Antarctica (The ice crowned wonder)

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Have you ever dreamt of reaching the world’s end? Maybe meet Santa in the North Pole or maybe follow the adventures of Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton would be the far most popular personality being linked with Antarctica. He and his 27 men endured nearly 2 years of challenges when they got stranded in a pack of ice in Antarctica.

Antarctica is the southernmost continent, take note it is a continent. Which contains geographically the South Pole, one of the world’s end. Given it as a continent, it is the 5^th largest continent almost twice that of Australia measuring at 14,000,000 square kilometers. Approximately 1,000-5,000 human beings reside in the continent merely for research purposes only.

Some interesting facts as well is that Antarctica is governed by the Antarctica Treaty System, wherein 12 countries signed in 1959 and 38 have signed ever since. This treaty strictly prohibits military activities (testing & trainings), mineral mining, nuclear explosions and disposals. The good thing about the treaty is that it conserves the ecological biodiversity of the continent and supports scientific research.

Antarctica is truly fascinating and truly a wonder. With a very colorful history and very interesting exploration. Revered as the frozen desert it is a place of awe and shock with so many towering icebergs and very rich sea wildlife. Very harsh weather conditions also makes this place a challenging area to live in as well as long nights and long days given its position.

Being it a scientific research area, there are a lot of research stations in the area. I only managed to remember some of it during my visit to the continent, the Palmer Station which is a US station and where the researchers came onboard our ship to spend some time. The McMurdo station which is also a US station and the Scott Base which was a New Zealand station. During our 7 day scenic cruising there were some stations with flags on it like Brazil, Argentina, Chile & Norway.

I was lucky enough to visit this place through a cruise ship. Not on a cruise but working in a cruise ship. This privilege we get from this line of work is somewhat self-fulfilling. Not many people can visit this place and get to experience such great wonder. I was in constant awe wild all the wildlife we have seen. There were a number of species of birds, humpbacks, penguins were everywhere it was like a scene from the Happy Feet movie, seals, and some orcas.

The weather was nice during our visit and had the opportunity to take some fascinating pictures. There was this channel that the ship tried to pass through, and at that time I know it was a bit of a challenge for the Captain because there were ice packs all over the water and you can hear them banging against the ship’s hull every time the ships tries to navigate the tricky waters. Our ship was not designed to crush glaciers or ice, with its thin metal hull sharp icebergs will easily tear through it and immediately flood the ship, Antarctica if that one place you don’t want to abandon a ship that’s for sure.

I’m an Asian so experiencing snow is really way up above my bucket list. I was working as a night staff at that time and around 2:00am ship security gave us a buzz in the radio that there is snow fall in the bow. Together with the night team we quickly head out to the outside deck and experienced the quick snowfall. We were like kids taking pictures, trying to catch the snow flakes, and enjoying every minute of that precious time. I did not know that snow was like this. I would describe it as crushed ice, that’s it no fancy explanations. But the fact that these came down from the sky is truly fascinating. I had experienced a lot of hailstorms with hails as large as marbles but experiencing a snowfall was amazing.

All the time the scene where the Titanic struck an iceberg in the middle of the ocean was playing in my mind during our stay in Antarctica. I tried to get it out of my head because it is a cruise ship and we had some of the best captains in the fleet (not boasting). One of the most awaited part of our Antarctica run was the Aurora Australis or the Southern Lights. Like what they have in the northern part of the world, the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. I had tons of request for wake up calls for the sighting but unluckily we did not experience any of the Aurora Australis during the Antarctica season.

With all the fascinations and amazements I had during this trip, you might as well want to indulge yourselves with some the very nice sights we had seen in this majestic grandeur.



Spend time, live your life, save and travel! J

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