Blogs from Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 16

Geo: 14.4721, -60.8697After bringing in the New Year with a BANG! in Bequia (literally), we sailed up to Martinique to take care of the repair work. For those who haven't heard, we were hit by a 57 foot charter boat while we were sitting at anchor in Bequia. We were lucky to have been hit by such a large boat. The damage was localized to our teak toe rail, and the fibreglass deck at the point of impact. The charter company covered the repairs, and gave us a dock to stay on for the two weeks while we were there. We made the best of a bad situation. We used the time to explore Le Marin more so that we would have if we had been anchored out. It's not often that Inspiration is on a ... read more

Geo: 12.4924, 106.025Started with pancakes for breakfast at 7am and then on the bus to the Laos border on the Sen River. We hopped on the local boats and headed up river which is very wide and quite swift.It is coming into the winter dry season here and you can easily see how high the river was in full monsoon, about 10 metres above 'normal'. There are a lot of islands and trees in the river. The tops of some of the trees are bent. downstream, as if they were in a strong wind. Others have their roots exposed and they look like long hair blowing back from the tree. One of the highlights was seeing a rare freshwater dolphin. There are only four in this area so we were very lucky. However photos would not ... read more

Geo: 18.4606, -66.1138The Puerto Rican capital of San Juan was a bit of a surprise, with its pop of 1.6M people and its big city feel. Puerto Rico is a US Territory that is on the path to statehood after its people voted (inconclusively, so far) to seek to become a state.The points of the Bermuda Triangle are generally agreed to be: San Juan, Bermuda and Miami. Haven't heard of any strange happenings for a long time, though.... read more

Geo: -62.5933, -60.0183This was our last day in Antarctica. By early afternoon, we were headed back toward the Drake Passage. This morning, the Zodiac landings started very early—5 a.m. for the first group. The captain had made arrangements with another ship in the area to share the landing site with us going early and the other ship stopping there after we left. Yesterday, Iggy said that even though the ships are competitors when it comes to booking passengers, they work well together once they are in Antarctica and cooperate to share space and times for landings. Our purple group was fourth today making our time for a Zodiac landing at 9:30, a very respectable hour. We have been lucky with most of the timings of our group's landings. We were parked in Half Moon Bay to ... read more

Geo: -64.8236, -62.8581We have arrived! After days at sea passing through some rough and raging areas as well as, thankfully, mostly calm and friendly waters, we have made it to the continent. I could say that we have stepped onto our seventh continent of Antarctica, but that would be way too simplistic for the process involved. We took a Zodiac over to the Gonzalez Videla Base, a Chilean research station and inactive naval base now manned by Air Force personnel, on the Antarctic mainland at Waterboat Point in Paradise Bay. When the Zodiac pulls up to disembark passengers, they have a few different ways to do it. This time the boat headed straight in to nose its bow up on a rocky point. The passengers, one at a time, slid up the side of the boat ... read more