down. I’m sure he wasn’t surprised 🙂

I did make it all of the way. By then I was sweating like a pig. I had stripped of my hat, unzipped a good deal of my parka. It didn’t help. I was still sweating. I made a decision then and there that this afternoon I was going to wear much less! Whoever heard of sweating in Antarctica!!!

Icy path up to rookery

Anyway, I finally made it up the slope under my own steam. I was tired by the time I reached the final destination. It took several minutes of deep breathing to get back on an even keel. I did enjoy the rookery up there. Here, too, there were tiny babies. It made me want to cry knowing that they had virtually no chance to survive. Two were so tiny that they perched on mom or dad’s feet and huddled in the warm of their parent. Most of the other babies were actually juveniles and were either molting or had already molted and were ready to take on their status as adults.

As always, the penguins were loud and smelly. They would kick up a fuss if another penguin came too close to their nest. They are quite territorial. I didn’t see any penguin building a nest here like yesterday. I was intrigued watching them waddle down their stone rookery (they do not make nests on ice. They have to find a rocky area to nest on). How they managed to do it, I’ll never know because penguins aren’t the most graceful thing on two feet. Of course I’m sure I didn’t look so hot climbing up the trail either. Anyway, I saw two of them navigate the way down the rocky pile and then make the jump to the snow where the penguin highway began.

Gentoo rookery

The view from up at the rookery was fabulous. You could see the path which I had labored up and then the ship anchored out in the water. The sun was still shining (the weather can change rapidly here so you never take the sun for granted). I looked at the path down and inwardly sighed. I knew I was going to have to try to make it down without falling. I had touched the ground once with my hands coming up. Oops! My goal was to make it down in one piece with no mishaps. After I had enjoyed the penguins and the view, I began slowing and carefully making my way down. We had been given an hour on land and I knew I would need plenty of time to slip and slide my way down the slope.

Fortunately Lori from the expedition team had told us that we could walk in the fresh snow at the side of the trail if that made it easier. I took her advice. The upper most portion of the trail was okay just like it had been going up. I was making better time that I thought I would. However, I knew when I spotted Pablo that the real fun was about to begin. It got difficult before I reached him. The snow was like rock and I couldn’t find much purchase at all. I tried digging my right heel in but that generally didn’t work either. Pablo was at the point of the trail where it became extremely icy. Even the people with trekking poles were struggling a bit. I reached him and didn’t even say a word. He just looked at me, took my hand, and we started down. Actually I held onto the back of his life vest. That worked better. He and I slipped and slid until we were through the worst of it. Then I sent him back up the slope to help somebody else. Bless him. I just love Pablo. He has earned my undying gratitude 🙂

I made it to the bottom with no real issues and boy, was I happy to hit the beach area! We didn’t have too long to wait until a zodiac arrived to take us back to the Hebridean Sky. I could feel the dampness of my clothes as we made the quick ride back to the ship. Once onboard, a crew member gave us a small bit of spiced tea which was lovely. Then we made our way up to the cabin and began the disrobing process.

I went outside to the deck area like I did yesterday. Once again nobody was out there. It was great. I managed to get my boots off although that is a challenge. Then off came the parka. Unlike yesterday I stayed in my waterproof pants until I got in the cabin. Peeling them off proved a bit more difficult because my fleece leggings were drench as were my cuddl dud pants. My shirt was wet, my cuddl dud top was wet. I was one big ball of sweat. Even my socks were wet from sweat. I kept my fingers crossed that they all dried out before I needed them again.

I was exhausted after this excursion. I hadn’t sleep well last night. Don’t know why. Too excited about being here, I guess. Anyway, I was tuckered out so I wasn’t moving very fast. By the time we got undressed and dried off, it was time for lunch. I had seen that the menu said there was a BBQ hamburger but I didn’t see it anywhere on the buffet or the chef’s area where they do speciality items. Instead I had salad and left it at that. Nothing else tripped my trigger. I found out later that you have to order the burger from your server. Live and learn.

After lunch we started sailing through the Gerlache Straits to our next landing at Neko Harbour. I was keeping my fingers crossed. In 2015 when we first tried to land at Neko, we couldn’t make it through because of all the ice in the water. On our way back through that area, it had finally cleared enough so we could make a landing.

Gerlache Straits And sailing through brash ice

As we sailed through the strait, I was enthralled with the beauty around me. There was so much ice in the water. It was incredible. Tiny bergs up to Big Mac daddy bergs floated passed our ship. The ocean was literally a sea of ice itself as we maneuvered. At one point I saw a small iceberg literally exploded into hundreds of small shards of ice as we sailed next to it. That was crazy.

Penguins on iceberg

The scenery one either side of the channel was a winter wonderland painted in brilliant whites and shades of blue. For such a harsh environment, it’s beauty was so ethereal. We passed some larger chunks of ice and you could see the turquoise color of the water around it. That has something to do with the refraction of sun coming through the ice. At points we lost the sun and it was like looking out onto a black and white photograph. All color had been leached out of the water and ice except for the deep blue of the old and very compact ice in some of the icebergs. It was breathtaking and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I spent a good portion of the afternoon enjoying the scenery. I would stay out on our balcony until I got too cold and then I would come in and sit in a chair, staring out the sliding glass door. I was simply mesmerized by the sheer majesty of what I was so fortunate to be seeing. It truly was a gift. I snapped so many pictures and shot so much video. I couldn’t help myself. Chances are I will never be back this way again and I was going to take advantage of being here while I could.

I watched the scenery until it was time to get ready for our afternoon outing. Since the weather hadn’t changed appreciably, I ditched the long john bottoms and just wore my fleece leggings underneath my waterproof pants. I didn’t wear the log john top either, just my fleece shirt. I eschewed my fleece jacket as well. My jacket was still a bit damp from this morning’s adventures.

Green team went out first this afternoon as well. The zodiac ride was interesting. We had motored out a short way from the boat when all of a sudden, the engine died. Okay, it happens. Our driver changed the fuel tank thinking it was lack of gas. Still wouldn’t start. He tried a few other things. Still wouldn’t start. Meantime we are floating further and further always from the ship. Finally he walkie talkied back to the bridge and told them we needed rescuing. Oy vey! The bridge said they would send somebody out to help us. However, Bryan (the NBC producer) suggested that he try one more time. Lo and behold, it started and we were fine. Despite the rocky beginning to the ride, in no time we had landed at the rocky beach. As usual, Diego met our zodiac and briefed us. Because of the amount of calving that occurs here, we were to immediately leave the beach and head up to where Pablo was taking the 7th continent photos. We were actually on the continent, not an island. Yes!!!! Last time we had the picture done at the Chilean Research base but we can’t go there this time. Diego also told us to be sure and check out the weddell seal on the rocks. It was hidden among the boulders and looked like another boulder, just softer. These seals can get quite large. I’ve only ever seen them lying on the ground at our landings. They have such large, liquid eyes. You just have to love them.

From the zodiac we had noticed all kind of red and green colors on the snow. Lisa told us that it was algae, not penguin poop. It was all down the side of one hill. Not something you would expect to see here in the white wilderness. You expect everything to be this pristine white color but it isn’t. The penguins are surprising as well. They are always nice and clean when you see them in the zoo but here in their natural habitat, they are pretty darn grimy. They get covered with mud and poop and goodness knows what else. I’ve seen some literally covered from top to bottom with mud. I’m sure their cleanliness depends on how muddy the rookery is. So far these weren’t too bad but they still needed a dip in the sea.

After Diego finished his briefing, we did the zodiac swing and hustled off the beach and up to the photo area. There was snow and ice here as well as sand which coated some of the ice and helped give me more stable footing. I appreciated it :-). Pablo snapped our photo and then a few more of Liz and Chris with us. Liz had her 7th continent photo with the small sign upside down since we are at the bottom of the world :-). Didn’t even think about that! It was cute.

Our continental landing!

Here we had another uphill slog but not as much ice. At least I could dig in my right heel and get some traction. That gave me a little bit of confidence. I don’t remember having any doubts about making it up the hill eight years ago. Of course back then if you fell, it was no big deal. You picked yourself up and continued on. Not so this time. Anyway, slowly but surely I made my way up. I think the other three were ahead of me. I was the slow and steady one. I made it with a good deal of sliding. On the last bit I slipped several times and whoever was behind me (It was Bryan who works for NBC) grabbed me by my life vest straps and kept me from falling for the remainder of the way up the hill. By the time we reached the rookery, I was once again sweating and had unzipped and discarded my hat.

It was worth the hike. And I remembered the view. It was magnificent. The ship was like a little toy floating in the bay. You could hearing cracking as snow avalanched and we did see a couple of small calvings but nothing as spectacular as what we had seen in the Chilean fjords. They were so small we didn’t have to worry about a tsunami. Of course we were up high so wouldn’t have had to worry anyway.

View from top of Neko Harbour

We could see two large rookeries from our vantage point. The closest one was the smaller one. The penguins were fussing at each other, feeding their babies, sleeping, molting, and just living their lives. The other rookery was a distance away but you could hear their cacophony as well. Penguins are loud as well as smelly. The colonies here at Neko Harbour were all gentoo. None of my beautiful chinstraps here. It fascinated me how all of a sudden a penguin would stretch its bill skyward and begin vocalizing. Maybe they DO have a heart song.

Two gentoo rookeries on Neko

We saw more young penguins here. I heard one of the expedition people explain that the snow messed up penguin breeding this year. They can’t breed on ice and snow. They have to have rock or actual land. It took a while for their old rookeries to thaw out from the abundance of winter snow that they had gotten. That pushed the breeding season way back. It’s not good for the babies but what can you do? Mother Nature doesn’t always play nice.

Gentoo and weddell seal

I enjoyed my time up at the rookery and then slowly made my way back down. Because of the tsunami danger from calving, we had to wait up on the hill for our zodiac. Once a new one arrived, they sent us down to board. I managed to snag some video and photos while waiting on the zodiac. I even got a few snaps of the seal although it wasn’t doing much. Actually by the time we left, it looked like its head was hanging in the water. We know it was alive because every so often you would see its tail flippers move. I tried to catch the penguins porpoising but that is so hard to get. I did capture a group of six or seven penguins swimming onto shore all together. They were cute and awkward at the same time.

We boarded the zodiac and made it back to the ship without any mishaps. Thank goodness :-). After more spiced tea we climbed up the four flights to our cabin and began the strip down. I was not quite as drenched with sweat this time, but I was still damp. Doug and I both took showers before heading down to the lounge for the Cocktail Hour and daily recap.

I splurged today and got the cream stout. It was a splurge because we had to pay for it. Only Corona is the house beer. I wish it was Quilmes instead. We enjoyed everybody’s company until the recap. As usual with the recap came a couple of mini lessons :-). I enjoy them. Anyway, tonight we learned that snow algae is what we saw today in Neko Harbour. It is pink and green. The pink color comes from the keratinoids which proved sunscreen for the algae. This keritinoid actually causes the snow to melt but the algae doesn’t wash away in the runoff. It has special mucus which causes the algae to stick. Snow algae has always been there but it is increasing in amount. It has special glycoprotein that acts like antifreeze to keep it from freezing to death. Interesting little suckers.

Meru gave the second talk which was on one of the Antarctic expeditions. I hadn’t realized until tonight that Antarctic expeditions were known by the name of the ship. Hence Shackleton’s was known as Endurance because his ship was named the Endurance (totally an appropriate name). This particular expedition was carried out by Belgians. I didn’t quite catch the name of the ship/expedition (the Argentine accent messed me up). The leader of it was Andries Gerlache. He learned how to sail in ice in the Arctic which was smart. On Gerlache’s expedition, he happened to have a young man named Amundsen. I thInk we’ve all heard of him :-). Gerlache had a difficult time getting scientists for his expedition. I’m not quite sure why. He hired one man named Frederick Cook who later claimed he reached the South Pole before anybody else. He lied. Gerlache also had to hire a man who couldn’t cook as the expedition cook. He couldn’t find a real cook.

The trip was not without it’s tragedies. At one point a Belgian fell overboard and drifted away. He obviously died. They named the nearby island after him—Wienke Island. Gerlache hadn’t planned to overwinter in Antarctica but the party stayed too long and got trapped by the ice. Can you imagine? They didn’t have enough supplies nor were they prepared for the rigors of winter. And yet they survived. They ate penguin and seals. The cook who wasn’t a cook knew that fresh food helped fight against scurvy which was a real problem as well as polar anemia which was a type of depression. Who wouldn’t be depressed spending day after day in the cold and dark with howling winds? Frederick Cook wrote a book and said that their cook fed them a great deal of soup. He cooked that okay because all he had to do was add water to the seal or penguin. Another member of the crew was named Danko like the island we landed on this morning. This gentleman died in June of 1898. The island was named after him. In March of 1898 the ship was freed from the ice. As soon as possible, the remaining crew sailed to South America. A book entitled The Madhouse at the End of the World was written about this expedition.

That wrapped up our debriefing. From there we were on to dinner. Because of where we sit in the lounge, we are generally the last to get to the dining room which makes finding a table a bit of a challenge. Chris is usually the first in so he has been excellent at finding us one. Tonight was no expedition. We were seated in Edwin’s section and it just happened to be his birthday. Neil and the crew made a big deal out of it and we all sang happy birthday to him. He was literally in tears. It was really sweet.

