Antarctica - A Summary

BURBANK, CA -- More than twelve thousand words of blog posts from my Antarctica trip later, and I have realized a few things. Antarctica is a land of extremes. It is one that goes beyond superlatives - frankly, you run out very quickly. Some of the extremes are obvious. Antarctica is the southernmost continent. It is the coldest. It is the only uninhabited continent in the world. Others are equally obvious, but not thought about as frequently. Antarctica is the driest continent in the world - despite the snow we had on our trip, as a continent, it is an enormous desert. Antarctica is the only continent that has been completely war and conflict-free. It is the largest biologically preserved area in the world, covering a full ten percent of the planet, yet perhaps ironically, there is less life in Antarctica than anywhere else. The largest supply of fresh water in the world exists in the ice of Antarctica. Simply put, Antarctica is the most unique place I have ever visited, and it is a land where time stands still.

For a selection of about 400 of the more than 8,000 photos I took, see album one and album two. Log into facebook and leave a comment, or 'like' away. :)

Before I traveled to Antarctica, I talked to a very small number of friends who had already been there. Their opinions were all the same - for all of the traveling they had done, Antarctica was the most incredible place they had ever visited, it was worth every penny, and they would go again without any hesitation whatsoever.

Well, having now been there myself, I can confirm all of the above and more. I went to Antarctica with absurdly high expectations. With only the Grand Canyon as an accurate (though totally different) comparison, it blew those high expectations out of the water.

Put another way, I originally thought to myself that while yes, it would be a very expensive trip - by far the most expensive I had ever been on, it was my one shot to get to Antarctica, and I needed to do it to get there and check it off the list. Having been there, I can tell you that not only was it worth every penny, but it was so majestic and wholly encompassing that I will go again - for longer, further south, in a different season, to see different ice, and different species of penguins. Maybe not for awhile, but I will undoubtedly be back.


So... now what? How do you top Antarctica? I've been mulling over this for the past month or so, and I guess I have yet to come up with an answer. For now, I don't think you do. Instead, you continue to fulfill your other goals, and lucky for me, I have one that is right at the top of that list: getting to all 50 states. I am currently stuck on 46, so I have four more to go: Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. I have, however, intentionally gone after the single outliers over the past few years: North Dakota, Oregon, Alaska, etc. As such, these four that remain are all doable in a single trip, and that is the next big one on my list. As of now, the goal is to get there sometime in April, before my 25th birthday on April 21st.


What else have I been up to the past month? The day after I got back, my parents drove into town and my brother flew in, so I got to play host for a few weeks. My parents left after a few days, though we did get a lovely trip to Santa Barbara as well as a day in Santa Monica in there. Shortly after they left, a UW friend flew in for New Years (Happy 2012 everybody!) and the Rose Bowl. Had a great weekend and a fun time at the game, but that is where we'll leave it. Losing twice in a row stinks, but it's even worse when both times you are within one score of winning. Oh well... I'll give them one more shot. :)

Last weekend I was in Las Vegas, which was a lot of fun. We had a mini-Antarctica group reunion, which was nice, and I got to speak again for People to People, which I always enjoy doing. I am actually excited for some more upcoming speaking opportunities in the near future. Check out this feature they did in their blog of me, it is very nice!

This week has been busy with work, but busy is a good thing! We Heart It is breaking records left and right. Check out the new page layout and features here!

I have also been really busy with running. The Surf City Half Marathon is coming up in two weeks and two days, which is right around the corner! I have been training like a madman, running 4-5 days per week. I have run 47.2 miles so far in January, and it is only the 20th! Since I started training and recreational running in August 2010, there has only been one month better than this one so far, when I ran 59.3 miles in April 2011. Tomorrow I run 11 miles though, and Sunday another 3-5, so I should top it for my best month ever by the end of this weekend, if all goes according to plan. I have also simultaneously been utilizing My Fitness Pal, which rigorously tracks calorie, carb, fat, and protein consumption of absolutely everything I eat or drink. Using that combined with my running software (Garmin for the Forerunner 410 and Runkeeper overall), I am able to stay on a very specific plan that has me losing weight for the past four weeks now. So far I am down about seven pounds, and I'd like to lose another two in the next two weeks before the race, and maybe another four or five after that. So far so good!

