Blogs from Antarctica - page 3

How’s the song go? What a difference a day makes! We awoke to an Antarctic blizzard - limited visibility, howling winds and snow. The wind seemed at least to be keeping the sea relatively flat with its strength. Huge objections from the teenager at the early wake up call, particularly when it became obvious that we would not be going ashore unless we were after a trip on zodiac airlines. So we relaxed and read, played games in the lounge and watched as we slid past icebergs large and small and spectacular glaciated islands. Several attempted landing sites were rejected until we finally arrived at Paradise Harbour and the wind had died down (and the rain was only coming in fits and starts). We were the first zodiac ashore at Brown Base (official stop on the ... read more

NOTE: There are lots of nice photos at the end of this entry. Please have a look at them after the text. We've waited almost three years since we first booked this cruise to Antarctica. Everyone knows why it was delayed through 2020 and 2021, but when we were so close to finally seeing the white continent it felt like there was always just one more obstacle in the way. First we had to get a negative result for a COVID test the day before departure. Fortunately all three of us managed to do that. The tour operator decided to charge 65 euros per test, for a RAT that we know costs about 5 euros. Oh well, whatever! Then we were told that we need to be on a bus to depart the hotel at 2.30 ... read more

On Tuesday morning we awoke to clear skies and the sun trying to peek through the clouds. We watched the morning briefing on the TV in our room. We were heading to a landing spot in the South Shetland islands, called Dorian Bay. . This area has mainly Gentoo penguins which we had seen yesterday.. We were landing at a place called Dombay Point where both the British and Argentinians had huts, the UK for research and the Argentinians to check on what the British were doing. We were taken to shore on the Zodiac and landed in the shallows. They had cut a staircase in the ice so we could walk up a fairly steep slope to see the first hut, painted blue, which was the British one. The snow here was rather treacherous. There ... read more

2022. The year we turned 50. Also the year we joined the “Seven Continent Club” Our trip to Antarctica was aboard Hurtigruten’s MS Roald Amundsen . We loved the boat, our cabin, the crew and the food. As ours did, many expedition cruises to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia, Argentina, the world's southernmost city. This is a beautiful starting point where you are surrounded by picturesque mountains and a cute quiet little tourist town. We boarded Hurtigruten’s MS Roald Amundsen in the late afternoon and headed out into the Beagle Channel on our way to our crossing of The Drake Passage. The Beagle channel was beautiful. Snow capped mountains on either side. Lovely. Crossing “The Drake” takes about 2 days. The seas had 5m to 9m swells over the course of our 2 days. Yes….we were treated ... read more

Thursday. We were awakened at 08:20 with an announcement that our group would be boarding the zodiacs at 9:40. This was the first we’d heard of it so we scrambled to get ready and made it to the unloading deck on time. The sky was gray. It was an in zodiac only excursion of the area around the ship with a lecture about the formation of glaciers, climate change and other related topics. Our guide gathered samples of three types of ice from the surrounding water with his bare hands. We passed them around. The higher the density, the clearer the ice, so the clearest had come from lower down in a glacier. One of the nearby glaciers was huge. As we sailed to Cuverville Island, the sky cleared and it turned into a glorious day, ... read more