The food itself was good. It’s always very tasty. I had a pasta dish with spicy tomato sauce. I didn’t notice it being spicy but I enjoyed it as it also had peppers and other veg as well. I skipped the appetizer and dessert. Frankly, the desserts just haven’t sounded good enough to indulge in the calories. The pasta filled me up so I was good. I did splurge after dinner and got an Irish coffee. THAT was my dessert 🙂

Tomorrow is a sailing day. We are full steam ahead for the Antarctic Circle. We are suppose to get there sometime late in the morning. Until we arrive and see what the weather conditions are like, we won’t know what our options are. We might have a landing or maybe a zodiac ride. At this point, nobody knows. We just all have to be patient. In the mean time, I’ll have a lovely night’s sleep on our rocking ship 🙂

DAY 7: SAILING THE DRAKE PASSAGE, DAY 2 & THE AITCHO ISLANDS: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

It is so hard to believe that we have already been gone a week. Holy cow! Where does the time go? Although we left home a week ago, we have finally arrived here. And by “here,” I mean Antarctica. Yep, last night around midnight I felt the change as we crossed the convergence and entered Antarctic waters. Yea!!!! Today is when the real excitement of the trip begins. Although I love being on the ship, I can’t wait to begin our excursions to this vast white wonderland.

I have to admit that last night my lack of sleep finally caught up with me. I literally fell asleep typing. I was just a little tired:-). So of course today I am behind the eightball with blogging. Oh, well. At least I woke up this morning feeling much more rested. I needed the sleep so I can’t regret it.

Liz told me at breakfast that she heard a lady ordering oatmeal. She knew I was disappointed that they didn’t have it yesterday. So when our server came to the table, I asked for oatmeal and got it. Yes! At least I’ll have one healthy thing :-). It came really fast, too. The server told me to keep it a secret.

After breakfast we began all of our lovely briefings. They are mandatory so we had to be there. We even had to have our cards scanned. It is taken that seriously. We scanned our cards and sat in our normals spots on the right side of the lounge. Then the torture began. Okay, it wasn’t that bad but it did seem to go on forever, but they have to go through all of the regulations. They can’t help it and there is really no way to make it entertaining.

I always love the part about staying 15 feet away from the penguins. Tell that to the penguins! They are the ones breaking the rules all of the time. We also learned how to get on and off the zodiac. Doug and I have done it many times before but I know others have not. You could tell that by the questions people were asking. One lady seemed shocked that you sat on the side of the zodiac. Ignorance is bliss.

Penguin “breaking” the 15’ rule

Finally the briefing was finished. We ran up to the room and started gathering up all that we needed for the bio-decontamination party. I only had four pairs of glove/mittens :-). What can I say, I don’t like to have cold hands. I also had two hats as well as my glasses lanyard. I figured that when in doubt, take it.

We were the second group to be called down. While we waited for our turn, Doug and I went out on the deck and watched for critters. We actually spotted some whales spouting off in the distance. One sent out a huge plume that was a brownish color. That was different. Doug called in the sighting but it didn’t get announced until Pablo called our group down for decontamination. By that time the whales were gone. There really wasn’t much to see as they were far away. However, I did see a couple of fins break the surface with my monocular.

Down in the lounge we got fitted with our life vests and got everything vacuumed that needed vacuuming. Although my waterproof pants were new, she vacuumed them anyway because of the dog hair :-). Comes with the territory when you own a basset. Then we had to sign the log that we had completed the decontamination process. Yea! It hadn’t taken quite as long as last time because we didn’t have to pry the rocks out of the tread on the boots. That took forever when we did this trip before. Diego’s god daughter had helped me with my boots. She was lucky enough to be able to come with him on that trip. She is now a mountain guide.

Somebody said they had seen their first penguins so we went out on the deck to watch for them. After looking for a while without seeing anything, I went back to our cabin. I was sitting on our balcony when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was a penguin porpoising! In the end I saw several swimming in the water around our ship. It was quite exciting. Doug saw them from out on the deck.

Wandering Albatross flying the Drake Passage

As we were lining up for lunch, Diego came on the intercom and announced that the captain (or master, as they call him) had decreed that we were making our first landing this afternoon as long as the conditions remained favorable. I was thrilled but not surprised. We had done the same thing last time when our Drake crossing had gone faster than expected. We were to meet in the lounge at 2 to hear all of the details. As you can imagine, the dining room was buzzing with excitement.

At lunch I pigged out. Yep, I was bad. Not only did I have soup but I also had half a sandwich (it was ham and cheese and the bread was dipped in egg and cooked). Our server said it was their best sandwich. How could I resist? Then I got roast beef from the carving station. Couldn’t resist that either. I also had a salad so I wasn’t all bad. I did resist the Yorkshire pudding and dessert.

By the time we finished eating, we only had a short time until our 2 o’clock meeting. I got all of my stuff organized. Doug discovered a pocket on our parkas that was perfect for our key card. We had to have that so they could scan us off and back on the ship. We’d had a different system last time. At 2 Diego gave us all of the particulars. We were going to the Aitcho Islands which is where we went last time. I’m not sure if it was the same island or not but it probably was.

Back in the cabin we waited. We were going to be the second group out. The blue group was first. Remembering last time, I went ahead and started getting ready. It always takes longer than you think. I put on my cuddl duds and then fleece leggings. Then I put on my sock liners and then my smartwool socks. Over that went my waterproof pants. I put my cuddl dud top on and then my shirt. I was going to wait for the rest until Pablo called us down. I didn’t want to overheat although the room had felt much colder since lunch. I did pack up my camcorder in my waterproof bag and fixed the strap into a waist belt since nothing was suppose to obstruct the life vest. I gathered up spare batteries and put my point and shoot into a ziplock bag and then into my parka pocket. I was ready.

When Pablo called, I already had donned my parka and life vest as well as boots and was ready to go. Doug put his stuff on and then we were off and running. It was exciting :-). We had to wait for just a little while in the lounge. Then we were scanning our cards and doing last preps before boarding the zodiac. Neil who is the cruise director double-checked our vests. He was out there in shorts. When I mentioned it, he replied “I’m British. We have to be heroic.” I died laughing. He has a great sense of humor. Once we were all checked out, they sent us downstairs where we walked through the vat of disinfectant and then did the zodiac cha cha.

The zodiac shuffle is stepping onto the the fender, down onto the pontoon, onto the box, and down to the deck of the zodiac. Then you plop your fanny down and scoot to where the driver tells you to go. If you are carrying “stuff” with you, you hand it to a helper who holds it until you get onboard. Then he hands it to you. And you are very specific in how you grip people when boarding. You NEVER clasp hands. You do the forearm grip. That is much safer.

We all managed to board without any issues and then we were off. It was smooth sailing to the shore. The water was like glass. It was amazing. Occasionally the surface was broken by a penguin porpoising. In no time we were landing and it was time to do the wet landing disembarkation dance which is different. This time you scoot to the highest portion of the bow of the zodiac, You swing your legs around from the back of the zodiac to the front where you then hop off into the shallow water. Piece of cake. Of course, you have plenty of help accomplishing this.

We successfully managed this maneuver and soon were standing on the pebble-strewn shore surrounded by gentoo penguins. It was heavenly. I was surprised that I hadn’t smelled them. Penguin poop is quite pungent. Surprisingly the island was green! I didn’t see any snow at all. Last time it had been sleeting and windy when we made our first landing. It had been tough. Today was picture perfect. Well, it was perfect except for the mud. I didn’t care. I drank in the vision in front of me of penguins covering the island. There were literally hundreds of penguins dotting the landscape and hopping in and out of the water. Their raucous calls filled the air. All I could think of was the movie “Happy Feet.” They were singing their heart songs 🙂

By now I was starting to sweat. I took off my hat and shoved it into a pocket and then unzipped my parka. I probably shouldn’t have worn my fleece jacket beneath the parka but you just never know. It did cool me down doing these two things. I also dug my camcorder out of my waterproof bag which I had secured around my waist. If the weather had been rainy, I would have left it in and just used my phone. I did have my phone on a lanyard and used it to take photos with as Diego had suggested. I used my point and shoot when I needed to zoom in.

The path we were to stick to was outlined for us by poles and orange chain. The expedition crew had marked the path for us to protect us and the wildlife. Of course nobody told the penguins that they had to stay on the other side of the poles and chain lying on the ground. They were all up in our path way. So much for the 15 ft. rule. That went out the window right off the bat. :-). You could stay on the shore if you wanted or you could climb a short but steep hill. For the first time ever, I was kind of sorry not to have trekking poles. I dislike using them but the hill was literally a mud bog, well mud and penguin guano. I could just see myself slipping and sliding all the way back down on my face. Granted you didn’t HAVE to hike up the hill but that’s where my chinstraps were and I had to see them.

It was worth the climb which I made without incident. While the majority of penguins were gentoos, there were many chinstraps at the hill rookery. Lisa said they were the crankiest of the penguins. They did seem a bit cantankerous today. They were all fussing up a storm. The penguins had all hatched babies and the babies were now molting into their adult feathers. So really none of them were true babies anymore. Only a few still had their baby fluff.

Pebble carrying chinstrap

I got a kick out of one penguin. I don’t know whether he was male or female. It’s impossible to tell unless they are in the act of making baby penguins. Anyway, this penguin would pick up a rock and then go place it on a pile. Then he would go and pick up another rock for his pile. Lisa was standing next to me and she laughed. He wasn’t building a nest. She didn’t know what the heck he thought he was doing. He kept it up the whole time I watched. Poor guy! At least he was gainfully occupied. I saw several squabbling with each other. I had seen in South Africa how nasty they can be. I didn’t want to see a repeat here. Others were obvious parent and baby because one was feeding the other, either that or it was the penguin version of French kissing :-). Talk about a beak down the throat!

Baby penguin tell mom or dad they want to eat

I stood there and absorbed it all from the stench of the guano to the cacophony of the heartsongs. It was glorious. I loved every second of it. Just watching these cute little guys was endlessly entertaining. I hadn’t realized until today that the gentoo are the third largest penguins. They didn’t seem all that much bigger than the chinstraps.

Love those chinstraps 🙂

Our forty-five minutes was about up so we started down the mud pit. Thank goodness Pablo offered me his arm. I had no pride. I took it. I didn’t want to slide down that muck. Plus it would have taken me half an hour to do it on my own. I am not fast going downhill, especially under these conditions. Once down, I enjoyed the gentoos for a bit longer and then began the process of cleaning off my boots which had gained about five pounds. They got pretty clean just standing in the water at the shore and scraping them on the rocks.

Babies and adults molting. They must fast during this process as their feathers are not waterproof during the molt.

We repeated the process to get back on the zodiac, sitting on the side and swinging your feet over the side. The ride back was totally uneventful. We disembarked and then began the real cleaning process. There was a gentleman who was in charge of hosing us down. First he did your pants and the front of your boots. Then you turned around and raised one foot at a time so he could squirt down the bottoms. Then you walked through the disinfectant again. On the Corinthian we left our boots in a locker close to where we got on the zodiacs. Here you wear your boots to your room where you keep them. You definitely wanted to make sure to get all of the guano off so your room didn’t reek.

Once up the stairs you walked back into the lounge where they scanned your card. The trick was being able to get to it from that little pocket. I managed. I figure that will get easier the more we do it. Anyway, as we came in, they gave us a little bit of hot chocolate. Really, it was only a few swallows. It wasn’t even a half of a cup. But it was warm and tasty.

Since we had wet boots covered in disinfectant, we didn’t want walk around our room in them and get the carpet all nasty. As a result, Doug disrobed in the hallway. I went outside on the deck as I could sit down there and get my boots and wet waterproof pants off. It worked like a charm. Of course it was beautiful and mild today. That won’t be an option on nasty days. I’m sure after a few outings we will have our routine all ironed out, probably about the time we have our last trip to the white wilderness 🙂

Everybody on the ship was on an Antarctic “high” celebrating our first outing. Of course, the last group out didn’t get back until six or so. The expedition members pushed the time for our debriefing back to 7 PM. However, at 6:15 we still had Cocktail Hour. Doug and I didn’t go down until 6:30. Everybody in the bar area was bubbling over with excitement with what they had seen and experienced. I found out one lady in our group had “tapped” a penguin with her trekking pole because she thought it was going to bite her son. I think she was very firmly told by several people NOT to do that. Oy vey! Can you believe it! We did have one of the trip leaders get a little nip from one. He calmly told us we were stressing the birds and we needed to move out of the area. When they start nipping like that, he is right. It is time to go. I don’t think the penguin got him too badly, probably just his pants.

At the debriefing we were told how lucky we were that we got this landing in. I was just glad the weather had cooperated with us. Diego informed us that we would try to do two outings a day. Our first one tomorrow to Danko Island is a place we haven’t been to before so that should be exciting. In the afternoon we are shooting for Neko Harbour. We were suppose to go there last time but there was too much ice in the water and we didn’t make it on our first try. Later in the trip we did. It had an awesome view.

Dinner was very good. I went for the tilapia cooked with teriyaki and soba noodles. It was excellent. I also tried the truffle cheesecake. That was tasty as well. For dessert I went for the clotted cream ice cream with cocoa. I expected chocolate ice cream. Nope. The ice cream was clotted cream. The cocoa was in the form of a sliver of chocolate. I should have gotten the brownie like Doug did.

After dinner the festivities continued. We all met in the lounge for the Ice Breaker party. We had all been told to bring a small gift from home to share with somebody. You didn’t have to participate if you didn’t want to. I had found two perfect coffee mugs in Target before we left home. They said “Let the adventure begin.” It seemed appropriate. Maria who is one of the trip leaders, had us all chose a bag. Then we had to find somebody we didn’t know and hadn’t talked to and exchange our gift for the one they had chosen. Then you were suppose to chat with them and get to know them. Then you opened your gift. I ended up with a collapsible water bottle which is great. If I’d kept my original gift, I would have had maple syrup from New Hampshire. I prefer the water bottle :-). Doug got a leather bookmark with a penguin on it. He talked to a lady who got one of our mugs and she was very happy with it. All in all, it was a fun activity. It helped that there was an open bar as well :-). I enjoyed my Irish coffee. I even had two of them!

