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Published: March 13th 2014
The experience of Antarctica is not an easy thing to describe. So let me say at the outset I don´t think this is going to do it justice. The experience is so overwhelming that I feel I will need at least until the end of this trip to make sense and find an appropriate context for it all. It goes without saying that Antarctica is a place like no other - where else can you go where the landscape is so pristine with little or no evidence of man's footprint, where everything from weather to glaciers to mountains is on an epic scale. Antarctica defies comparison. Time will tell if this is the most memorable place I have visited. What is beyond question is that it was very, very special, an experience bordering on the spiritual.
Having dispensed with the apology I will start with the bald facts and then try to give a little bit of the flavour of the different components of the trip. We were at sea for 16 days, covering over 2,500 nautical miles. In addition to the Antarctic peninsula we visited The Falklands (a bonus addition to the itinerary), South Georgia and the South Shetlands.
Our boat, the Sea Adventurer was 100m by 16m, large enough to allow for some stability and comfort but small enough to allow for the maximum number of possible landings.
A shortage of the right grade of fuel meant that rather than heading straight to the mainland we reversed our route and made an unscheduled stop off at Port Stanley before heading on to South Georgia and then on to Antarctica. This had the happy accident of gifting us perfect weather for the first few days sailing which continued for our landing at Port Stanley and for the most part on South Georgia. However, we did not entirely escape the authentic southern oceans experience with the swell topping out at 10 metres during our return journey across the Drake Passage. This was quite severe enough to make getting around quite a challenge, particularly when the boat is pitching (tipping from bow to stern) as well as rolling. Fortunately my sea sickness prescription was up to the job and by assiduously following the one hand for the boat rule some of the injuries to dignity that befell some of my fellow passengers.
In addition to sea sickness the other
variable that had caused some concern ahead of the voyage was cabin fever. How would we occupy ourselves during the long days at sea and more to the point what would my fellow shipmates be like? Again I needn't have worried. There were 120 passengers on the boat, over 90% of whom were Australian - I had been vaguely aware that I´d booked with a company with an Australian connection but for some reason this still came as a (pleasant) surprise. The cost of the trip meant that the age profile tended towards the elderly, although there were plenty of exceptions to this generality. Unsurprisingly Antarctica is not a place that people tend to go to on a whim and it soon became apparent that for many this was the fulfilment of a long held ambition, the proverbial trip of a lifetime. This shared anticipation helped to break down barriers between passengers. Coming from England made me something of a novelty and the nature of my more extended trip also gave me extra kudos, as well as making me subject to a wealth of (mostly helpful) travel tips for the rest of my stay in South America. And of course
in a boatload of Aussies there was no shortage of drinking buddies if I fancied a beer in the evening.
I was very lucky with my cabin mate, Terry, a retired policeman from Sydney, really nice guy, friendly and enthusiastic but not overbearing. In addition to Terry there are a number of other people who I hope will stay in touch and look me up if they are ever passing through London. There were of course a number of larger characters, some of whom were worth giving a wider berth but some of whom really enhanced the trip. A Dresden born Australian, Fred, now 70+, speaking in a broad german accent - think South African with various Aussie colloquialisms would collar those who cared to listen after each trip ashore - "Unbelieevable, oh my god you just can not belieeve what you are seeing. Shit, this really is the best day of my life". Amusing but somehow appropriate in its hyperbole.
The expedition staff did their best to keep us occupied with various Antarctica/Shackleton themed talks and theme shows. This sounds a little dry and I confess there were times when it was best to take a seat
A nesting Macaroni Penguin
The best eyebrows in nature?at the back and not to fight to hard against the inevitable postprandial snooze. However, for the most part the knowledge and passion of the staff really connected. It was apparent how privileged they felt they were to be able to keep coming back to Antarctica and communicate some of their passion to newbies and that went a long way to heightening our expectations. That said the times from the boat that i will remember most fondly are those spent on the bridge watching for whales, anticipating the swell or on the back of the boat watching the petrels and albatrosses follow the boat - incredibly graceful birds gliding apparently effortlessly. Both with huge wingspans - as wide as 13 feet for the Wandering Albatross, skimming the waves and changing direction with just a glance of the head. As inspiring as they were difficult to capture on film, invariably swerving out of shot as the motion of the boat left my bumbling photographic skills capturing little more than wing tip.
Our landing at Port Stanley was notable for perfect summer weather - like a warm May day. The narrows at the entrance to the bay and the harbour itself
is awash with wrecks (16 in total) giving the lie to the weather we experienced. The Falklands had been described to us as a small piece of England transported to the South Atlantic and there are superficial similarities - red post and telephone boxes, an abundance of Land Rovers and surely a record number of Union Jacks per house - but it felt very much like a version of England as imagined from 10,000 miles away and keen to assert that identity for political reasons. Street names like "Thatcher Drive" added to the surreal atmosphere. Despite its best attempts this wasn´t little England the air was too clean, the scenery too dramatic, the wildlife too abundant and colourful. You could sit outside a pub and enjoy a pint of Bishop´s Finger and for a moment almost convince yourself (and certainly convince our Aussie contingent) but then you would spot the grey herons in the bay, the black cormorants lined up on the wreck opposite or the sea lion sunning itself on the dock.
