Index
Antarctica
2010
The last continent left on my list is Antarctica (South Pole) and, no, there are no polar bears there. It took me 3 days to get
all the way down to Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world (Argentina). Travels took me from Amsterdam via Paris to
Buenos Aires for an overnight stay. Then on to Ushuaia for yet another overnight stay. Late afternoon (day 3) we were taken
to the Kapitan Khlebnikov (KK). This Russian Icebreaker is the only vessel that can take you to see Emperor penguins.
No other ship can as Emperor colonies are way up in to ice fields.
Our group of 101 passengers come from all over the world.
North Americas 40, South America 2, Australia 9, Asia 8, Europe 42.
map
It takes two days to cross the notorious Drake's Passage to arrive at the Antarctic Peninsula. A Velcro-ed pyjama would have been great as I slid around in my bunk bed. Suffice to say I didn’t sleep for two days in a row. Thankfully my two cabin mates and I never suffered from seasickness. A lot of others did. Quite a few had an anti-sickness patch stuck behind their ear. Even that I didn't require.
Drake's passage
Food:
It starts off with sweet pastries & coffee / tea / hot chocolate at 07:00 followed by breakfast at 07:30
(or earlier if we planned a landing). Breakfast: yoghurts, various sorts of CornFlakes, full English breakfast, milk orange juice,
coffee etc etc. Lunch at 12:30 consists of a starter, a salad is optional, warm entree and dessert. Around 16:00 cookies and e.g.
Swiss rolls are provided followed by snacks on toast at 17:00. Dinner at 19:30, another warm meal - it follows the same pattern as lunch.
After a week of this I couldn't take it anymore and decided that breakfast and lunch would consist of a small bowl of yoghurt with some fruit in the morning and a simple salad in the afternoon. You could easily put on several pounds and in a very short time resemble a fur seal. The KK carries two helicopters and seven (8-10 passenger) zodiacs. Helicopters are only allowed to fly above sea ice. They are used to scout the ice and or ferry us to Emperor penguin rookeries. The zodiacs ferried us across to land sites or used for ice (berg) tours.
Brown Bluff
Having arrived at Elephant Island and made our way to Devil & Paulet Island we could finally set foot on the continent at Brown Bluff. So we had already missed two to three potential landings. From Brown Bluff we made our way across the Weddel sea. It's packed with ice and we slowly make our way across to the other side. Thankfully all this ice evens out the sea and I get a good night rest.
Clothing.
Base layer: long sleeved shirt & long johns, 2 pairs of socks.
Middle layer: windstopper & waterproof ski-pants.
Outer layer: Quark expedition parka, mittens, beanie and Quark expedition waterproof (knee-high) boots.
Extra set of gloves in case the mittens got wet when zodiacing.
Mandatory is a lifejacket. A pita to put on due to the clasp used to lock it.
You are also advised to pack additional clothing as weather may change, believe me it does so at a moment's notice and can turn quite nasty too.
The weather overall was quite bad and we had to miss out on quite a few landings. Looking back on this trip I would score it 6 out of 10, all due to weather conditions. Some passengers have been down here several times and on one occasion got stuck in the ice for six days in a white out, saw nothing and returned back to port. Imagine forking out a considerable amount of money and not getting anything for it. I count my blessings.
Iceshelf parking
Several days travelling see us parking the ship in sea ice. We've arrived at Atka Iceport. The helicopters will take us to within a mile from an Emperor rookery. The rest of the journey is done on foot. The weather is glorious. The rookery is split in to three groups and despite warnings that I would smell them before I would see them, that didn't happen at all.
The challenge is to get isolated small groups of penguins in your view finder, almost impossible to do as a rookery usually has several thousands of birds. You may not approach Emperors closer than 10 metres. If they come up to you, that's fine - but no touching. The chicks are cute. The emperor adults are not the most active though.
I wish we could have stayed at Atka Iceport for another day but weather reports indicate we should leave. Our second Emperor visit is at Riisen Larsen iceshelf. Here too it's difficult photographing isolated groups of penguins. The most striking is that the sun sets at 20:30 and rises an hour later. Because we're so far south the sun never sets below the horizon, nor does it come up in the east and set in the west. You need to experience this for yourself as it is hard to put in to words.
We try several other potential landing zones but the weather is against us. We make out move towards the South Sandwich islands. Again weather. The KK travels further North towards South Georgia (SG). Thankfully the first day at SG the weather is with us and our group of 100 passengers is split in to two. One group will go ashore immediately and the other will enjoy a zodiac tour. Then we'll swap around. South Georgia houses the King penguins amongst others. They are a bit more colourful than the Emperors and slightly smaller. Their chicks are an ugly bunch of brown feathers. At SG we get to see Macaroni, Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins too.
Only Emperors penguins reside on ice, all others are found on land. Also to be seen are elephant seals; big ugly turds with longish noses (adult males). We visit some more landing sites at SG but weather prevents landings. We have to make a mandatory stop at Grytviken, the capital of SG. Before and after each landing you are required to dip your boots in some chemical stuff and have them hosed down too.
South Georgia - Grytviken
Taxes are due and we get a nice stamp in our passport. This is also the final resting place of Sir Ernest Shackleton (google him). It's raining. We visit the graveyard and the town. Even village is too big a word for it. We try one more landing as about a third of the passengers would like to hike the last five miles of Shackleton's travels. Unfortunately the cloud base has dropped to 75 metres; 400 is required. That's it, we need to make our way to Stanley on the Falkand islands. It is a two day trip and we arrive in early morning.
After breakfast we are taken from the KK by zodiac for a 5 mile trip to the pier in Stanley. The ship is too big to land at a pier. Due to delays I never got to walk through town as 15 minutes after arrival we needed to board the busses that would take us to the military airport. As it is an international airport you need to be there three hours prior to take off.
Suffice to say we were not pleased. Falklands see two commercial and two military flights per week. Our flight arrives one hour late. The weather is atrocious and during take-off I nearly soiled my pants due to the violent shaking. The flight leaves for Punta Arenas in Chile and then on to Santiago in Chile. I enjoy a late overnight stay and take an international flight via Paris back to Amsterdam.
Falklands - Stanley
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