Sundown in Antarctic waters

After most of the festivities were done, we visited with Sue from our Australia trip for a while. Her husband and daughter had already turned in for the night. We had a great time getting caught up with her. It was well after ten before we decided to call it a night. We still had showers to take, pictures to import and sort through, and journals to write. And tomorrow was going to be another Antarctic day.

DAY 6: SAILING THE DRAKE PASSAGE, DAY 1: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

FYI: Our WiFi still isn’t up to loading photos so please be patient. Imagine not having fabulous WiFi down at the bottom of the world! 😜As soon as I can, I’ll be editing my posts and adding them in. Thanks!

I slept like a log last night! The motion of the ship does it every time. Of course we DID have a full day yesterday and I didn’t finishing writing until around 1 AM. It was rough when my alarm went off at 7. I was sleeping hard. It took several minutes for me to wake up.

The motion of the ship was about the same as it had been last night after we hit the Drake around midnight. It’s rocking a bit but from what we heard from the crew on the ship, so far this is the nicest crossing they have seen in six or so trips. That’s pretty amazing. Although some people today have been a tad queasy, Doug and I have felt fine. I love the motion although It DOES make staying awake for the lectures a challenge.

Beautiful blue Drake Passage

And that is basically what today has been, a day filled with lectures and going outside to scour the seas and skies for birds and sea mammals. We couldn’t have had a better day for being outside either. It’s cool but not cold, although when the wind gusts it feels cold. The skies are blue and sunny. It has been fabulous. We’ve spent a good bit of the day out there.

I have to say that I am a bit chuffed though. Last night some time after dinner, a lucky group of people had the first whale sighting of the trip! They think is was Sei whales. They spouted a few times and then vanished. Liz was one of those lucky people. She even got a couple of photos. We had gone outside but we didn’t see anything. And I had checked periodically from our balcony but no joy. Oh, well, you can’t see everything.

We got up around 7 AM so we could be at breakfast at 7:30. I wasn’t fast enough so Doug went down without me. Don’t get between him and his coffee :-). I was just a minute or so behind him. I was disappointed once again. There was no oatmeal. The breakfast buffet wasn’t subpar. It was good. There was an omelet station as well as fruit, pastries, and a variety of breakfast dishes. There just wasn’t any oatmeal. Oh, well, maybe tomorrow. The Corinthian had oatmeal every day. I expected this ship to have it as well. One should never assume 🙂

Today was a learning day as we were on the Drake all day long. We had four lectures during the course of the morning and afternoon. We went to all four. Hey, what else were we going to do? The first lecture came right after breakfast and it was on birds in the Antarctic. Not my favorite subject as I am not a birder but it was fine. Our lecturer was expedition guide Annik who is from Switzerland. She was not a dynamic speaker but I learned a lot. This portion of the Drake had lots of birds so I figured it would be a good lecture to attend. I remembered a bit of the bird lecture from before but I figured a refresher course was due.

Boy, was it difficult staying awake! Unlike our last Antarctic adventure, we weren’t in a dark room. I had just as much trouble staying awake though. This time I was smarter and took notes. That helped keep me focused. Plus it was interesting information.

I learned that any bird that lives near the water and eats from the water is considered to be a seabird. Only 3% of the birds in the world are seabirds. They have a very difficult life because there is a scarcity of fresh water for them to drink. Everything is always wet and salty. They have few places to breed as they require land to nest. And it’s difficult for them to find food. To cope with these issues, they have made certain adaptations. They have grown webbed feet, developed a good sense of smell as well as great insulation to keep them warm. They have also developed the endurance to fly long distances. They have adapted so that they can save oil as food for their chicks. And they have developed a salt gland that assists them in getting rid of the salt from their high salt diet.

Most seabirds in the Antarctic eat small fish, crustaceans, squid, offal and carrion, and even other birds. Skua for example feed on penguins. They are not my favorite bird. Although penguins aren’t saints either. We saw one in South Africa getting pecked to almost death by another penguin. In generally seabirds enjoy long lives.

Anyway, there are two groups of seasbirds. The first is Pelagic. Those are the long distance fliers. Albatross fall into this category. The second group are the coastal birds. You can figure out which one those are :-). I believe sea gulls fit in this category.

Annik also talked more in-depth about the albatross and petrels. These are Pelagic are long-distance birds. They use dynamic soaring. Because of that, they don’t expend a great deal of energy. I was astonished at how far the albatrosses can fly.

The gray-headed albatross can fly up to 1900 miles away from its colony. They go on feeding trips that last anywhere from 14-24 days. Wow! These are trips they make while breeding which they do every two years. On the non-breeding years, these birds fly two circuits around Antarctica. That is 14,000 miles. This can take four to six months. The black-browed albatross which mates mainly in the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) has a wingspan of 7 ft. The wandering albatross has the largest wingspan of all the Antarctic birds. It’s wingspan is between 10 and 11 ft. The Southern Royal albatross breeds around New Zealand. They are almost as large as the wandering. They don’t have any black on their tail.

There is a great deal of variety in the size and shapes of petrels as well. When they are flying over the ocean, it is very difficult to estimate their size. The Wilson’s storm petrels are small, coming in at just 1.3 ft. They have a small wing span. The Cape petrels near Antarctica have a 3 ft. Wingspan whereas the giant petrel clocks in at 6 ft. The southern giant petrel has a green at the tip of its bill while the northern giant petrel has a red tip. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d be able to see it well enough to tell what color the tip of its bill was :-). And not all southern giant petrels in Antarctica are brown. Some are actually white.

Albatross and Petrels aren’t the only birds we could see as we travel to and spend time in the Antarctic region. We could also see sooty shearwaters, prions, and southern fulmars. I remember the prions and sooty shearwaters from last time. They are smaller birds.

The last bird Annik discussed was the ever-popular penguin :-). I had no clue there was actually 18 species of penguins. I knew there were a bunch but never the exact number. There are four species that live in Antarctica: Gentoo, Chinstrap (my favorite), Adélié, and Emperor. The first three are in the brush-tail category.

Penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere. They are one of the species of flightless birds. Their wings have evolved into flippers so they can “fly” through the water instead of the air. Their bodies are streamlined and well insulated with a layer of subdermal fat. Their dark plumage helps keep them warm. Their feathers have evolved into stiff, densely packed feathers that are waterproof. During molting season they can’t go out into the water because they are no longer waterproof. They would die if they did.

Most penguins form colonies. They stick together to protect themselves from predators such as skua. However, they are territorial. Woe be it to the penguin who stumbles into another penguin’s nest! It won’t be pretty. As cute as these birds are, they can be vicious as well.

Penguins molt and breed on land. However, they feed and live at sea. They eat krill, squid, and fish. They catch their prey by pursuit diving. They are capable of diving as deep as 1000 ft. but normally don’t. Their predators are giant petrels and skua when they are on the ice and the leopard seal in the water.

That wrapped up lecture session #1. We had three more to go. However, we had basically an hour before our Photography lecture so Doug and I grabbed our cameras and head to the Deck. We have a great outside deck about five steps from our door which is very convenient 🙂 The bow has a clear windbreak that keeps it from getting too windy. However, I can’t see through it all that well so I’m not fond of that spot even though that it is warmer. Once we found out that we could climb the stairs to Deck 7, I claimed that spot. Sure, it’s colder because there is no windbreak but I have an unobstructed view which is great. As of yet, there isn’t a great deal to see.

After checking out the view on 6, we headed down to Deck 5 where the expedition crew were. It’s nice to hang out with them because they can tell you what the birds are that you are seeing in. We spotted a couple of giant petrels drifting on the wind as well as a wandering albatross. That albatross followed us most of the day. To be honest, we didn’t see a whole of of different birds while we were outside. I swear last time we saw a bunch more. At least that is the way I remember it. It was slim pickings today. Of course Annik did say that birds need wind and we were having such a smooth sail that there wasn’t a great deal of wind. Thus few birds. And of course we didn’t see any marine mammals at all which was disappointing but not unexpected.

At 11 we sat in on Diego’s photography class. It was quite interesting and full of practical advice which I liked. He has gone to using his cell phone for a great deal of his photography. I was surprised by that. I think he does use his camera with the big lens though for those zoom situations. I also learned that when he isn’t out guiding, he runs a small publishing company. I thought that was interesting.

We wrapped up with Diego who I found out was on the ship with us last time. He was just an expedition crew member then. Now he is the head honcho of the expedition crew. I need to ask him how Iggy and Claudia are doing. They were the top two expedition people last time.

We only had a small amount of time before lunch so we trooped back out on the deck to see what we could. There was a whole lot of blue sky which was fabulous. It was a glorious day that made you want to spend as much of it outside as you could. We trooped back in for lunch and I was good and had a salad with a little bit of chicken. I did have a scoop of ice cream. I asked for chocolate but our servers brought me back strawberry as they didn’t have any chocolate. I’m not fond of strawberry but I ate some of it anyway as I didn’t want him to think that I was unappreciative. He thought he was doing a good thing.

Our next talk wasn’t until 2:30 and it was titled Antarctica 101. While we were waiting, we spent a good bit of time outside even though there never was a whole lot to see. You never knew when something interesting would pop up. I wore my fleece jacket everywhere. It has a worthless pocket on the sleeve that was perfect for my name tag so I didn’t have to wear it around my neck. I shoved the lanyard inside the tiny pocket and zipped it up with the tag hanging out. Perfecto! Since my distance vision isn’t the best, I put my sunglasses lanyard on my distance glasses and hung them around my neck along with my camcorder. My point and shoot went in my inside jacket pocket, my monocular in the right outer pocket, and my gloves in my left outer pocket. My face mask (we have to wear it in the lounge when the whole group is together) I kept in my right inside pocket. It took a bit to figure out this arrangement but it worked well. I’ll have to come up with a new one tomorrow when it’s colder and I have to start wearing the parka.

Lori’s talk on Antarctica was interesting. She is the assistant expedition leader. She covered a broad range of topics which was nice. She didn’t delve into the history of the continent too much. I’m sure that will be a topic for another day. She did tell us that people theorized that Antarctica was there well before it was ever seen. In fact, nobody glimpsed the white continent until 1820. By 1840 both coasts had been explored.

We learned some key differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic. Antarctica is a continent that is surrounded by ocean. It has no indigenous people. The Arctic, on the other hand, is water surrounded by land. It DOES have indigenous people. I had never thought about it but this is very true.

Antarctica is much larger than the U.S.. It holds over 70% of the world’s fresh water. What an amazing statistic. A wave of water here can circumnavigate the globe without touching land. Antarctica is also a climate driver because of the Antarctica circumpolar current. It transports 30% more water than people originally believed. In fact, it circulates 5 times more water than what flows on the Amazon River. Pretty incredible. We also learned than 98% percent of the land in Antarctica is covered with ice. Wow!

The continent was once a portion of Gondwanaland. Scientists have actually discovered fossils here. However, at this point in time, it only has two flowering plants. So we have to be very careful not to step on them when we explore the continent.

Antarctica holds several records. It has the highest average elevation. It is the windiest continent. Winds in Commonwealth Bay reach up to 150 mph. It is also the coldest continent (that one was a real shocker—not!). On the eastern side of Antarctica it has been known to reach -128 degrees. That’s cold by anybody’s standards. The east and west sides of the land mass have different climates. The west is the fastest warming region in the world. The Esperanza Station reached 68 degrees in 2020. That’s downright balmy! That temperature broke the record. Antarctica is also the driest continent and the iciest. In the east dome area the snow falls and never melts. Of course, the pressure of the snow over time turns the deep snow into ice. That’s how glaciers are born. Anyway, some of that snow is a few million years old. It just boggles the imagination.

There generally are no sharks in these waters. Unexpectedly they did find a colony of king crab which nobody believed were in these waters either. It was thought that the water was too cold for them. Because of the warming temperatures, the environment and creatures populating it are changing. The warming is also laying the ground for larger storms in the region.

We also got into a discussion about ice. There are two types: sea ice and glacier ice. Both are self-explanatory. Antarctica has both. In fact, when the sea water freezes during the winter, the sea ice that is created actually doubles the size of the continent.

Antarctica does have glaciers. They form as the snow creates the ice and then begins flowing down towards the sea in response to gravity. As it slides out into the water, it creates an ice shelf. The shelf can create ice bergs as well as glaciers when they calve. The largest is the Thwaites Glacier which is roughly the size of Great Britain. That’s pretty darn large!

The continent has 88+ scientific stations. Forty-six of these stations are permanent. The rest are temporary and used during the summer. The U.S. alone has three. The largest American station is McMurdo. Unlike last time, we won’t be able to visit a station or have any of their people come talk to us. They don’t want to risk being exposed to COVID. I don’t blame them.

The South Pole Station gets to hold a unique ceremony each year. There is a marker in the ice denoting the South Pole. However, the ice moves and the old marker is in the wrong location. To remedy this each year they make a new marker and ceremoniously put it in place. Each marker is different every year.

Stations aren’t the only places where research is conducted. The region also sees research ships as well as field camps. Frankly, I would prefer a ship to a field camp. These days they are even doing research from space using satellites. It’s amazing what they can do now. Using satellites, scientists found a new colony of emperor penguins located in an inaccessible location. They found it when they spotted a huge circle of penguins guano. Strange but true.

Even tourists can help do research these days.. They expect over 100,000 tourist to Antarctica who can help with the various efforts. Our ship is participating in the Happy Whale program as well as the eBird program. Lori didn’t really talk much about either one so other than sending in photos of whale flukes, I’m not sure what all our contributions are. I’m sure we will find out more as the days go by.