We sailed on to South Georgia. The expedition staff warned us that everyone experiences sensory overload the first time they visit South Georgia. There are 30,000,000
birds on the island and only handful of people (involved in scientific work). The remains of old whaling factories - abandoned for over 60 years have long been reclaimed by the penguins and the seals and now are quietly rusting into the landscape. As with Galapagos, with no significant experience of man as a predator the larger wildlife has no fear and only curiosity (penguins and juvenile fur seals) or indifference (elephant seals) about visitors.
We made several landings on South Georgia, mostly at penguin rookeries - King Penguins, Gentoos, Chinstraps and Macaronis. All different, all memorable. At St Andrew´s Bay we were surrounded by a colony estimated at 400,000 penguins. And yes the sound, the smell and the sight of 400,000 king penguins as the sun begins to rise and they prepare for their day is truly sensory overload. The experience is given added spice by male juvenile fur seals, who indifferent to disparities in size and with a machismo common to teenagers the world over are keen to bark and charge visitors to assert their territory. This fails to impress the penguins who with the advantages of numbers and sharper beak are quick to admonish and correct
any seal whose posturing becomes too tiresome. All of this takes place in an impressively rugged landscape with snow capped peaks, plunging valleys and numerous glaciers. So much so that it does not take much to imagine the challenge that met Shackleton when he landed on the wrong side of the island and two months further into the winter had to complete a previously unattempted traverse of the island in order to find civilisation and raise help for his crew stranded back on Elephant Island.
In a small homage to Shackleton we followed the last few miles of the route he took from Fortuna Bay up over to Stromness Bay and to the (then) whaling station to raise the alarm and complete his 3 week escape from Elephant Island and in a wider context his 18 months trapped in the Antarctic ice. The sun shines and the walk is glorious - like the Lake District in the same way as the Falklands are like England - here the incongruity is supplied by elephant seals and glaciers. Having spent a week or so immersed in all things Shackleton, and notwithstanding the weather, it is hard not to feel a little
of the emotion that Shackleton records feeling when he realised that having overcome impossible odds they were going to make it (cresting the ridge he heard the hooter calling the men at Stromness whaling station to work. The first sound he or any of his men had heard from the outside human world in over 18 months).
Later in the day we visited Grytviken, another eerily beautiful abandoned whaling station, site of the South Georgia museum, in which Shackleton naturally features heavily, and of the graveyard in which Shackleton and his second in command, Frank Wild, are burried. We gathered en masse at the graveside and drank a toast with Jamieson´s (Shackleton´s tipple) to the "The boss" as his men affectionately called him, and it was corny and moving and appropriate at the same time.
And so onto the South Shetlands and the Antarctic Peninsular. The thermometer did not seem to drop but it did get windier and so felt colder. We saw our first icebergs, collosal but distant and increasingly frequent blows from migrating whales. We made it to Elephant Island and anchored off Point Wild. A fierce wind and heavy swell made a landing impossible but
anchored a few hundred metres off the point it was possible to make out the thin strip of land on which Frank Wild and the remainder of Shackleton´s men had been forced to shelter for over four months waiting for him to return. All around the rest of the coast is sheer cliffs and plunging glaciers. In the biting wind with snow in the air it would be hard to imagine a more inhospitable spot. Life for those left waiting must have been miserable beyond imagining.
As we sailed further south the snow and ice increased. There were more landings, more penguins and viewpoints. At certain points squalls that felt to us like blizzards, a snowball fight on the afterdeck with some very excited Aussies, many of whom had not seen snow before. For me though the highlight of this stage of the trip were the zodiac rides through the small bergs and flows, full of incredible colours, blues and greens and fantastic shapes carved by the sea and textures enhanced by recent snow falls or the patterns carved by trapped air as the bergs calved. We watched leopard seals with huge sinister grins hunt and play and rode past icebergs as they broke off and calved sending flows of brash ice cascading out towards the zodiac. Losing ourselves in this enchanted alien world that seemed like nothing so much as a drugged up version of Narnia.
And so we come to the Lemaire Channel, a narrow strip of water between islands off the Antarctic mainland that would mark our furthest point south. Sheer cliffs are on either side, the wind died, so the water had a glassy stillness. The sun began to set and as it did so the water began to mirror the ice that flowed by. At one point humpback whales, a mother and calf, swam serenely by, perhaps taking stock at the surface before beginning their migration north. And as we sailed further south and the sun continued to set the sky was flooded with the most amazing sunsets, pinks, oranges and reds that were reflected back in the limpid water. The ice perfectly reflected in the water adding its greens and blues. Absolutely breathtaking and all the time getting more beautiful as the number of icebergs increased and the sun got lower. Mostly we all just stood on the deck and grinned, took endless photos and listened to Fred - "Unbelieevable, oh my god you just can not belieeve what you are seeing. Shit, this really is the best day of my life".
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Chris B
non-member comment
Wow!
Great post Mark... Now I'd better get up for work. How unfair.