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Published: March 17th 2007
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Iceberg
We saw many large icebergs in the Antarctic waters after crossing the Drake Passage from the tip of South America. We left the tip of South America early in February and cruised through the Straits of Magellan toward Antarctica, a trip of about 400 miles. We tried to remedy our total ignorance a little on the way, and found that the Antarctic is really a large continent (unlike the Arctic, which is all ice and water).
On the map Antarctica shaped like a round blob with a little pigtail of islands stretching toward the tip of South America. This round blob is about the same size as the United States and Mexico combined and it is almost totally covered with ice and snow, in some places two miles thick. The "pigtail" islands stretching toward South America are actually a continuation of the Andes Mountain chain that runs down the west coast of South America. The experts say South America and Antarctica were once joined, after the whole land mass of North and South America and Antarctica broke away from the mother continent of Africa.
In the interior, Antarctica is the coldest and - surprisingly - the driest continent on earth, even dryer than the Sahara, but the snow and ice never melt so over millions of
Icy water and floes
The scenery around the Antarctic Islads was stunning, with steep snowy mountains rising out of the deep blue water thick with floes and small icebergs. years it has built up. The ice ridges are pushed down toward the open sea where they break off into icebergs that can range in size from small ice floes to chunks the size of an island.
We noticed right away that the outside temperature was becoming colder, and so windy! as we crossed the Drake Passage right where the Atlantic meets the Pacific ocean. Captain Otto assured us that the water was unusually calm (if you can call it that) and that we were incredibly lucky to have such smooth sailing.
The weather was good too, with beautiful sunny days. Since it's high summer there, the temperature out on the water hardly went below freezing - much warmer than the US weather we heard about on CNN. However it did snow one day and the (much younger) crew went out on the swimming pool deck and threw snowballs at each other and even made a small snowman.
Our ship did not make port in Antarctica, first of all because there's no port large enough, and going in by tenders is too dangerous - and too cold! Plus there's not much land to walk
Small Islands - or Ice?
The blue sky shows how incredibly lucky we were with the lovely clear weather. Some visitors to Antarctica scarcely see it because of rain and poor visibility. on. One of our expert lecturers described the awful hardships of the first polar explorers who mapped the continent and planted their country's flag at the South Pole.
Several countries maintain summer research stations along the thousands of miles of Antarctic coastline, some of which is ice free, but there is no industrial or commercial development, following the terms of an international agreement.
There are no land animals, but a lot of seals, penguins, and birds. Whales are making a comeback after being hunted almost to extinction. We saw the broken remnants of a couple of old whaling ships and processing buildings in the outer islands.
There was no wildlife "on display" for us, so we had to watch for it. We were lucky enough to see a whale and her calf cavorting beside the ship, as many whales are leaving this time of year to return to the waters off Africa.
One day I spotted a huge black albatross out the window, wingspan at least six feet, diving down to the surface of the water for a large fish that it carried away in its beak. Once or twice we got
Icy island mountain
Almost all these photos were taken through windows inside the ship. It was not all that cold, only about 33 F, but the wind chill factor was terrific. Not much fun for bare fingers trying to aim and click a camera. close enough to penguin colonies on the beach to see them standing at attention with their white fronts or bobbing in the water, with seals on the outskirts waiting to make a lunch off one of them.
Seeing penguins any closer had to wait until we left the Antarctic and went to the Falkland Islands off the east coast of South America. We left the islands off Antarctica and crossed the Drake Passage again toward the Falklands off the east tip of South America, occasionally passing huge icebergs as big as toppled-over skyscrapers.
The Falklands, as you may remember, were occupied by Argentina some years ago, until Maggie Thatcher sent in British troops to restore order. One of our visiting experts on the ship had a hunch the Argentine government needed an easy way to buck up its sagging popularity at home, so they billed the invasion of the Falklands as a glorious patriotic restoration of Argentine's territorial integrity, etc etc, since there was no historical justification for their claim.
Argentina's first move after shipping in their army trucks was to outlaw the standard Falklands custom of driving on the left, since Argentineans drive on
Another visitor
The white object through the center window is a Holland American cruise ship also in the area. It was the only other ship we saw. the right. The official language, of course, would be Spanish. The Falkland Islanders, who are English-speaking British subjects through and through, failed to appreciate all this. Neither did Maggie.
After a brief stop at the Falklands, we continued cruising on up the east coast of South America toward Rio de Janeiro.
Some of the pictures shown here were taken by our much-admired computer teacher, Stan Leja. He managed to get better shots of some scenes than we had ourselves, including the whales. When not watching the scenery we are slaving away for Stan, trying to learn more abaout Excel, Powerpoint and other Microsoft goodies. I have truly enjoyed it myself, as it's the first computer class I ever had where I felt like I knew what the teacher was talking about!
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Judy
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Stupendous post!
Thanks for the wonderful pictures and descriptions! Too funny about the penguins all turning to face you. I can just about imagine Master Sargeant Penguin saying, About FACE!