There are actually two Antarcticas. The first is the biological Antarctica. It’s the physical one. Once you cross the Antarctic Convergence, you are in Antarctica. You can only really tell when you’ve crossed the convergence when you chart it and see that you have crossed the 60 degree latitude mark.

The political Antarctica is more complicated. The continent is owned by absolute nobody. During the Cold War research on the continent was threatened by the hostilities between east and west. Finally in 1957-8 twelve governments stepped up and hammered out the Antarctic Treaty which was an unprecedented act of human cooperation. The treaty was created for the protection of the continent. It has 14 articles that try to guarantee that Antarctica will always be used for peaceful purposes. No military operations here. And there will be no territorial claims either. In fact, many countries had already laid claim to sections of the continent. All of those claims were frozen. Chile, Argentina, and Great Britain are three just to name a few that were on the peninsula. Since then they had added additional related agreements such as those dealing with flora and fauna, seals, tourism, etc. Currently concerned scientists are trying to establish marine protected areas. So far only two have been formed as all 12 of the treaty countries must agree. Never an easy proposition. But they are trying.

By the time Lori finished her lecture, my head was bursting with information. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fit in any more but at 4 we gave it a whirl with Lisa’s baleen whale talk. We had just learned that there were 89 species of cetaceans and that rorquals are whales with throat pleats, when there was a commotion on the far side of the lounge. Some people had spotted dolphins out of the window. Lisa looked out and reported that it was a very rare sighting of Southern Right Whale dolphins. Of course we all made a mad dash outside to see this rare sighting for ourselves. I saw squat all nothing. I was so bummed. Doug saw them though. His far vision is much better than mine even though I had my glasses on so my distance vision would be better. Liz didn’t see them either. I don’t know about Chris. He isn’t much into wildlife. Most people didn’t see them so I had a lot of company. What is interesting about these dolphins is that they don’t have a dorsal fin.

We all gave it the college try but eventually even I had to give up. We all made our way back inside to finish the lecture. Rorqual is Norwegian for pleat and the whales with baleen have huge pleats on their throats so they can expand it to accommodate the massive amounts of krill-laced water they gulp down when feeding. They can expand up to double their normal throat size. It’s incredible. They also have elastic nerve nets in their throat so when it expands, it doesn’t damage the nerves there.

These whales don’t have teeth but rather baleen which is made from keratin and hangs down from the roof of the whales mouth. Some whales have baleen that is only a few feet long while others have massively long baleen. An example would be the right whale which we saw in South Africa. Some of the largest whales known are baleen whales such as the blue whale. It’s heart is the size of a VW Bug. That is on the large side. They can get up to 100 ft. long. Lisa had two people take some rope and measured out 100 ft. The one person was way out of the room and almost out of reception. That’s how big the blue whale is. Of course the blue whale is rare these days. They have been hunted almost to extinction. Although many of the rorquals are huge, these whales cannot get any larger because their respiratory systems won’t support it. The blue whale is probably the maximum size that the lungs can support.

We even learned about whale poop in this lecture. I had no clue that krill were filled with iron. When the whales eat the krill, all of the excess iron is excreted out in their poop which is great for the environment. Basically they fertilize the area they poop in. Who knew?

Another head shaker is the whale uterus. It has two chambers. Nobody is really sure why. Twin births are rare so that isn’t it. If one chamber of the uterus is damaged, they cannot reproduce using the other chamber. So it is a mystery. The gestation period varies among species but in general it runs from 10-12 months. Whale fetuses, however, mature rapidly and gain weight quickly. They gain weight 20 times faster than chimps who apparently are fast developers as well. Whales are born tail first so they aren’t trying to gulp for air while waiting for the rest of them to pop out. Although they can swim from birth, the mother does help them up to the surface to take their first breath. The baby whales nurse for 6-12 months, also depending on the species.

Whales face many threats unfortunately. There is still whaling going on. Japan is one of the main culprits in this. Whales also get entangled in fishing lines which can end in their death. Ship strikes are another source of danger for the whales. Sometimes they are wounded while other ship strikes kill them. Somebody asked about the whales beaching themselves but I don’t believe they really know why they do that.

After this discussion, Lisa talked for a few minutes about some specific whale species. The fin whale is the largest we might actually see in the Antarctic waters. They are plentiful and are known as the “greyhound” of the sea. they are sleek and fast. They can swim from 23 mph up to 29 mph. They can dive down to 1500-1600 ft. Fin whales live to be around 90-100 years old which is incredible. They also have asymmetrical coloring. The right side of their jaw is white while the left side is darker. Interestingly enough, scientists can use their earwax to age them. Now I have heard of everything!

There are actually fin whale hybrids. A select few have mated with blue whales. Usually the mother is a blue whale and the father a fin whale. Right now they know of 8 hybrids for sure.

Humpback whales which most people are familiar with are half the size of a blue whale. They are the most common whale in Antarctica. The females are larger than the males. They average 45-50 ft. In length. When they dive, they stay down an average of 15 minutes although they are capable of staying down much longer. Their pectoral fin is the largest appendage of any know creature. It has tuberals with a hair in each tube. Their fluke is the same size as their pectoral fin. Scientists use the markings on their flukes to identify the whales. Humpbacks can dive down to the same depth as a blue whale. However, they can gulp down more water and krill than the blues because it takes less energy for them to do so. It takes a bucket load of energy for the blue whales to move their bulk around.

The Minke whales are the smallest of the rorquals. The female is larger than the male. They can hit speeds of 25 mph. They love ice so you generally find them around ice. They also have asymmetrical pigmentation like the fin whale. The one curious fact about them is their breath. They have the worst breath of all the roquals. They’ve even earned the nickname “Stinky Minke.” They can vocalize and make several different sounds. The best one is the one that sounds like a light saber.

This lecture was running late because of our interruption with the dolphins. When people started asking a myriad of questions, Doug lost patience and wanted to leave. I don’t think he had wanted to attend this lecture anyway. He only went because I told him I was going. Anyway, we headed back up to the room for a half hour before adjourning to the lounge for Cocktail Hour.

We had a nice time visiting with various people and sharing our experiences. There is an eclectic group of people on this trip. There are some characters :-). We had a pleasant time until we had to make our way down to the lounge for our daily debriefing. Diego kept it short and sweet. He summarized what we had done today which wasn’t much and then outlined the schedule for tomorrow.

From the debriefing we headed straight down to dinner. I went simple tonight and got steak. None of the other choices appealed to me. I think sometimes the chefs try to make the meals too fancy. I’m more of a plain food type of person. I did enjoy dinner though. My steak was perfect and it wasn’t too much. Dessert didn’t appeal either so I had cheese and crackers. That definitely filled me up.

It was after 9 PM before we headed back to the cabin. These late nights are a killer. I am so tired from not getting a full night’s sleep since we’ve been gone. I sleep really well, I just don’t get enough of it :-). Maybe tonight will be different.

Tomorrow we keep steaming through the Drake. So far it has been smooth sailing. The crew are all thrilled. Tonight around midnight we should cross the Antarctic Convergence and be officially in Antarctic waters. That will be exciting. In the morning we have our Antarctica briefing detailing what we can and cannot do in the region. That should be fun. Then we have our bio-decontamination party. This is where the crew makes sure all of our outer wear is free from any contaminates. They will vacuum your hats, gloves, etc. and pick the fibers out of your velcro. It’s fun😜. After that we are scheduled for lectures the rest of the day. However, having prior experience, I have a sneaking suspicion that tomorrow afternoon we will make our first landing. Fingers crossed!!!!!

Sunset on the Drake

DAY 5: TIERRA DEL FUEGO NATIONAL PARK & EMBARKING ON THE HEBRIDEAN SKY: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

What a day it has been today! We have accomplished Step 3 and are currently heading towards the Drake Passage. We should find out in the middle of the night if it will be the Drake Lake or the Drake Shake. The captain was noncommittal tonight when he talked with us although he did say it looked okay. I don’t blame him for hedging his bets 🙂

The day started out bright and early. The sun woke me up before my alarm. It was streaming full force through our window. When I turned to the other side, I caught the reflection in the mirrored doors of the closet full in the eyes. Whoever thought of mirrored doors should be shot! However, I wasn’t awake too long before the alarm went off and I did get to sleep a whole extra hour. Of course, I went to bed three hours later as well. No rest for the weary on our trips 🙂

We got up a bit after six and got dressed, finished packing our bags, and put them out. Then we headed up to the breakfast room. I have to say that it wasn’t the best buffet I’ve ever seen. I laughed when I saw the container that had the scrambled eggs. It was tiny. They were feeding 50 people breakfast. This thing held enough scrambled eggs maybe for three people. Not the best planning. I guess that guaranteed the eggs were always warm and fresh. Although once again I was disappointed with the lack of oatmeal, I figured it was okay. I’m sure the ship will have it—fingers crossed.

After breakfast I packed up the last of my electronics and we headed down to the lobby. Right on time we IDed our luggage and hopped onto the bus that was taking us to Tierra del Fuego National Park, the southern most national park in Argentina. The sky was blue and mostly cloud-free. It looked like a beautiful day to do some hiking in the park. And since it was with a group tour, we knew the hiking wouldn’t be too strenuous. It was a good trial run for walking and hiking on my foot without the boot although the best trial was the climb up the mountain in the rain forest in December!

As we drove through Ushuaia with Romina, she told us a bit more about her city. She is actually from Buenos Aires but living there she couldn’t earn enough money to ever be able to buy her own place. So she and her boy friend packed up and moved to Ushuaia. Here they worked and saved and were able to purchase their own apartment. This is why many people move here although they really have to enjoy the isolation and being in nature. It isn’t for everybody.

Ushuaia is actually on an island which is called Tierra del Fuego. If you don’t fly in, you have to take a ferry and it is a torturous route because of the border with Chile. The border here is very confusing. The two countries actually almost fought a war over the boundary. It took Pope John Paul to stop war from breaking out. Eventually it was decreed that the boundary would be the longitude marker. Land doesn’t follow imaginary lines so Argentine people have to go back and forth across the border with Chile to get to the island. Like I said, you really have to love it here to live here.

As we drove, Romina pointed out the wire containers in front of most buildings. These are trash receptacles. People put their garbage in this to keep the animals out of it. Good thing they don’t have raccoons because those clever critters would have them open in a second. The baskets are sufficient to keep everything else out of them.

The city has a small university here which many students attend. It is small though so it doesn’t cover all occupations. For some you have to go to the mainland to study. In many cases the students never come back. The government does try to encourage people to stay. There are many blocks of apartments they have built which we would probably consider low-income housing. The government uses this housing to encourage people to stay. The walls looked like they were constructed out of corrugated metal. It seems like that would be awfully cold in the winter but maybe they are insulated on the inside. At least it is decent looking housing.

Tierra del Fuego National Park was created in 1960. It is a deciduous forest of beech trees as well as evergreens. The forest is home to the red fox which we saw last time we were here. It also provides a habitat for the upland goose, various ducks, and a great deal of invasive species. At one time somebody thought it was a great idea to import rabbits here. You could eat them and use their fur. Unfortunately the people didn’t realize how rapidly they multiplied. They over-populated the area and made life difficult for the native animals. To remedy the situation, the government imported the red fox. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Instead of killing the rabbits, the fox started killing off the baby geese instead and decimating the upland goose population.

Beavers were another idea that went terribly wrong. We learned about this last year when we were in the Chilean fjords portion of Patagonia. They imported the beaver as a money-making project. Instead the beavers had no predators so their population grew out of control and they began killing of huge chunks of the forest. They were destroying the habit. Hunting really isn’t common here so getting the beaver population under control is an on-going issue.

One of the most interesting things I learned today that I hadn’t learned before was about Road 3 that we drove into the park on. It is the end of the Pan American Highway that starts up in Alaska. I had no clue. It’s a big deal to drive the entire thing. People do it in RVs, car, motorcycles, and even bicycles. We were actually going to see the very end of the road. I thought that was neat.

End of Route 3, the PanAmerican Highway

At the park entrance Romina purchased our tickets and stamped them and then we headed in to our hiking trail. We were actually doing a different trail than we had last time. I had enjoyed that one but I was happy to be seeing a new area of the park. It’s huge so it was nice to experience more of it. As we started walking we immediately came across examples of Old Man’s Beard and Indian Bread in a tree. Old Man’s Beard is a lichen that hangs down and really does look like a beard. You make a tea out of it to stop your diarrhea. The presence of Old Man’s Beard also is an indicator of pure air. The air must have been very pure here because the stuff was all over the trees.

Indian Bread is little whitish balls on tree limbs. The Yamana who were natives here, ate them for bread. It would take a lot of them to make up a slice of bread. They are small. The tree also had false mistletoe in it which is unlike mistletoe in that it is an epiphyte rather than a parasite like mistletoe. Some trees had huge knots on them. They had been invaded by a fungus and had grown this covering around it to protect themselves. We saw more of these knots last time we were here; however, the ones we saw today were huge.

We walked for quite a ways through the dense forest of thin trunks covered with moss. You had to watch where you walked because their roots broke up the surface of the path. Because their roots stay closer to the surface, these beech trees are very susceptible to strong winds. It doesn’t take much to topple them.

It wasn’t long before we emerged from the trees into a relatively clear area. In the background we could see Condor Mountain. It is the tallest point around. It is right on the boundary of Chile and Argentina. Obviously this clearing was popular with more than tourists because it was littered with horse manure. Their owners just let them run wild. We had seen many in the distance. Maybe they liked eating the calafate bushes. Even if they didn’t, there was plenty of greenery for them to munch on.