In sports, the Australian Open is currently ongoing in Melbourne. Having been to Wimbledon and the US Open, it is a big goal of mine to get to Melbourne in a future year during the last two weeks of January for the tournament, as well as to Roland Garros in Paris for the French Open in May. It is great having some good tennis on during the background, and it is also nice living on the west coast - I can watch half the matches live and it isn't some absurd hour, which contrasts greatly from the days of living in Madison when I would be intentionally writing essays at 3am so that I could watch Federer smoke some unworthy opponent. Speaking of Roger, he is in action tomorrow night against Bernard Tomic, the Australian #1 and a huge home crowd favorite. Should be an interesting fourth-round match!

On the always important hockey front, my Chicago Blackhawks won yet again tonight, and are again leading the entire NHL in the current standings. So far they look poised to have another great postseason, but one foot in front of the other - I will keep the hockey posts tuned down and slowly ramp them up as we get closer to April and May.

Finally, since I have historically mentioned it in the update blogs wherever I am, I do have to say that January in Burbank is quite nice in the weather department. It was in the upper-60s today, and I haven't seen a cloud in days. That said, we are supposed to get some rain tomorrow, but after that it's looking like it may get up to 80 this week, with plenty of sun. Quite the contrast from the -8 wind chill at home last night, nevermind the half foot of snow they got today. :)

Until next time, have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for reading the blog. In the past month, my page views have doubled. My youtube videos have been seen nearly 20,000 times now. Thanks for your comments and for sharing - I hope you enjoy it! 

Eighteen Thousand Miles

December 24, 2011

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Eighteen thousand, one hundred and forty one miles later, I have made it back to California. I will post some sort of general overview another time, but I wanted to wrap up the daily blog posts from the trip with one last daily summary of travel.

Last night, we took off from EZE on time, after saying goodbye to our last two co-travelers at our gate. I got a few nice pictures departing the city, had some dinner, and fell asleep.

About three hours later, I woke up to the single worst experience of turbulence I have ever experienced on a jet aircraft. I looked out the window, and it was immediately clear we were in the middle of an electrical storm. I looked up and to the right, and saw on the GPS that we were flying over central Bolivia, right where the Andes Mountains jet out from the Amazonian plains.

Instantly I thought of a few things. First, we weren't terribly south of the equatorial monsoon region. With the most moisture and humidity over such a large area compared with anywhere else in the world, as well as a constant supply of high-intensity sunlight and corresponding heat, this area is capable of producing massive thunderstorms with little to no warning. In Africa, just north these latitudes produce the tropical systems that move west over the Atlantic Ocean and eventually form into Tropical Storms and Atlantic Hurricanes, some of which hit the United States almost every year. In South America, you almost always hit some turbulence here (similar to flying east or west across the United States, you almost always it some turbulence when you fly over the eastern ridge of the Rocky Mountains, usually over Colorado, Wyoming, or New Mexico). This was also the same region that brought down Air France Flight 447.

Over the course of the next 30 seconds, we took direct lightning strikes on our left-side wing three times, and in all probability, took a few more on the plane. At the same time, I was tracking our altitude on GPS, and we lost over 2,100 feet, all of which was unintentional - when you are flying through turbulence, you go up, not down. At this point, I just kind of looked around and chuckled to myself, thinking, "at least everyone knows I made it to Antarctica." Twisted humor, sure, but I made it to all seven continents!

After what seemed like an eternity, we pulled a steep climb as we banked to the north. We climbed from our original cruising altitude of 35,000 feet up to 38,000 feet, and changed from our northwest heading to due north for ten minutes, climbing out of the storm. Below, there was such intense lightning within the storm that there was not a split moment (not second, but moment) wherein the clouds were not illuminated by lightning strikes. I fell back to sleep...

When I woke up, I thought about all of the above with a big sigh of relief. I have flown a lot of miles by any standard, and that really was the closest call I've been a part of. Alas, we proceeded to Houston, where our mid-flight diversion meant we got in about 25 minutes late. Small sacrifice for survival! I got through immigration, baggage claim, customs, and security without much hassle, and then burned through another four hours of a layover. Eventually our last flight of the trip departed on-time, and I slept through most of it.

