"Victory awaits him who has everything in order. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time." - Roald Amundsen
Pulling up the ancor in Ushuaia we embarked on our trip, sailing out the Beagle Strait in absolutely pristine weather. Crossing the Drake Passage took us a day and a half - a feat that might have taken two months back in the day of the tall ships. Our guides told us they had a rating system of how "bad" a crossing is from 1 to 10 and apparently ours didn't even count as a 1. Smooth sailing! That being said there were a few people observed with green faces and paper bags in their hands so I don't think every land crab on board agreed with the apparently level 0 waves..
Again in stunning weather we got in our Zodiacs (the minibuses of Antarctica) and were shipped to the shore to swap the rocking hull of a floating ship with some solid ground. A few days later on the trip our expedition leader, John, told us that only two or three times had he ever experienced 3 days in a row with sun and nice weather in Antarctica. Most of the time they were lucky if they had 2. We - had 4!
Our first meeting with Antarctica was this landing at Aitcho Island on the South Shetland Islands. An abundance of penguins (and penguin poo) was the first thing that met us, as well as some lazy weddell seals. On this very first encounter we saw both Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins and I think I must've shot my camera close to a thousand times this day alone. The picture above is taken from a small peak on Aitcho Island, and you can see the ship (M/S Explorer) in the top left corner, as well as some Gentoo penguins nesting. Crawling up that hill was not easy - it was quite steep - as you can see from the people on their way up. How the little penguins made it all the way up there having no arms nor the ability to fly is quite impressing and still a puzzle to me. It took a human quite a while - it must've taken them a LOT longer. Bonus was that we could slide back down on our bum. ;-)
Some of us opted for the (according to expedition staff; insane) option of spending a night actually ON the continent sleeping in tents. Personally I can't see what all the fuzz was about; The temperature dropped to around -8C and we were given good sleeping bags so I was anything but cold. Then again, we had people from sunny Florida as well on the trip and for them I reckon it was quite different from what they are used to. After all we do have snow every year up here in Norway. :-)
Waking up the next day the weather - again - was absolutely fantastic and screamed for more photos to be taken. Climbing a small peak this view was our reward. The glacier to the right were constantly moving throughout the night making cracking noises. The only thing outperforming that in terms of annoyance for a sleepyhead were the constant yelling from the penguins. Don't these guys ever sleep??
If you go to google maps and search for "Neko Harbor" on the Danco Coast of the Antarctic peninsula you'll find the spot where we spent the night. In the picture above, all the way in the horizon, you can see the Mt. Francais - the highest peak on the peninsula at 2.760 metres above sea level. It was first seen by Belgian explorers in 1898, but got its name from a French captain, Charcot, who named it after his expedition's ship when they were there in 1903-05.
After getting all our gear together we were picked up by Zodiacs and driven back to the boat. Arriving in the MUD room we were greeted by filipina Jojo that served us hot chocolate as we were climbing aboard. Great service, and a real treat for frozen bodies
And the service didn't stop with the chocolate.. later this day the staff put together a full blown outdoor barbecue on the aft deck with an all-you-can-eat buffet with burgers, hot dogs, chicken, beef, all kinds of salads and a huge table filled with different types of dessert and everything eaten under a clear blue sky amongst snow, ice, mountains, more ice and.. even more ice. Something I will remember forever! :-)
And our filipino staff didn't even leave it at that. In the evening at the Polar Bear Bar we got a private concert from the band "Monkey-eating Eagle" to lift the mood to an even higher level. The band name might sound strange to you, but it has a deeper meaning. The Philippine Eagle, also known as - yes - the Monkey-eating Eagle is a critically endangered species of eagle living in the Philippines. There are programmes in place to try help preserve the species, and our filipino friends with their bands were one group of people trying to raise money for this. Great job saving our planet guys.
A day later we sailed down to Paradise Harbor, still on the Danco Coast, for our second continental landing. This was at the Argentinian "Brown" base where a small pier conveniently were in place and totally overrun by penguins. As there are normally less snow around these bases they are frequented by penguins and seeing them all over the place made me think of the old computer game "Zero Wing" from 1989 and the infamous quote: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. This time - to the penguins.