Condor Mt. Tierra del Fuego National Park

We continued on our way and saw a deposit of quartz made way back when by glaciers. Eventually we came out of the forest to a wooden platform looking out over Bahia Lapataia. Way in the back of the body of water, you could see the Beagle Channel. By now the sky had become overcast but that in no way detracted from the beauty of the location. The water was a lovely blue-green. The dark clouds contrasted with the pale blue sky and the brilliant green of the vegetation added lovely contrast. I stood at the railing and just drank it in. Mother Nature had done well here.

After getting our fill of the view, we marshaled on until we came out of the forest again and saw the sign announcing the end of Road 3, the Pan American Highway. There were several groups of tourists patiently waiting to get their photos taken with the sign. We joined the que. From this point it was 17848 km to Alaska. Can you imagine riding all that way on a bicycle?!

Since they had chemical toilets here, I availed myself of them. I didn’t want to wait for the “good” toilets at the information center. As far as this type of bathroom goes, it wasn’t bad. When you have to go, you really don’t care 🙂

Back down at the sign, I took picture of another sign off to the side. It said “Las Malvina son Argentinas.” Roughly translated, it says that the Malvinas will always be Argentina’s. Romina says this is posted at all major sites in the country so that nobody forgets about the young men who lost their lives in the war with Great Britain. To be honest, I don’t remember those signs last time.

Here we had an opportunity to hike farther if we wanted. I got distracted by a group of three horses down by the water we had seen from the platform. They were having a good time. The upland geese nearby didn’t seem bothered by them. Down the plank walkway, I enjoyed the close-up view of Lapataia (this means bay of good forest). Aia always translates to bay.

We had one last short hike to make to round out our time in the park before heading back to Ushuaia. Our goal this time was to reach Lago Acicami which was a beautiful lake. To reach it we hiked passed an abandoned coffee shop as well as a series of buildings. In front of the building were miscellaneous sawed chunks of wood. Romina explained that this area had been closed to camping because it was currently considered dangerous. The trees in this area were prone to falling if the winds really started blowing. All of the hewed logs were from fallen trees. It’s up to the park rangers to decide the danger zones as well as what to do with the fallen trees.

We passed several bushes with berries on them. I’m not sure what the one with the tiny pinkish purple berries were but the one with the blue berry-looking berries was calafate! Pablo was surprised that we found a bush with calafate berries on it because this isn’t the correct time of year for them. So that was a nice surprise.

The lake itself was white-capped from the wind that was now blowing. I was glad I had on two jackets and was wishing I had put on my fleece jacket along with my rain coat. It was chilly. However, the wind and cool temperature didn’t stop me from enjoying the beauty in front of me. I stood there and breathed it all in. Pablo had reminded us earlier to periodically put away the camera and just be sit and enjoy your surroundings. He had us do just that on our first hike. Here I closed my eyes and listened to the wind blow and the wind-driven waves slapping the beach. I felt the blasts of cold air on my cheeks and reveled in drawing the crystal clear air deep into my lungs. Time stood still and I just absorbed it all through every pore in my body.

I felt rejuvenated as we made our way to the Information Center/Coffee Shop/Gift Shop. I walked through the displays about the area and made use of the facilities. In the gift shop we purchased a magnet that would remind us of the Pan American Highway. I still think that is neat. Then it was time to load up the bus and make our way back to Ushuaia. We had a BBQ lunch we needed to get to.

Lunch ended up being right across the street from the port which was disappointing. Last time it was in the country. While we were eating, a red fox came up on the deck of the restaurant. That wasn’t going to happen here in the middle of the city.

The food was good at this place but it wasn’t very atmospheric. All 95 travelers plus the trip leaders were eating here at the same time. You can imagine how noisy it was and how slow the service was. The servers were working hard; they just were trying to take care of too many people. None of it was their fault.

The meal started with a large empanada. It was fine but I preferred the one we had had at the Welcome Dinner. That one had been a taste treat. This one was just okay. Then came the parade of side dishes. We had steak fries, lettuce and avocado salad, and tomatoes. The piece de resistance was the platter of barbecued meats. The meat with bone was lamb; the meat without bone was beef. I’m not sure what the sausage was. Although the beef tasted different from what I’m use to, it was quite good and very tender. I ate more of it than I probably should have. For dessert we got to enjoy calafate ice cream. It was good but I think I prefer my calafate in calafate sours 🙂

We had a bit over an hour after lunch before we had to be back on the bus. Doug and I walked over to the area next to the port and took our photo with the Ushuaia sign that we had posed by eight years ago. By then it was starting to rain so we huddled behind some shelter and waited until it calmed down before hiking up a portion of San Martin Ave. We checked out a few stores and then walked back to the dock area. By the time we arrived at our starting point, the rain was threatening again so we made for the bus where we waited out the remainder of our allotted time. We weren’t the only ones waiting. There were several who had beaten us there.

I could feel my excitement building as my watch edged closer and closer to the magic hour of 3:30 PM. I was thrilled when Pablo jumped on the bus and announced it was time for us to board. We were the third group to do so which is why we had to wait for a bit longer. We made the short bus ride to the dock area in front of the ship and then bade Marcos our bus driver a fond farewell. Then we hustled ourselves onboard.

Boarding was smooth and easy. We walked in and they immediately asked us our cabin number. We told them “602” and a young man escorted us to our room. I have to report that somehow, we have ended up in the Owner’s Suite. Actually we had known that for quite a while. OAT had sent an email saying that we wouldn’t be on the Corinthian but rather on the Hebridean Sky and in the Owner’s Suite. When I saw our suite, I knew there would be no take-backs. I wasn’t giving this room up for anything. It literally is a suite. We have a nice size living space and then a separate sleeping area. There are no true solid walls separating them but it feels separate. We also have a large balcony which I hope we can make good use of.

We didn’t have a great deal of time before our 4 PM emergency drill. We got some unpacking done but then had to dash down to Deck 4 with our orange life vests. There we learned how to correctly put them on as well as watch a demonstration on how to get into the immersion suit. They didn’t tell us when we might have to do that

After the drill I finished unpacking. At 5 we had a meeting with the trip leaders and expedition crew in the Lounge on Deck 3. The two groups introduced themselves to us all and Diego who is the head of the Expedition Team, gave us some information about our expeditions. Lastly Neil who is the liaison between the ship company and OAT talked to us about WiFi and general ship matters. He was pretty funny. By the time he had finished, I could feel the engines running beneath us. We were fixing to motor out into the Beagle Channel.

Before we went out to watch the ship sail away from Ushuaia, I grabbed my fleece and my camcorder. We checked out the view from the observation area on our deck and then headed down to Deck 5 where everybody else was. As I looked behind us, Ushuaia was beginning to grow smaller and smaller. Clouds had entirely covered up the mountains. I could tell they were in for some wet weather. I was glad we were heading out.

Steaming away from Ushuaia

When we found out it was Open Bar, we immediately went down to the bar to see what all they had stocked. I was disappointed they they didn’t have calafate sours. I had been looking forward to drinking one. Instead I went with an Irish coffee. After standing outside in the cold, that just sounded good. Normally only the house wine and beer are free. However, they do have occasions when everything is and today was one of those occasions. I couldn’t believe their house beer was Corona. I have nothing against it but I figured it would be something local like Quilmes. Oh, well….

While Doug was busy talking, I went to Reception and got our WiFi vouchers and took care of some odds and ends. By the time I finished, it was time for the Captain’s cocktail party. I made my way down to Deck 3 which is where we all gathered. Along with champagne, they served appetizers. I ate a small spring roll and a tiny cucumbers thing. I didn’t want to fill up before dinner. The captain talked with us for a few minutes then the heads of the departments came out. It is an eclectic crew which is nice.

The party ran until dinner time so we went straight from the lounge to dinner, our first on the Hebridean Sky. We picked a table back in the far corner and made ourselves comfy. We had ordered our meal when a lady from our Green group was seated at the table next to us. She was all alone so we invited her to join us. That was easier said than done. The tables and chairs were all bolted down in preparation for the Drake Passage. They had to undo two chairs in order to make it possible for her to join our table. We finally got it situated. Thank you, Edwin!

Dinner was good. We had some kind of sushi thing to kick off our palette. I skipped the appetizer and just got the broccoli soup and the linguine pasta with shrimp. I didn’t want to stuff myself silly. The soup was just okay but the pasta was excellent. I could have scarfed it all down but I tried to be good. I wasn’t crazy about the crust part of my dark chocolate tart. but the filling was excellent. I controlled myself and only ate a small portion of it.

Conversation with dinner was entertaining. We quizzed our new dining guest. I knew she was in our group but I hadn’t spent any time with her. She was quite nice and the meal was enjoyable. It was a nice way to end our first day on the ship.

Back in the cabin we had to Drake-proof the room. You don’t want things left loose as they could quickly become missiles. We shoved most things into drawers. I still need to figure out where to put my phone as it also serves as my alarm clock.

Our true first day onboard is really tomorrow. We will be sailing all day into the Drake. Omens looks good for a smooth passage. Our day will be far from boring as the expedition team will be educating us through a series of lectures. I’m sure we will also spend a good bit of time outside trying not to miss those fabulous wildlife sightings.

DAY 4: FLYING TO USHUAIA, ARGENTINA: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

Today we began Step 2 of our Antarctic Circle romp. We got up at the fanny crack of before dawn so we could fly down to the end of the world—Ushuaia, Argentina. The Argentines like to call it the “City at the End of the World.” And it was for a long time. However, Chile was not about to let Argentina outdo them so they built Port William which is the southern most place. Our local guide said that Port William was a town, therefore Ushuaia still holds the title as southern most “city.” Splitting hairs, I know, but the two countries are quite competitive.

Anyway, we got up a little past 5 AM because we had to have our luggage out and ready to go a few minutes before 6 AM. Plus if we wanted coffee or tea, we had to be at the breakfast room at 6 so we could get some. Breakfast didn’t start until 6:30 but they were providing hot beverages and pastries for us. At 6:30 we were loading up the bus and leaving for the domestic airport.

We did quite well in getting everything accomplished and the suitcases out before the deadline. While I was double-checking the room, Doug went ahead to get coffee. I finished checking things and packing up the rest of my electronics and met him there. It was WAY too early to eat anything but I did make myself a fake latte (a little bit of coffee with a lot of warm milk). I needed the caffeine!

Downstairs we made sure our bags were identified and with our group—the Green Group. We didn’t want it accidentally on the wrong bus. We also had green tags on our bags but it never hurts to double-check. Then we loaded up the bus for the fifteen minute ride to the airport.

Things slowed down quite a bit there. The airlines we were flying on was Aerolineas Argentinas. The weight limit for their flights is 15 kilos or 33 pounds. We knew before we left home that we were over that. Winter clothes are just heavy. However, OAT knows that so they reached an agreement with the airlines that they would pay overages up to 50 pounds. So we knew we were okay. As Doug and I went to check in, I told Pablo that we would both be over. I was correct. I weighed in at 18.5 kilos and Doug at 19.5 (he had my parka as well as his own in his suitcase). Because we were over, we couldn’t get our boarding passes until Pablo paid.

Thus began the long wait. Doug and I were by far not the only ones overweight. Most in the group were. Liz and Chris just made the 15 kilos so they scooted on through security and went to the gate. Pablo couldn’t pay until everybody had checked in which took time. Then there was a long line of other people paying. Once he reached the window, he had to pay for probably 20 people and get their boarding passes. It took time.

There was a silver lining to the wait though. We ran into a couple who we had done Australia and New Zealand with! We hadn’t seen them since them. They were in the red group which had been staying at a different hotel in BA. It was so great to see them. Sue and Bob were such fun to travel with. I was thrilled that we could share this adventure with them as well. It was a lovely piece of serendipity 🙂

Eventually Pablo got all of our boarding passes and we made our way through security which was no problem. We found the gate but didn’t have long to wait at all. In fact, we barely had sat down before we had to start lining up. I didn’t even make it to the toilet before boarding. I had forgotten how military the ladies are at lining up people to board here in Buenos Aires. They lined us up by our zones and woe to the person in the wrong zone! I’m not sure why they went to all of that trouble though because we all ended up on buses going out to the plane. You just have to smile and shake your head.

We got onboard which is the important thing and had room for our carryon in the overhead bins. It was a full plane. You can’t begin to imagine how many people are here to do Antarctic expeditions. We saw scads of people doing Viking. I am still gob-smacked at the amount of people. It wasn’t like this eight years ago.

The flight to Ushuaia was a little over three hours. I put it to good use by getting caught up on yesterday’s blog posting. By the time I could start working on it last night, it was late. I started falling asleep after about an hour so I called it quits and went to bed. I was glad I had the time today to try to finish it although I’m not overly fond of doing that much typing on my iPhone. It took most of the flight to get it all written. I had to stop a few times because my hands started cramping up. I got it written though so I felt good about that.

We flew a different route this trip. Last time I could swear we made a quick stop in El Calafate. This time we didn’t even fly over it. Doug had planned on looking for Silvia’s “green, green grass.” She was the trip leader on our last Antarctica trip and she had just built a house in El Calafate and planted grass. She was so proud. We actually saw her last year when we spent a couple of nights in El Calafate on the Patagonia trip. She met us at the hotel which was so sweet. I always loved her💖

It was a bit of a mad scrambled once we deplaned. We rushed down to the baggage claim area. Pablo thought this was where the COVID testing person was going to meet us. It took a few minutes but Pablo found him. Doug had gone into the toilet and Liz hadn’t gotten down there from the plane yet so I was first up. The man was very gentle but boy, did he put that thing WAY up there. As Doug said after his turn, “I think he got some brain cells with that one.” My eyes were watering by the time he finished.