On final approach into Los Angeles, I couldn't help but think that I was really a world away from the Lemaire Channel, Neko Harbor, and the South Shetland Islands. It was the clearest approach into LAX I have ever experienced - very little pollution, ample sunshine, and actual cleanliness. Despite that, I observed the human sprawl for as far as the eye could see, and it was with new-found admiration I was able to appreciate this fragile world we live in. From the White Continent to Southern California, over the course of more than eighteen-thousand miles of travel, and despite impossible odds, it may be a world away, but it is so clearly all connected; I was back.

Buenos Aires - Part 2

December 23, 2011

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA -- Good evening from EZE, Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport.

It has been an eventful 24 hours! Yesterday we got to USH a couple hours before our flight, originally at 7:30pm, and found out it was delayed three hours. Thus instead of arriving into Buenos Aires at 10:45pm, we wouldn't end up even leaving Ushuaia until then. We got into AEP around 2:00am, baggage claim took forever (they probably only had one or two workers still there), and the cab line was really long as well (not so many drivers going by the airport at a late hour). By the time we got to our hostel and to sleep it was about 4:00am.

Four and a half hours of sleep later, we were up, checked out, and met up for a quick mini-reunion breakfast near La Casa Rosada with ten of us from the trip. Immediately after breakfast, four of them left, but the remaining six of us hit the Buenos Aires public bus system and took a cheap one peso ride over to La Boca, one of the more famous barrios of Buenos Aires. La Boca was the most European of all the places we visited over our two day-long trips to BA, and it maintains a colorful and artistic influence that is partially catered to tourists, and partially to locals as well. Another member of Penguin Highway, our new group-name for those on our trip aboard the M/S Expedition, joined us in La Boca, where we spent some time looking at all the art. We ended up in an artist's studio, where we got a private tour thanks to one of our fellow travelers, and eventually we settled for some lunch before returning to La Casa Rosada, in downtown.

We had some ice cream while wandering down Florida Street, an overcrowded and market-oriented part of downtown, and then said goodbye to more of our group, and eventually made it back to our hostel in the rain. As it turned out, while we were drying off and enjoying our last hour, yet another one of our shipmates was staying at our hostel, so we got to spend some time with him which was nice. Three of us shared a cab to EZE, and here we are, along with a fourth, about to board our flight to the United States. It has been a lovely last day in Buenos Aires to wrap up this trip of a lifetime.

Ushuaia - Part 2

December 22, 2011

USHUAIA, ARGENTINA -- Greetings once again from the Hotel Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

This morning we got up and had one last breakfast on-board the M/S Expedition. We said goodbye to our staff and crew, and officially disembarked at 8:00am. We dropped our luggage off in town, and then spent the morning on the main drag of Ushuaia in a coffeehouse, and then later looking for Antarctica souvenirs.

While looking for Antarctica souvenirs, I realized that, to my huge surprise, there were virtually zero acceptable ones. Given that 95%+ of all travelers to Antarctica embark and disembark out of Ushuaia, I figured with near certainty that there would be some ability to buy souvenirs in Ushuaia after the trip, but quickly I summed three major flaws with the Antarctic souvenirs:

1) Political. Many of the souvenirs in Antarctica refer exclusively to Argentine Antarctica, referring to the universally ignored claim to a significant portion of the land by Argentina. All maps have Argentine Antarctica shaded in a different color and emphasized in some way. It's total bogus, but so the souvenirs said.

2) Language. While I am perfectly fine with a number of the souvenirs being in Spanish, given we were are in a Spanish-speaking country, it is ridiculous that you can't find a simple sweatshirt, or a keychain, or a magnet that doesn't say "Antartida." Remember those 95% of travelers to Antarctica who go through Ushuaia? I'd bet a lot that says over half of them speak English, and probably far more than that. But nope, no Antarctica sweatshirts, only Antartida.