With this landing we also had a Zodiac cruise around the ice coming off the nearby glacier, and this is where we found the arch pictured above. Now there are strict rules amongst the expeditions that they are under no circumstances ever allowed to drive their boats UNDER an arch as there will always be the possibility of it breaking down and falling ice hurting guests or crew members. But seeing as this tiny-tiny little arch seemed to be a perfect fit for our zodiacs.. could we resist?
The answer was of course: no. ^^
After our misbehaving in Paradise Harbour, we left the continent and started to head back home. On our way back we stopped at the well known (at least for many) Deception Island which is actually an active volcano which can be seen from the picture below in form of steam coming off the water being heated by the underlying volcano. This opted for a swim and a lot of us went for the "Polar Plunge". I assure you there was nothing by this that gave any resemblance to a typical hot spring. Being hotter than the environment the water in this lagoon was still at a chilling +4C.
Deception Island has always been one of the safest harbours in Antarctica. That is if you rule out the fact that it is actually the caldera of an active volcano of course.. But since early 19th century the island was a favourite refuge from storms and icebergs due to "heated" waters and shelter. First used by sealers, the island eventually came inhabited by my countrymen when a Norwegian-Chilean whaling company in 1906 started using Whalers Bay on Deception Island as a base for a large factory ship (A ship where a caught whale would be processed to remove it's blubber used in making whale oil).
In 1912 the Norwegian company "Hvalfangerselskabet Hektor A/S" built the on-shore station that can still be seen on the pictures above, first with the huge, rusty iron boilers that were used to boil down whale carcasses to extract additional oil, and second with the smaller wooden boats lying around shore. There were lots of other remnants too, like old tractors, whale bones, pots and pans.
During the great depression the price of whale oil dropped and the station ended up being uneconomic and eventually abandoned in 1931. Factory ships, like described above, became ultimately so advanced that the need for carcass processing on-shore became unnecessary. Thus the station was never reoccupied - but it's still there! Well, at least it's ruins.
Thirty-five men were apparently buried in the stations cemetery. The cemetery itself was buried by a volcanic eruption in 1969, but two crosses survived this. One of them was unreadable but the one pictured above reads: "Tømmerm. Hans A. Gulliksen. 7/4 - 71, 4/1 - 28".
In English this translates into: Mr. Hans A. Gulliksen, Carpenter, born April 7th 1871 - dead January 4th 1928. Some Norwegian history for you there!
Our final landing was on the South Shetland Islands and the "Polish Arctowski Research Station". As with many other places down here we found the huge sign posts pointing everywhere in the world, with indications to how far away it is. One special thing about this sign is that almost every pointer is to somewhere in Poland, though they did have sites like Tokyo, New York and London on the back.
The Polish scientists were kind enough to welcome us inside for a cup of coffee and some biscuits, and let us have a look at how they were living down here. They even had a small "souvenir shop" were you could buy t-shirts, keychains and postcards, and perhaps the most important of all - get your passport stamped!
As with most of our landings here were also whale bones, harpoons and other remains of the whaling industry. It's safe to say that life on Antarctica tend to get boring even for scientists so they had actually over time puzzled together what was closing in to be a complete whale skeleton. Pictured above is me sitting inside what would be it's jaw. The thing is huge! Thinking about the story with Jonah and the whale that's written in the Bible it's easy to see how a whale could swallow a man whole. I look quite tiny where I sit - I reckon 20+ people easily could be placed between those jawbones.
Like all good things, this trip also had to come to an end. Going back across the Drake Passage raised our previous level of 0 to 1, being a bit more rocky. Chris was hoping for at least a 5 as he wanted pictures of the waves breaking over the front deck. I'm not sure he knew what he was wishing for as I remember a VERY seasick Chris on a much smaller boat crossing from Denmark to Sweden a few years back. He must've forgotten that I guess. ;-)
We said our goodbyes to the penguins and to our new found filipino friends, and disembarked the ship on December 8th. It was truly an amazing trip to a place that's like no other and I would certainly recommend it to anyone that has the ability to make this investment in time and money. Will I go back? I'm not so sure. I might want to see South Georgia at some point, and I'm playing with a thought of perhaps trying to reach the south pole.. but there are other trips to be made before that will ever be a reality.
The next blogpost however will most likely be in July when I embark on my two-week journey by train through the Balkan states in eastern Europe!
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