The good thing was we didn’t hold anybody up. The test was fast. We were done before the luggage had even started coming out. Doug got our bags while I stood in line for the toilet. I had waited until after I had done my PCR test 🙂

Baggage all claimed, we met Romina who is our local guide and she took us to our bus. While we waited on the rest of our group and Pablo, most of us kept busy snapping pictures of the beautiful Andes Mountains. This is the tail end of them here in Ushuaia. This is their southern most point and where they are the shortest.

First view of Andes from airport in Ushuaia

Once we were all on the bus, we headed to our hotel for tonight—the Alto Andino. It was just a couple of streets off of the main drag and within easy walking distance of the downtown area. We dumped off our luggage and carryon’s and then were free to do whatever we wanted until our meeting at 4 PM. Since we couldn’t get into our rooms until around 2 PM (it was almost 1 by now), we decided to walk down to the Hard Rock Cafe (it wasn’t here last time) and enjoy a beer and a snack. Then we would just wander and do whatever.

We found it easily enough walking and went right in. It wasn’t crowded at all. In fact, it was pretty empty. We seated ourselves and then the fun began. As many restaurants have done because of COVID, they have gone to their menus being available through QR codes. No problem except you have to have cellular or WiFi. Hard Rock always has free WiFi but you have to get the password which isn’t with the QR code. As a result you have to rustle somebody up to ask them what it is. We all got connected and then tried the QR code. Fiasco! The lighting was poor so it was difficult to get the camera to cooperate. Then when we finally did, the website didn’t want to load. When we finally got it to load, it was all in Spanish. She hadn’t give us the one in English. Oy vey! Now neither Doug nor Chris are ever very patient with this type of thing. I thought they were both going to blow a fuse. Doug was threatening to walk out. Chris kept telling the poor server that they ought to have at least some printed menus…..It was not fun. Eventually we managed to order our beer and a snack. I’m not sure what beer it was, I just know Doug, Liz, and I got the red. I believe Chris got the blond. To make matters worse, when Chris ordered chicken wings, she told him they didn’t have any. Oh, boy! That didn’t go over well after the menu ordeal. He finally ordered nachos like Doug and I were sharing.

After all of that, things settled down. Thank goodness! We chitchatted while snacking and enjoying the brew. After we finished eating and drinking, I bought a T-shirt and then we headed out. Liz was on a mission to find an Antarctica T-shirt for a friend. The kicker was that it needed to be a 3X. We hit several places but they either didn’t have Antarctica shirt or no 3 Xs. She found one but wasn’t sure about the size. We decided to check another store when we realized that it was 3:30 and we needed to head back to the hotel for our 4 PM meeting with Pablo. Plus we still needed to check in and unpack.

View from our room in Ushuaia

It was uphill getting back to the Alto Andino. I got a bit of a workout which was good. We got checked in and Pablo told us the gentleman was there to collect the money for our PCR test. It was all locked in Doug’s suitcase. However, when we got in the room, his suitcase and carryon weren’t there. Mine was but not his. So while he went on a search mission, I tried to unpack a little bit. He was back faster than I expected as it had all been next door. He paid while I headed up to the fourth floor for our Antarctic meeting.

There was a fabulous view from the breakfast room where we were meeting. You could see the Beagle Channel and the plethora of ships in the harbor. The mountains made a perfect backdrop. We had a similar view from our room. Absolutely gorgeous! I sat with my back to the window so I wouldn’t be distracted from the meeting by the view. Pablo went over our schedule for tomorrow and then a few things about our time on the ship. He told us this was our last opportunity if we didn’t have waterproof pants. They were an absolute must and this was the last chance to get them if we didn’t already have them. He made me paranoid. I was almost 100% sure I had packed them but he put doubt in my mind. I knew it was going to bother me until I checked (I did when we got back to the room after the meeting. They were there). He also answered any questions people had. I was surprised that we didn’t get our boots. Last time we got them before we boarded. Pablo said they would be in our cabin when we got on board. Things change.

After the meeting we had a panoramic city tour via bus with our local guide Romina. I’m not sure what was going on but we had to wait 15 minutes for one of the couples. I just hope this was a one-off and they don’t make a habit of it. Anyway, as soon as they climbed on, we were off. Romina had told us a bit about San Martin Avenue which is the main street. San Martin was the hero of Argentina. I’m sure his name is found everywhere. We went the other direction on San Martin this afternoon. She pointed out the Beagle Channel and the old casino shaped like a whale’s tail. We drove by the old cemetery that use to mark the edge of the city and then the military (naval) housing just passed the cemetery.

I was a bit surprised that she didn’t say anything about the history of Ushuaia. It started out as a penal colony for Argentina. Buenos Aires sent their worst prisoners here. During the day the prisoners were sent out into the forest in Tierra del Fuego to chop trees for wood. A railroad was built in 1910 to haul the convicts to the forest area and haul them and the logs back. It became the southernmost railway in the world.

There was also a military prison in the area which was moved to Ushuaia. Argentina had planned on building an entire penal colony but it never came to fruition. In 1911, the military prison and the jail merged. In 1947 the President ordered the jail closed. The buildings were transferred over to the Navy which eventually turned it into five museums.

Pablo touched on this history a bit but Romina didn’t say anything about it. I’m just sorry we aren’t going to get to see the prison museum like we did last time. It was very interesting and well worth the time. I don’t know if they just don’t do it anymore or it the air schedules make it impossible. I’ll have to ask.

Romina did give us current information. The population of the city is 80,000+. It was 65,000 eight years ago so it has grown quite a bit. She said that many people in Buenos Aires move here because they get tired of the rat race of the city. They want to enjoy a more relax lifestyle. I can’t say that I blame them although this place now gets inundated during the season with cruise ships. They even get those big 3,000 passenger cruise ships. Can you imagine what Ushuaia is like when three of them are in port along with the passengers of the expedition ships? Yuck!

Ushuaia is also the capital of the Malvinas. You may or may not have heard of the Malvinas. Or you may know them as the Falkland Islands. You know, those islands that the British fought the Argentine people for back in 1982. The people here are still unhappy about that war. In some ways, I can’t blame them. The islands belonged to Argentina since 1803. Then in 1833 the British moved into the island and kicked the Argentine people out. They held the islands ever since. Frankly, I don’t know why anybody would want them. The weather is terrible. Life there is just plain hard. What is to fight over? Despite the fact that Great Britain won the war in just over 70 days, the Argentine still consider the islands theirs.

Other facts we learned as we drove are:

—68 degrees is considered a very warm day here

—the weather changes CONSTANTLY. I can personally vouch for that one. We had overcast skies, sunshine, rain, hot, and cold, and windy. In fact the wind blew so hard at one point it blew water from the Beagle Chanel on us! Then it went back to being beautiful. It is no exaggeration when they say they can experience all four seasons in one day. The longest day sees the sun rise at 5 AM and set at midnight. The shortest day starts with sunrise at 10 AM and the sun sets at 5 PM.

—People here are called Fueginos, not Argentinians. Why? This area is known as Tierra del Fuego. Because of that, they prefer to be known as Fueginos. This area was actually named by Magellan in 1520 who looked out and saw all of the smoke when he sailed here. He thought the land was burning so he named it “Land of Smoke.” It was later changed to “Land of Fire.” He didn’t realize that the smoke was from the fires the indigenous people had burning.

—The city had both a hospital and a clinic. Unfortunately they don’t have enough doctors. The city does offer incentives to doctors, dentists, and other professionals to come work here. The government provides a car, housing, tax incentives, etc. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I wonder if they need any librarians 🙂

—Gas is used for heating the homes. Most do not have A/Cs as it doesn’t get hot enough here. The gas is subsidized by the government so people can afford to heat their homes.

Our first stop on our panoramic tour was the old airport. Apparently it was constructed with a short runway that ran north/south. That made takeoffs and landings quite difficult. As a result, there were many airplane accidents. In 1997 they built a new airport with a much longer runway that goes east/west making it much safer.

I have to say that the location of the old airport was very scenic. You had great views of the Andes as well as the Beagle Channel. Boats bobbed in the blue waters. Further out we saw way too many ships. Viking alone had two ships here. The Hebridean Sky wasn’t one of them, however. Pablo told us she was due in in about three hours. They must have made good time on the Drake.

We enjoyed the views and huddled together for a group photo with the mountains in the background. By now the sun had disappeared and we were starting to enjoy fall/winter weather. The wind was blowing water on us and it was starting to rain as well. I was glad I had brought my raincoat with me. I quickly put it on and covered up my camcorder with it. Off in the distance we could see a faint rainbow rising up out of the mountains. Despite the less than great weather, I had to smile. I was in Ushuaia!

View of Ushuaia from old airport

Once the weather turned, we didn’t dwaddle. We had had our fill of the view of the mountains, Beagle, and Ushuaia. It was time to get back on the bus. We drove for a bit before making another photo stop at an enclosed bay. A gaggle of geese were happily paddling around on the bay. It couldn’t have been totally enclosed because it looked like the tide was out. The water seemed low.

We had one more stop before finishing up the tour and returning to the hotel. This was a multi-purpose stop. First we took photos at the Ushuaia sign with the Beagle in the background. Doug and I got our picture and then we got one with Chris and Liz as well. I managed to snag a picture of it just plain between people. After making this tourist stop, Romina walked us over to the Falkland War memorial.

She probably wasn’t even born then but she was quite passionate about the war and the young men who died. I believe she said 649 young men perished. Many of them came from up north around the border with Brazil. Those poor kids were ill-equipped to deal with the harsh conditions on the Falklands. The boys were use to heat and humidity. They were sent by Pinochet who was the dictator controlling Argentina at that time, to fight the British. It was winter time. They were poorly equipped and supplied. It was a recipe for failure. All of those lives lost because of one dictator’s pride. I mean really, what rational person starts a fight with a super power like Britain and expects to get anything except thoroughly trounced? It was a terribly sad situation.

Malvinas War Memorial

The memorial was very nice. An outline of the Malvinas Islands was cut all the way through a rock slab. You could see the blue sky through the islands. Beneath it said “We will be back.” I liked it. Off to the right side of the memorial was the eternal flame in front of a wall covered with the names of the soldiers lost in the war. It was very well done.

The memorial wrapped up our city tour. By now it was well after six. Some people got dropped off on San Martin Avenue but we chose to go back to the hotel. Both Doug and I wanted to dump our backpacks before going to dinner. Plus I had drank a good deal of water during our meeting. I needed a toilet in the worst way.

As we drove to the hotel we decided to just have dinner at the Irish Pub we had walked by on our way to the downtown area. It was close to the hotel and would be easy to do. Both Chris and Liz were agreeable. We agreed to meet in the lobby in ten minutes. Obviously there was a bit of miscommunication because Chris didn’t show up. He had mentioned something about king crab so Doug figured he had decided to eat somewhere else so he could have the crab. We waited a few more minutes and then made our way to the pub. We invited one of the solo ladies in our group to join us. It had been her room where Doug found his suitcase.

We found an empty table for four at the pub and ordered beer. They didn’t have Guinness but they had a porter which was good. We had just ordered our food when Chris came in. He had waited for us until 7:30 in the lobby. Oops! He wasn’t a happy camper. We HAD waited an extra bit of time for him. I’m not sure why we missed him. Anyway, it was done and there was nothing we could do about it. Karma gave him his food first. We got our pizza last 🙂

The pub wasn’t the best place I’ve eaten nor the worst. We had the Popeye pizza which had tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, green olives, and spinach. It wasn’t half bad after I ditched the cold olives :-). Since three of us were sharing it, none of us made a pig of ourselves.

After dinner Chris and Misty went back to the hotel while we went with Liz in her quest to find the shirt for her friend. As luck would have it, we walked into a store that looked like a liquor store and right off the bat Liz found a good shirt for her friend. It was the right size and was an Antarctica shirt. Just for grins and chuckles, I looked for a coffee mug. I got one last time but it was way too small. I couldn’t find anything else then so I got it. However, tonight I found a good mug which is the perfect size. It’s simple but it has the land mass of Antarctica on it. I grabbed it right up. Now I have to figure out how to fit it in my suitcase 🙂

To celebrate our success, the three of us enjoyed some dulce de leche ice cream from Freddo’s. It is suppose to have some of the best ice cream. I got the dulce de leche with chocolate chips. I believe it’s called dulce de leche granizado. This was so much creamier and better than what we had yesterday. It was really rich though and filled me up fast.

We were eating it as we trekked back to the hotel. By now it had started raining a bit again and the wind was back to blowing. Typical Ushuaia weather. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow is a good day weather-wise since we will be out hiking in Tierra del Fuego National Park. Then tomorrow afternoon we board the ship!!!!! Antarctica, here I come!

DAY 3: COLONIA, URUGUAY: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

FYI: Since the WiFi here at the bottom of the world is poor, I will upload when I can but without photos. I’ll go back and add in pictures when we have reliable WiFi 🙂

Step 1 accomplished in my mission to return to Antarctica. Tomorrow we begin Step 2 with our trek to the domestic airport here in Buenos Aires at 6:30 AM. I do have to admit that we had a great Step 1. Hopefully the rest of our group enjoyed their BA city tour as much as we enjoyed our jaunt over to the the city of Sacramento in the state of Colonia in the country of Uruguay.

Our day started way too early. I was still tired from our flight over but we were up and at ‘em by 5:45 AM. By 6:30 we were at the breakfast room waiting for them to open the doors. Breakfast wasn’t bad but no great shakes either. I was disappointed that there was no oatmeal but you learn to be flexible in foreign countries :-). I went heavy on the fruit instead. After breakfast we made our way down to the lobby just as our van pulled up.