3) Biological. Okay, so I can't find a magnet that doesn't contain a crummy politically-influenced map or Spanish, but surely there are magnets just of penguins, right? Well, that would be correct, but having spent the past week and a half studying and quickly identifying the various different species of penguins, it is incredibly clear that almost all souvenirs are photos or drawings of Emperor Penguins. That is all fine and dandy, except for one problem: virtually nobody gets to see them. If you read the blog updates, you'll know we spent the vast majority of our time around Gentoo and Chinstrap Penguins. We saw a Macaroni and Adelie Penguin, as well as a Magellanic Penguin colony too. That said, Emperor Penguins live much further south, and worse, they are inland. You need a ton of luck with ice conditions and then a helicopter excursion to get there, which is possible, but highly unlikely for the average tourist in Ushuaia. I am sure most people don't care so much, but I wasn't going to buy an overpriced magnet with a penguin on it that I never came remotely close to seeing.

So, entrepreneurs, if you are looking for an easy market to enter, I highly encourage you to create souvenirs to sell in Ushuaia that avoid the three problems noted above. They are all pretty weak, and you are sure to do well if you just take a logical approach to it. In a half-day searching, I managed to find one glass-etched penguin that was a Gentoo. That is it.

From our relatively unsuccessful souvenir shopping we hiked it back up to the Hotel Ushuaia, which has a fabulous view of the Beagle Channel, and we knew they had decent food and good, free internet. We all are finally online, with some more substantial status updates to share our experiences with the world. From here, we are off to the airport, and tonight fly up to Buenos Aires, for our first night of total darkness in about two weeks.

Drake Lake

December 21, 2011

USHUAIA, ARGENTINA -- Well, we have made it back safely to Ushuaia! We made phenomenal timing due to a really smooth crossing of the Drake. Last time, going south, we had about 20 foot swells… these were less than half that, at max, and overall it wasn’t a big deal. The only people who got remotely sick were those who were taking sea-sickness medication, and it was the medicine that made them feel unwell.

Due to “Drake Lake,” we were able to maintain a higher speed, and despite our scheduled arrival being 8:00am tomorrow, we pulled into the Beagle Channel around 2:30pm today, and we were tied to the dock by 7:30pm, a few hours ago.

A few highlights from today...

We woke up this morning at the early hour of 6:15am, so that we could get on the ship intercom as per our Save the Albatross auction victory from last night. We woke everyone up around 6:30am, which was actually our usual wake-up time while in Antarctica, but we told everyone it was 7:30am. Seeing as there are no clocks in the rooms, and nobody was on a working phone, everyone bought it. Watching their reactions when they found out it was actually an hour earlier was priceless. Last night, when we won this, we were told that the last cruise did a 15-minute rendition, so that was our target. In order to make it that long, we thought it would be both annoying and clever to thank every single crew member by name, so we painstakingly thanked them, mostly in some sort of comedic way. We made reference to Matt's desire to be reincarnated as an elephant seal, Kevin's love of birds, Scott's disdain for Scott, etc. Then, at the end, we told everyone we had a sighting of blue whales from the ship, and to get out on deck to see them. To give it some authenticity, at the end, we translated the last bit into Spanish, which was normal procedure for ship announcements (almost all announcements were translated into Spanish for a large contingent of Spanish-speakers on the expedition). To see the announcement, spoken and enunciated slowly and clearly, as per our expedition leader Susan, go ahead and click here.

After the announcement a few of us hung around for a bit, and there were a couple dozen people who came out to get coffee and tea, all of whom were shocked to see the actual time. There were also a number of people from the Spanish-speaking group who came out fully dressed in outside gear, no doubt heading to the deck to look for some whales that were a figment of our imagination. Overall a few people were upset, but everyone knew it was in good fun, and throughout the day, many people who I had never met came up to me to thank me for a job well done. It's all for charity, folks! We had a lot of fun with it too.

The day itself, as stated, was pretty relaxed. We mostly edited and transferred pictures among us, though we did have an Engine Room tour that was exciting. It is pretty cramped working quarters down there, but it was nice to see it and appreciate the inner workings of the ship that got us safely to Antarctica and back.

