Blogs from Antarctica - page 12

Hi to all of our loyal blog followers. It's always great to learn new words and phrases in different languages and with an all Chinese charter, learning was inevitable! My counting in Mandarin has greatly improved for example. Prior to the trip I could quite confidently count to nothing in Mandarin, now I can count to six... I can even say 'once, twice, sold'.. Eetze, artze, maila! Please and thanks, good morning and seal. Rocks and kettle, cold and look... 春節 I can not read any of it though. The writing is very complicated and has thousands of characters. It's interesting that the Chinese writing system is so complex yet the Chinese eating system, with chopsticks, is simple... Curious... Anyway... The Year of the Cardboard Dragon I've just spent another three weeks in the Antarctic on ... read more

Es hat ein paar Tage gedauert, aber nun steht der Antarktis Blog mit vielen Fotos und zwei eigenen Videos! Wir sind am späteren Nachmittag mit unserem Gepäck und viel zusätzlichem Proviant zum Hafen spaziert, wo die Plancius und das Expeditionsteam bereits auf uns warteten. Als erstes haben wir unsere Kabine bezogen, welche zu unserem Erstaunen eine Suite war. Offensichtlich hatten wir Glück und wurden upgraded. Schon bald haben wir den Hafen Richtung Antarktis verlassen und als erstes Stand der Rettungsdrill auf dem Programm: Schwimmweste holen, anziehen und raus zum Rettungsboot. Glücklicherweise war dies nur eine einmalige Übung und dabei blieb es auch auf der ganzen Fahrt. Es schien eine ganz tolle Reise zu werden, denn schon nach 2 h im Beagle Channel haben wir die ersten Delfine gesichtet. Es war eine ganz seltene Rasse und sogar ... read more

Awesome, incredible, beautiful, breathtaking, stunning, magnificent, striking…… One cannot find enough words, or better said the right words to describe Antarctica. One of the most beautiful and memorable places I have stepped foot on so far. And one of the reason why this travel blog entry is so late is that I simply had to digest this adventure for a long time as it is truly one of the most amazing things I have done so far in my life. But let’s start from the end of my last entry…….. I wrote my last blog entry on the 4th of November so I had 3 days to kill until I had to join the cruise to Antarctica. And there isn’t really much to do in Ushuaia. While it is one of the most southern city/town in ... read more

Farewell to Antarctica You have to allow time for Antarctica to speak to you! It really is a special place. This trip to the Antarctic was the last of the season, winter is setting in fast, the sea is beginning to refreeze again, the days are shortening and the cold is gripping the continent. I will continue to reflect on these Antarctic voyages for quite some time, they have been more mind-blowing than I could have imagined. The sheer scale of things, the awe-inspiring beauty and the immensity of it all is staggering. I am blessed to have spent more time down here than I ever would have thought, and just to top things off, this last trip had some spectacular highlights! The Iceberg Graveyard Looking down onto the grounded icebergs in Pleneau Bay from a ... read more

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. ... read more