There were already four people onboard when we climbed in. Two were from Australia here in South America to attend a wedding in Brazil. Their plans had shifted considerably with the closing of Peru. I felt their pain. The other two were a father and son visiting here from Peru. They spoke little English so we couldn’t grill them on what was going on in their country.

Our tour facilitator got us to the ferry terminal and in all of the correct lines. I can freely say that I stood in more and longer lines today than I have since my last trip to Disney World and that was many moons ago. We had to stand in line to show our passport to get our ticket. Then we had to stand in another long line to go through Argentinian Passport Control. The next line was for Uruguay Immigration. That was the shortest line. Finally, we had to stand in a very long line to board the ferry. No wonder we had to get there an hour before the ferry was scheduled to depart. We found out later that this particular ferry makes the trip to Colonia and back again six times. The trip over takes an hour. It makes a very long day for the crew.

On the ship they were quite organized. There was no outdoor seating so we hunted inside until we found three seats next to each other. I soon figured out why nobody else was sitting in them. They were directly beneath an A/C vent. It got a bit chilly. It didn’t bother me on the ride over though. It didn’t feel too cold. Plus I needed to absorb all of the cool air I could as the temperature in Colonia was suppose to be 99 today.

The trip across to Uruguay was uneventful. We sat and chatted and got caught up with lives and talked about plans for future travel. We are hoping to do three trips together with Liz next year. Although we hadn’t seen her since last year, it felt like no time had passed at all. It’s nice when you find those people who you just immediately click with.

Once we docked in Uruguay, we still had some boxes to tick before leaving the terminal. However, it was a breeze. We merely had to put all of our purses, backpacks, etc. through the x-ray, not that they paid any attention to the x-ray at all. Then we had to meet up with our guide. That was easy as well as Alex was standing with a sign containing our names. Once we were all gathered up, she began our tour.

Now I have to confess that this morning I seemed to be having intestinal difficulties. It must have been something I had eaten but it was making for an unpleasant morning. I was nervous about getting too far from a toilet. Fortunately by the time we disembarked the ferry, the problem had calmed down somewhat but I was still concerned that I would feel the need and not be able to get to a toilet on time. The fun aspect of traveling :-). I did make it through our entire excursion with only one dash to the toilet so all’s well that ends well 🙂

As we wandered down the street towards the town, we learned that Colonia is a state and that the actual town is Sacramento. It has a whopping population of 28,000 people and was originally settled by the Portuguese back in the 1500s. The country is actually quite small with a population of 3.4 million people. That’s smaller than many of our cities. It is the smallest country in South America but it is the richest. The capital is Montevideo which has a million and a half people. It is the largest city in the country. Most of the population is situated on the coast.

It was quite interesting to hear Alex talk about her country. According to her it has absolutely no natural resources. It has no native flora. There were no true indigenous populations. The people who lived here in pre-colonial times were nomads and simply moving through the country. It sounded like Uruguay was a whole lot of nothing before being colonized by the Portuguese first and then the Spanish.

Uruguay continues to be a sleepy little country. We saw maybe five cars on any of the streets actually moving. Most of the people we saw were tourists like us. I have to say, it was a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of all of the places we have traveled to lately.

Because the country has very little, they must import everything except food. Agriculture is their main source of income. Cattle is their number one source of income followed by soy beans. They also raise two breeds of sheep (merino was one but I didn’t catch the other one). They also raise pigs and grow a variety of crops.

Banking is big business here also. Because Uruguay is financially stable and neighboring Argentina is not, many Argentines bank their dollars here. This way they avoid taxes. Not for nothing is Uruguay known as the Switzerland of South America.

About 60% of the people living here own their homes. The government has a program helping this happen. If you chose one of the four small government floor plans, you don’t have to pay property taxes for the next ten years. The downside of that is the homes are very small, averaging 600 square feet, and have only one bathroom. It seems to work for them though.

Due to free medical, no income tax, and a decent climate, Uruguay has a strong ex-pat community. In fact 30% of the population is retirees. It is one of the top ten best places to retire. Something to think about 🙂

Along with free healthcare (they do have private facilities as well) they provide free education. Primary school is mandatory but high school is not. Sadly only 50% actually graduate high school. School only lasts four hours a day. This way they can use the buildings twice a day. However, since their time with the students is restricted, they have to be picky about what they teach. For example, there is no time to teach a foreign language like English. Alex did say that they have the best education in South America.

How does the government pay for healthcare, education, home assistance, etc.? High taxes. They have a very high sales tax as well as a VAT. Import taxes are excruciatingly high. The tax burden is considerable. On the flip side, most people don’t have a mortgage and own their car so they only have to pay for food and taxes. They have no major debt.

One issue that concerns the country is the lack of population growth. People here average a bit over one child per family. As a result, they are welcoming immigrants with wide open arms. Move to Uruguay and two weeks later you have your official papers. There is one exception and that is Muslims. They allowed seven families into the country and after that the government said no more because here women and children have rights. Something obviously happened but it will remain a mystery.

It was interesting to learn that 50% of the country’s population is of Italian descent. They love their pasta here. For breakfast they drink Yerba mate which is a hugely popular drink in South America. Just about everybody drinks it. Mate is kind of like tea in that it is brewed from Yerba mate leaves placed in the bottom of a gourd cup. Hot water is poured over the leaves to make the drink. They use a metal straw with a filter built into one end to drink it. It’s a communal drink that they share among friends and family. You take a drink and then pass it to somebody else. Of course during COVID everybody had to use their own cup and straw.

So mate is breakfast. At lunch they have a decent sized meal consisting of beef and potatoes or pasta. Around six PM they drink mate and have a snack. Dinner comes around ten PM and once again they have beef, potatoes, and or pasta. I can only imagine what their cholesterol levels are. Actually Alex said that her husband had high cholesterol so he has cut back to beef only once a day🤪

Uruguay is a very progressive country. Their energy is almost 100% green. Gay marriage has been legal for over 15 years. Women have had the vote since 1927. It is also the only country in South America where marijuana is legal. Prostitution is also legal. The “workers” are required to get monthly medical checks. They even have a union! During COVID they received financial aid from the government because they couldn’t work.

As we walked and listened to Alex, we passed an old railroad turn table. It one one of the few remains of the railroad that no longer exists. There just wasn’t a large enough population in the country to sustain it. I believe it ran from 1904 until some time in the 80s. Now the train station is a hospitality school as tourism is big business for Sacramento. These days to travel to other parts of the country you either have to drive or take the bus. I believe she said it was a two hour drive to the capital.

We also stopped under a blooming tree whose name I have forgotten and watched the tiny hummingbirds flitting around. They are always fascinating to watch. We did that while Alex made explanations to our Peru duo in Spanish. She kept busy saying everything in two languages.

To get to the original portion of the city we walked passed streets lined with tall trees. They were London Plane trees which we know as sycamore trees. They made beautiful shade in these residential areas. They were also quite picturesque. Everybody had to stop and snap a picture.

Residential street in Colonia, Uruguay

Slowly we made our way to the gate of the old city. We stood outside of them as Alex gave us a down and dirty history lesson. First though I had to dash to the toilet. The first stall I went into didn’t have toilet paper. Not a good thing for somebody with my issue! I always carry toilet paper but not enough for that! Fortunately the second stall I tried had an entire roll. Whew! Better yet, this was the last time I had to dash to the toilet. I had a few twinges off and on but managed to control it. Thank goodness! Whatever it was had worked its way out of my system.

Anyway, at the gate Alex explained that the Portuguese settled here first. Sacramento is actually the oldest Portuguese settlement in the country. Along with colonizing, the Portuguese also brought slavery to the region. Then the Spanish came and destroyed the town before leaving the area. They abandoned Uruguay because there was no silver or gold to be found there. Eventually they colonized the area that is now the capital of Uruguay. So the Portuguese came back and this time built a walled city that they could defend.

Gate into the old portion of the city of Colonia

In 1584 the Spanish came back to Uruguay. They were exploring along the Rio de Plata looking for El Dorado and needed spots along the river to defend their territory from other colonizing countries. Four times the Spanish attacked the country. The Portuguese managed to repel them. However, the Queen of Portugal was having problems so she eventually signed a treaty giving Uruguay to the Spanish. The new inhabitants of Sacramento remodeled many of the Portuguese style homes into Spanish ones with flat roofs that didn’t work well in this area.

At one point in time Argentina and Uruguay were both under Spanish control. They wanted to become independent from Spain and together create one country. That dream faded when Argentina broke away from Spain and Brazil invaded and conquered Uruguay. In 1830 Uruguay finally became its own independent country with the help of England.

Uruguay became the leading democratic country in South America. All citizens here are required to vote. They have to pay a fine if they fail to do so. Interestingly enough, their last president was a bank robber! The current president is young. He is 49. He came into office with grand plans and then COVID hit. Despite that he has brought unemployment down from 10% to 7%. So he is on the right track. At least he didn’t rob any banks😜

To enter the Old City we had to walk across a tiny drawbridge and through the gate in the fortified city wall. The moat these days is filled with grass instead of water. Inside we walked down the cobblestone streets to the original main street.

The old section of Sacramento is a UNESCO World Heritage site. As a result, no modifications can be made to the exterior of the buildings. However, before it gained that designation, people had modified some of the buildings. It was very obvious which ones those were. On Calle de Los Suspiros we saw one of the oldest buildings in the city. It reeked of age and I loved it. Painted red, it stood out from all of the others. At one point in time it was a brothel so we were walking through the old Red Light district. The roof had Portuguese red tiles that were shaped over the thigh of the tile maker.

“Red Light District” in the old city of Colonia

It was tough going up the street as these the schist paving blocks were not flat nor even in height. I was SO glad not to have my boot on. That would have been challenging. It was difficult enough in tennis shoes. As we walked I got distracted peeking through wrought iron gates into beautiful green spaces and courtyards. The houses themselves were interesting. You would have a renovated house next door to an original building and a Spanish remodeled home with a flat roof next to that. It made an interesting juxtaposition.

Our wandering took us to the old lighthouse. It is no longer in use because it was built inland several meters and only succeeded in luring ships onto the rocks. We saw the new lighthouse on a tiny island as we came into Uruguay on the ferry.

We spent a bit of time in a small courtyard of several businesses as Alex explained more about her country. We also had an opportunity to go upstairs to an open area to get a view of old Sacramento and the water. I can’t say that the view was all that inspiring. The water was yellowish brown from all of the silt. It wasn’t pretty at all although the buildings of the town were. It was well-worth the climb up the stairs for that.

View of the water

From the lighthouse we walked to what had been the main square. It was unusual in that it had no church. That was because Sacramento was built as a military town. There was a basilica in the old section of the city but the Portuguese had built it on a different square. In the center was a water fountain people could get drinking water from so a few of us topped off our water bottles.

We continued our ramble up one of the main business roads just a block up from the water. We saw the huge Bank of Uruguay as well as a myriad of small shops and eateries. We were learning bad habits in this quiet town. We walked down the middle of streets and crossed without looking for traffic. There was no traffic. I could count the number of cars I saw being driven on one hand.

We learned as we strolled that originally the poor lived here. That is no longer true. Most of the houses in the old part of the city have been purchased by rich Argentinians. And they paid a pretty price. For example the brothel we saw would sell for around a million dollars. And it wasn’t that big! Only 16 Uruguayan families live in the old city now.

It was a short walk to the next square with the Basilica. Alex warned us that churches here are simple because there is no gold or silver in the country. She was correct. It was simple but beautiful in its own way. The foyer was built with stone in the 1700s. They saved one of the original columns when they remodeled. Down behind the plain alter was a niche with a small but interesting cross. All in all, I enjoyed our few minutes inside.

From the church Alex led us to our meeting point by the gate. We had nearly 3.5 hours to wander and do as we pleased. Since it was after twelve, she gave us suggestions for lunch. Doug wanted to try the chivita which is the national sandwich. Alex told us we could find them in the square with the church. So the three of us headed back to where we had just come from. The other four went elsewhere. I know the Australians ate down on the water.

We were lucky to find a table at the cafe by the church. It was crowded. But we found one and it was even in the shade. Thank goodness because the temperature was heating up. Most of the morning had been overcast with some breeze. But when the sun came out and the breeze stopped, it was hot! I felt like one big ball of sweat.

It felt good to be in the shade and be able to sit and take a load off especially since my foot was aching a bit. We all immediate ordered beer. Liz and I went for the Patricia which is a Uruguayan pilsner. Doug to the Zillertal which is a local IPA. Liz and I shared a liter while Doug drank one all by himself.

They had a chivita for two on the menu so we went for that. Liz was good and got a salad. When our sandwich came, it wasn’t a true sandwich. There was no bread. It was just as well as I had had a roll that they had brought out earlier. So our chivita consisted of a well-cooked minute steak, a slice or two of ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato all topped with a fried egg. It was surprisingly tasty. Definitely a keto meal. The sandwich came with a few delicious steak fries. The potatoes tasted so good.

We took our time eating and drinking before exploring the old city on our own. We stopped first in a souvenir shop and Doug got his flag ornament. I found an okay magnet.

We stopped in another shop and Liz bought a couple of pieces of amethyst for her grandsons’ rock collections. We found a small coffee-espresso cup for Sam to enjoy her Asian coffees in. Shopping completed, we made our way down to the harbor and walked out on the dock admiring the various boats.

By now the clouds had moved off and the sun was beating down on us. I was drenched with sweat. I could feel it trickling down my back. Everything felt wet with sweat and humidity. Thank goodness for the breeze or it would have been rough.

We slowly made our way up the street towards the meeting point. We had just enough time to enjoy dolce du leche ice cream at the self-proclaimed best ice cream shop in town. It was good but really rich. I was surprised that I could finish my one scoop.

