Hiya folks! As Dave gets close to finishing his Antarctic duties in the south, I´ve ventured more north into the warmer temps of the lovely city of Mendoza. That is correct. As the title indicates above, I´ve settled in for about 2 weeks. That´s enough to become a quazi local in my books. Wandering the city has been easy due to it´s lovely 5 plazas in the centre of the city. I was able to check off a couple things on my list, and yes, it is about food. Again. First thing´s first. The best restaurant for the amazing beef here (I knew you were thinking hot chocolate, I just know it!) Then the best ice cream shop. Both of these check marks were assisted by my fellow buddy traveler, Jeri, who has been in Mendoza ... read more

SQUAWK! I have become rather fond of penguins! Visiting much of the same colonies over the past few months, I have seen the penguins build their nests out of pebbles and watched as they laid their first egg. I have sat on the shores of distant beaches and perched myself high upon rocks and watched the penguins cherish and care for their eggs… I’ve witnessed new life as the chicks emerge from their shells as they hatch. I’ve seen the devotion and determination of penguin parents as they battle against the elements to feed and raise these chicks to adults, feeding them with regurgitated krill and fish. I’ve seen them swimming and hunting in the icy water. They swam under my boat and right up to the beach where I sat… I’ve witnessed that grand transformation ... read more

Meanwhile in the South... In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, an albatross starts to a follow a ship. Back in the days of sail, being followed by an albatross was generally considered as good luck. However, the mariner in the aforementioned poem gets out his crossbow and kills the albatross, which is regarded as a dreadful act that would send a curse upon the ship – a curse of windless days, disease, hunger and thirst (In the poem, the ship and crew do indeed suffer terrible misfortune.) To punish him, his shipmates force the mariner to wear the dead albatross around his neck, seemingly forever - until they all eventually die from the curse. The albatross can be both an omen of good luck or bad luck. ‘Ah! Well a-day! What ... read more

Here are more photos that have spilled over to yet another blog entry from my epic journey through Antarctica. Just so you know, I took about 2000 photos in total on my expedition. So to narrow them down to about 140 photos, was not an easy task. When there were so many photo-ops with the wildlife and landscape, it is a rather difficult undertaking to edit to the best ones to tell my story, and to not bore you with so many penguin pics! The Museum in Port Lockroy was most amusing as you will see with the photos. Thanks for all the great comments by the way, just so you all know, we are reading them and we love getting them! Enjoy! Theresa... read more

Some words that have inspired me, during my reflection of such an enormously moving journey in Antarctica... This quote was from the book, Southern Horizons, The History of the British Antarctic Territory, by Robert Burton (copywrite 2008), and it is originally from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (one of Dave´s favourite poems): And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by. As green as emerald Just to change the mood a bit, and in keeping with the poetic theme, part of our life on the Sea Spirit was to participate in competitions when we had a spare moment between gourmet meals, and getting our parkas on for zodiac landings. One of these competitions was created by Dave. Yup, you guessed it. A poetry c... read more