An hour or so after that we saw South America for the first time in a week and a half, so I went outside to the bow, where it was noticeably warmer (although the weather wasn't great, it was pretty windy and there was some light rain). More striking than that was the smell! There are no real plants in Antarctica, and the only distinguishable smell in all the cold and ice is the penguin guano, which isn't all that pleasant. Being surrounded by pristine forests in the Chilean and Argentinian mountains was incredibly refreshing, and it was quite powerful and not something I had really thought about until it happened.

Also, coming into the Beagle Channel we saw a number of dolphins swimming out to sea. They came by us really quickly, so there wasn't much time for photos, but they were very playful, jumping clear out of the water time and again. Later on, in the heart of the Beagle Channel, only a couple of hours out of Ushuaia, we passed a couple of colonies of Magellanic Penguins, the fifth species we saw on the trip!

Finally, as we finished dinner, we docked back in Ushuaia, and after our meal we went for a nice three mile walk through town. We didn't even get anything, but it was just nice to walk outside on solid ground for a change. That said, being in a city again, and in a world of Spanish being in Argentina was a bit of a culture shock. We came back to the ship to finish off our wine, and got one last night of sleep aboard the M/S Expedition.

Drake Passage - Northbound

December 20, 2011

DRAKE PASSAGE, ANTARCTICA -- Well, we are still below 60 degrees south, so technically we are still in Antarctica politically. Last night we turned north from the protection of the South Shetlands into the heart of the Drake around 11pm, and have been sailing north ever since. We have also yet to hit the Antarctic convergence, so we are in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean biologically too. I have a feeling that by the time I finish this post, however, we will have crossed both of those barriers.

Today has been a slow morning thus far. We did not have a wakeup call at all for the first time since we got on the ship, which was nice. I ended up waking up around 9am anyway, and we had two lectures this morning.

The first lecture was about two historical expeditions that succeeded against all odds. They are not as famous and popular as Scott and Amundsen racing to the South Pole, or Shakleton, but nonetheless were various successes.

After the first lecture, we had a tour of the bridge. For all the time we have spent up there looking out for animal life, or just enjoying the views, it felt appropriate to learn about all the equipment up there. Most of the navigational things, such as the GPS systems and mapping, I already knew about. The engineering components, however, were new to me and it was a very informative tour. There were some obvious things I had simply never thought about, such as black boxes (like on airplanes). Then, in the middle of the bridge tour, we spotted a few water spouts off the bow, a classic first sighting of a whale. As we continued watching and getting closer, we got a positive identification of two humpback whales heading down towards Antarctica. I got a few good shots of their spouts as well as their flukes (flukes are the flipper/fins on the back/”rudder”). When whales show their flukes, it usually means they are going for a dive, and won’t surface again for anywhere from 3-20 minutes, by which time we are usually long gone. That said it was an exciting sighting!

The second lecture was about the Antarctic Treaty, originally signed in 1959 by 12 countries. I knew some of the provisions of the treaty before, but wasn’t aware of all of the history surrounding it. As it turns out, the year after founding People to People in 1956, President Eisenhower thought it in him to continue the peaceful scientific exploration occurring in Antarctica with a meeting in Washington D.C. in 1957, wherein the original articles off the Antarctic Treaty were drawn up. Interestingly, this included all countries with scientific bases in Antarctica, which included the USSR, and thus the Washington conference has later been referred to as the “first thawing of the Cold War.” In sum, the treaty, despite being rather unenforceable, has kept 10% of the entire planet entirely conflict and war-free for over half a century, which is a rather impressive thing. As it currently stands, the treaty will stay in effect until the 2040s, at which time it must either be renewed or revamped in some form.

Murphy’s Law currently in effect here, by the way. I was just thinking to write about how calm the Drake Passage has been thus far, when an enormous swell tipped our ship a good 25 degrees. When the big swells do that, you have to be really careful with drinks and electronics and make sure they do not go flying all over the place. So far so good! The weather has held up nicely today as well, and overall it has been very smooth sailing thus far, but we still have at least another 24 hours in the Drake itself, so we’ll see how things continue to progress.