We had a few minutes before our meeting time so we ducked into a small shop next to the gate. Liz found a cute dress for her daughter. I was shopped out so I found a chair outside and sat while Doug went in search of a toilet.

We were the first other than Alex to the meeting point but nobody was late. We were a prompt group:-). Like a pied piper Alex led us through the tree-lined streets back to the port. It was nice that we took a different route back so we could see a different part of the city. She pointed out the apartment buildings in the distance where most Uruguayans live today. Her apartment was only an 8 minute drive from the Old City.

Alexa guided us through the ticket line and then we said our goodbyes. There was a huge line for security and then another for Passport Control. They moved pretty quickly though so no complaints. We went through all of that and immediately got into the line boarding the ferry.

We had to hunt again to find three seats together. We managed but once again they were under the A/C vent. The cold air felt good for about five minutes but then I got cold. I really regretted not bringing my jacket with me in my backpack. I felt like an iceberg for the entire trip:-)

Back in Buenos Aires we had to stand in a huge que to go through Passport Control into Argentina. It seemed to take forever. I think we stood in that line for nearly an hour. It was crazy but we finally made it through. Whew! We were the last of our group so the other four had to wait for us. At least they had benches to sit on.

The trip back to the hotel was bogged down with traffic. Walking might have been faster. Sitting felt good though after standing in line for so long. At least we were the first off the bus. We bid our fellow travelers a final farewell. They had been wonderful travel companions. Then we made our way into the hotel where we ran into Pablo.

He let us know when we needed to put out our luggage in the morning and other bits of necessary information. We dropped off our backpacks and freshened up and then the three of us went back to where we had lunch with Julio. We just wanted something quick and easy for dinner. We saw Chris in the lobby but he declined the invitation to join us.

Dinner was fine although the chicken on my sandwich was cooked within an inch of its life. The Quilmes beer though hit the spot. It was cold and tasty. By the time we finished eating, it was after 9 o’clock. We still had to get cleaned up and pack. However, Chris was still downstairs drinking a bottle of wine so Doug joined him. I headed back to the room where I discovered that my keycard didn’t work. Oy vey! I went back downstairs and got it rekeyed. Doug came back up with me so he could grab his key out of the slot for the lights ( you have to have a card in it in order to keep the electricity on in your room). That way he could let himself back into the room.

I hopped into the tub first thing and enjoyed my bath. It felt so good to wash all of that sweat off! Then I began packing which really didn’t take long as I hadn’t unpacked much. By this time Doug was back. While he showered I imported photos from my camera to my iPad, went through email, typical nightly chores on a trip.

Our alarm tomorrow will go off at 5:15 AM. Way too early for a day where I won’t see any animals except the human kind. We are flying out of the domestic airport for Ushuaia and the beginning of Step 2 to Antarctica. Too early or not, I can’t wait!

DAY 1 & 2: TRAVELING TO BUENOS AIRES: ANTARCTICA—WILD, UNCONQUERED, & UNFORGETTABLE

After being home since December 18th, it feels good to be on the road again. It was great recharging my batteries at home for almost two months, I do have to admit. We traveled so much last year that I never really had a chance to anticipate our next adventure. I was too busy doing laundry and repacking my suitcase. This trip I savored the anticipation. And what a fabulous adventure to savor. I adore Antarctica and to be able to go back there is an absolute miracle. But first we have to get there—an adventure in itself!

Our travel to the great, white continent is spanning several days. We are making our way there with Overseas Adventure Travel in stages. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are Stage 1. Yesterday we flew to Miami and then to Buenos Aires. We arrived in Buenos Aires at 7 this morning. We’ll spend today and tomorrow here and then Thursday we fly to Ushuaia which is the last city in Argentina and the kick-off point to most Antarctic expeditions. We’ll spend Thursday night there and do some hiking on Friday before boarding our ship the Hebridean Sky. Once onboard we’ll said through the Beagle Channel and then take on the Drake Passage. Depending on the weather in the Drake, it could take us a day and a half or two days to reach the Antarctic Peninsula. And then the real fun begins 🙂

However, the last two days haven’t been without their adventures. Flying is never without its hiccups these days. Our flight out of Tampa wasn’t until after 3 PM so we had a leisurely wake-up and last minute check before heading to the airport. We boarded the plane right on time and then sat on the tarmac for the next two hours. Some hatch panel on the exterior was broken and wouldn’t close. They had to call for maintenance to come out and repair it. I think the actual repair job went quickly since all they did is tape it closed. It was the paperwork portion that took forever. I was glad that we had a long layover in Miami or we would have been in trouble. As it was, we made it with less than an hour to spare whereas we should have had 3.5.

We left Miami pretty much on time. This go-round we are flying Premium Economy because Business class was way too expensive. Originally we had Business Class seats when we were doing Antarctica back-to-back with Machu Picchu and Galapagos. Then our post-trip to Rio was cancelled leaving us with nine days between trips instead of 4 so we decided to just go back home in between. Because of that, OAT had to completely redo our flight itinerary. And the cost of flights had increased much that even though we originally bought Business Class seats, to get seats on the new itinerary would cost an additional $18,000 for Business. That was on top of what we had already paid! It was highway robbery. As it was we had to pay some additional for Premium Economy. It was crazy.

So, after being spoilt with Business Class for so many flights, I have to admit, this wasn’t the most comfortable flight. It was okay but nothing to write home about. And I did miss getting my warm nuts :-). I watched a couple of movies and tried to snag some sleep. We made it to BA on time which was the important thing and didn’t have any issues while flying.

The flight attendants woke us at 4 AM Florida time for breakfast. That made it 6 AM BA time. The breakfast was fruit and a cinnamon roll, as well as granola and yogurt. It was far better than the dinner they served last night. I filled up on the fruit since it was going to be a while before we ate again.

The landing went smoothly and we disembarked fairly quickly. It was a novel experience traveling without my boot and a wheelchair at the airports. I enjoyed every second of it although it would have been nice to scoot through the line at Immigration. It was a long line but nothing like what we saw in Charlotte when we came home from Spain. There were plenty of booths open so we zipped through fast considering the number of people waiting.

By the time we reached the luggage claim area, my suitcase was already coming around. Chris’ (he is the friend we climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with and went to Spain with) bag came off soon after. Doug’s, however, was a no-show. I double-checked the American Airlines app and it said that both bags had been loaded in Miami. I was confident it was somewhere. And it was. Doug finally spotted it on the other side of the carousel. Somebody had pulled it off over there. Whew!

Our next stop was going through Customs which was just a matter of putting everything through the x-ray machine and then it was out to Arrivals and to find the OAT person picking us up. She was right there waving her sign. We didn’t have to wait on anybody else to arrive which was nice. She was picking up four of us and we were all there. Another lady came out about the same time we did. After a quick trip to the baño, we loaded up the small bus and began the drive to our hotel through Buenos Aires’ rush hour traffic. It took maybe an hour to reach out hotel down off of Florida Avenue. We haven’t stayed in this part of BA before so that is good. We are staying the next two nights at the Libertador Buenos Aires Hotel.

Pablo our trip leader met us at the door. He got us checked in and quickly ran through the itinerary for the next couple of days with us. He already knew that the two of us and our friend Liz who we did Patagonia with last year and had met originally in Southeast Asia, were skipping the city tour of BA tomorrow and were going to Uruguay for the day instead. We nailed down the plans for the COVID PCR test that we have to take in Ushuaia and all that jazz because we won’t see him again until Thursday morning when we leave for the City at the End of the World. Plus we just had a nice chat with him to get to know him a bit.

I had already made plans with our trip leader from Patagonia—Julio LLanos—for us to meet with him at lunch today. We had all just loved him. And fortunately for us, he was between trips so we had a chance to get caught up. It isn’t often you get to see your old trip leaders again so I was very happy.

We had a couple of hours before meeting he and Liz for lunch so we got unpacked in the room (we were lucky we were able to get straight into our room). Once everything was squared away, I decided a power nap was the order of the day. I had a nasty headache and was figured some sleep would be the best remedy for it. I laid my head down and was out for the count until Doug’s alarm went off at 11:30.

It was a bit of serendipity that we hit the lobby just as Julio walked in. I almost didn’t recognize him because he’s let his hair grow out quite a bit. But underneath the dark locks was the same smile and irrepressible personality :-). I was disappointed that he was wearing a rather ordinary T-shirt instead of one of his Star Wars shirts. He always entertained us with his T-shirt collection.

We had a great visit while waiting for Liz. She arrive around noon. After she checked in, Pablo took all of us to get our money exchanged. You don’t want to pay dollars for anything here or use a debit or credit card. You’ll end up paying much more. You go to a money exchange person who does exchanges on the “blue” market. You get a far better exchange rate. For example, if you exchange at the bank for one dollar you may get 100 Argentinian pesos. However, on the blue market, you get 300. I’m not sure that was the actual rate today but it gives you a picture of why the blue market is the one everybody uses. You get way more bang for your buck.

After everybody had done their exchanging, Pablo and the group went one way and we went with Julio another way to a small restaurant. We had a great time catching up with everybody’s lives over the past year. Julio had been as busy as we had been. He spent some time in France working with new OAT guides there. His wife was doing the same thing in Italy. Then they both went to Edinburgh for a month to work with OAT guides there. Now between his regular guiding trips, he is helping out in the OAT office and mentoring new guides for this area. He is perfect for that job because he is such an excellent guide. OAT is so lucky to have him.

Julio, Liz, Christi, Chris (back row), And Doug

We also caught up with Liz as we haven’t seen her in a year either. She had just gotten back at the end of November from going to Bhutan, India, and Nepal. And she has her first granddaughter :-). Lunch was like old home week. It was great.

The time went by way too fast. Julio had to meet a co-worker so we couldn’t dwaddle all afternoon swapping stories. He headed to the office and we made our way back to the hotel where I promptly took another power nap. I just couldn’t seem to shake that headache. I woke up in time to get ready for our 4 PM Welcome Briefing. This was our first chance to actually find out who all was in our group.

There are twenty-five of us. Interestingly, we have one couple from Kauai and a lady from the Big Island. Boy, they had a long trip to get here! The couple started their trip on Thursday so that they would have a day or two to recuperate here. The lady from the Big Island started her trip Sunday and arrived here this morning. She had to be beat. She is traveling with her son who works on NBC’s “The Today Show!” He has even won several Emmies. Wow! Others in the group are from California, New Jersey, South Carolina, etc. It appears to be an eclectic group which is fun. A large number of us had been teachers with several also having worked in libraries. That’s always fun. There is one couple who has one more trip than we do. They have 27 to our 26 :-). It will be interesting to see how our group gels during the trip. Last time we had such a fantastic group. We had a blast ever night at dinner. Hopefully this group will prove to be as wonderful.

After our meeting we had a several minutes before meeting in the lobby to head to dinner. While we were marking time, I checked my email and saw the dreaded message from OAT. They had officially cancelled Machu Picchu & Galapagos. I knew it was coming since the violence in Peru is still ongoing but darn! We have been trying to take that trip for three years! Guess I’ll just have to wait another year. We are too booked this year to try to squeeze it in. Such is life….

Since Argentina is famous for their steak, that’s what we had for dinner. The restaurant—Mirasol del Puerto— was down on the Rio de Plata (Silver River) in the same area we had dinner last year on our Patagonia trip. This place was equally good. The steak was perfectly cooked and was thick and juicy. The empanada and chimichurri sauce was excellent. The wine and the flan for dessert were excellent as well.

After we stuffed ourselves silly, we took a walk down the river. It was still daylight so the river wasn’t lit up like the last time we strolled down it. However, this time we were better able to see the ship the Corbeta A.R.A. Uruguay. It is famous for a rescue it made. A group of men had gone to Antartica to see if they could survive spending a winter there. Their ship dropped them and their supplies off and then sailed for home. It was suppose to return in a year and pick up the group. Well, that ship got caught in the ice and ended up sinking. It would not be returning. One of the men on the expedition happened to be Argentinian so the Argentinian navy sent their best outfitted ship to mount a rescue. Let me tell you, this ship was not big at all. AND it was a sail boat. How they made it down there during winter and rescued those men, I’ll never figure out. But save them they did. Now the ship is a museum. It was built in 1874 and was rebuilt in 1903 for Antarctic rescue. It was an amazing story. When we were here for our first Antarctica trip we actually boarded it. It was so neat to actually walk around on a wooden ship that had made the trip to Antarctica. The men sailing her had guts, that’s for sure. We saw the Uruguay last time only from a distance. At least this time we got to see her close up. She seemed even smaller tonight.

The Uruguay

We also walked across the Women’s Bridge which was beautiful. It was modeled after a bridge in Milwaukee. The architect was the same one who did the City of Arts and Science in Valencia, Spain and the Oculus in New York City. The idea behind it was basically to show support to women. Santiago Calatrava who designed it said the design reflected the tango. None of us could see tango in the bridge but maybe we hadn’t had enough wine with dinner :-). Back behind the bridge there was a series of silos painted with words of empowerment for women. It made an interesting backdrop for the bridge.

Women’s Bridge

We finished out the evening with a bus ride back to the hotel. My headache had finally gone away. I was feeling more awake than I had all day. I just regretted that there was no hot water kettle in the room. No tea tonight to help me stay awake. Of course, falling asleep early would be the best thing for me as we have an early wake-up. We are being fetched for our jaunt to Uruguay at 7 AM tomorrow. Thank goodness breakfast opens at 6:30 so we can eat a little bit of something before we go. I feel bad ditching our group tomorrow but hopefully Colonia will prove interesting. Julio said they have great food. We’ll find out tomorrow 🙂