As predicted, it is now 1:30pm, and we have crossed the 60 degree mark – now writing to you from international waters somewhere along the border of the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans, several hundred miles off the coast of South America. I feel infinitely less cool than I did an hour ago and for the past week or so from Antarctica. Le sigh…

This evening we had an auction on-board the ship, which was a ton of fun. The biggest item, the course chart for our entire expedition, ended up going for $1600! The ship flag, from the bow, went for $500, and in hindsight, I wish I would have bid higher for that - I went to about $300 and stopped there. Such a cool item - it's ripped up pretty good but not over the logo, so you can clearly tell what it is, but you can also clearly tell we took a nice Antarctic beating. In any case, I did win one item. Well, it isn't really an "item," but instead it is the right to wake up the entire ship on the announcement intercom tomorrow, anytime from 6-10am, and no rules at all about what can be said, length, etc. Best $20 ever spent, plus, it's really all for charity anyway, so it's a good cause. Special thanks to Save the Albatross, and can't wait to report on our group shenanigans tomorrow. :)

Last Day in Antarctica!

December 19, 2011

SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS, ANTARCTICA -- Well, we have sadly left the mainland of Antarctica. Overnight we crossed the Bransfield Strait and returned back to the South Shetland Islands, where we first arrived a week ago when we reached Antarctica. On the other side of the islands is the Drake Passage, which we will venture into later tonight and tomorrow. Fingers crossed for smooth sailing!!!

In any case, everyone is determined to maximize every moment of our last day in Antarctica, and we had a zodiac cruise this morning to kick off the day. We cruised for over an hour around Hannah Point in Walker Bay, where we saw some massive elephant seals, the largest of their kind. Weighing in at a measly six tons (when born, they start out at 500 pounds… think about that for a minute), these things waddle around like it is nobody’s business, and could crush a human without even thinking about it. If they can do that to humans, imagine what it would be like to penguins, which are so much smaller than we are already. We actually saw an elephant seal go right through a penguin colony, which was something you of course would rather not witness, but it is a part of nature and happens every day. They were by far the most active seals we have seen thus far, bouncing around all over the place. Our zodiac driver, Matt, had a seemingly firm belief that he wants to be reincarnated as an elephant seal… they eat as much as they want and get to sleep all day, pretty good life if those are your favorite things to do, haha.

Scenically, the land was mostly barren, which is incredibly rare in Antarctica. That said, we were looking across at a massive ice shelf, but still, it is rare to see so much exposed rock. The weather was also cooperative again, so we got some nice pictures of the elephant seals intermixed with the Gentoo penguins. We saw a couple of outliers as well – one crabeater seal actually swimming through the water, and one Chinstrap penguin who seemed a little out of place amongst all the Gentoo colonies. Overall it was a beautiful spot – apparently they used to landings there, but the governing body for Antarctica banned it, and you can see why when you are there. The place was packed with wildlife, and an elephant seal could, again, flatten a human without even trying. It is nice when you see that despite the obvious desire to land people there, that all of these expeditions avoid it for the sake of the greater good and to preserve and protect the wildlife in this amazing place.

Since our schedule got pushed back a little bit, this afternoon’s landing turned into this evening, not that you can really tell with it never getting dark out and all. In any case, this afternoon we had our very last landing in Antarctica, at Half Moon Island in the South Shetland Islands, not too far from Hannah Point.

Half Moon Island was still covered in a decent amount of snow, but it was bustling with penguin activity. In our hour and a half there, we saw four species of penguins! We saw the two that we have seen throughout the trip first. The island is primarily a Chinstrap colony, so there were hundreds of them all over the place. Right where we landed, we also saw a couple of Gentoos, which we have seen throughout the Antarctica peninsula. That said, up at the top of one of the chinstrap colonies we saw a single Macaroni penguin, which was quite stunning. Macaroni penguins are the ones with the bright yellow/orange feathers that look like flamboyant eyelash extensions, and overall are much more colorful than the chinstraps and other penguins. After a good 20 minutes of getting pictures of the Macaroni surrounded by the chinstraps, we walked down the mountain back towards the water, where we saw an Adelie penguin too! The Adelie penguin is identifiable by its all-black head, whereas most (all?) other penguins have some type of either white and/or other color in their heads. I found it quite remarkable that in one tiny little island we saw four species of penguins. Then, just for kicks, we saw an elephant seal, which we had only first seen earlier today at Hannah Point, swimming by in the water.

At 8:35pm, I stepped into the zodiac, and left the land of the white continent. You know, it is interesting. Before coming on this trip, I very much was of the belief that I would save up and make it happen, and then probably leave it alone. Maybe I would get back someday, maybe not, and if not, that would be perfectly fine. After coming, however, I can now tell you with near certainty that I will be back to continue exploring. Maybe a different trip, different ship, different season, and different places, but the continent is one of those natural wonders that is simply awe-inspiring. I have always said it is hard to sit at the rim of the Grand Canyon and come to the mental grasp that what you are seeing in front of you is actually real. Antarctica is much the same thing. It feels like it is on another planet, and in almost all respects, it is unlike anything else we have on this one. Having now been to all seven continents, it is extremely clear that this one is the most unique, and most otherworldly. At some point, I will be back.

Neko Harbor

December 18, 2011

PARADISE BAY, ANTARCTICA -- Both landings today were on the continent itself! As such, all doubt possible is gone, although we have been on the continental shelf for every landing we have done anyway.

We had another good day of weather – no winds and no precipitation. At our first landing, at Neko Harbor, we saw Gentoo penguins as we climbed halfway up a mountain, and they demonstrated as previously stated how they can scale an icy mountain at a far faster rate than we humans can. That said, we had nearly three hours for this landing – most are around 1 hour, maybe a little more, but this was about double our next-longest landing thus far, and it was nice to have a really leisurely pace.

Later on, we had a short zodiac cruise where we saw some crazy ice reflections in Neko Harbor. The winds slowed to still, and most of the zodiacs went in a different direction, so everything was virtually flat. The pictures of the icebergs and the snow-capped mountains reflecting off the still water turned out great. An interesting observation by one of our zodiac drivers with regards to why humans are so infatuated with penguins suggested that it is because of all the other animals out there, they are the only ones that stand upright and walk on two legs, as we do. As someone who is infatuated with penguins, I had never thought of that, but it certainly makes a lot of sense.

Early this afternoon after lunch we saw an enormous tabular iceberg at Andvord Bay – it was far taller and far wider than our ship, which is pretty much the definition for an enormous as opposed to a large iceberg. I decided to create a little project, as we had some warning before reaching it. I ended up taking a 145-picture time-lapse of our ship turning around the iceberg. I took the shots in five-second intervals over nearly 10 minutes in total, on a gorillapod attached to the ship railing, and then timed out the shots and turned into a time-lapse video. The video turned out pretty good and they later showed it to everyone at our daily recap/briefing.

This afternoon we saw an Argentinean base, Almirante Brown Station at Paradise Bay. Interestingly nobody was there – the station is kept mainly to keep up the Argentinean sovereignty claim to this part of Antarctica. Apparently they come once in awhile for a few days or weeks at a time, and it is totally hit or miss. That said, it was a very nice and picturesque area. We climbed to the top of a mountain on the base, and at the top saw an amazing 360-degree view of the Paradise Bay channel. The hike was very steep, so on the way down after slipping on the ice a few times, we “bum-slid” our way halfway down the mountain until the path steadied out a bit, then hiked our way back to shore. From the station, we did a zodiac cruise over Paradise Bay, where we saw a Weddell Seal and a Crabeater Seal. Most spectacularly, we saw ice calving at Paradise Bay, with a thunderous roar. The first time I heard it, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, and then saw the last little bits of ice chunks falling into the water, where a massive ripple wave and effect was already underway. Sure enough, we saw this happen a couple more times at Paradise Bay – for whatever reason, either the weather was right, we had good timing, or some combination of the two!

Back on the ship, we had a Filipino dinner tonight in honor of our mainly Filipino staff, also the “crew band” played in the Polar Bear Bar. The crew band ended up being pretty darn good – I was left impressed. The singer, Garnett, is also one of our two bartenders, so we know him better than almost anybody else, and his mannerisms singing were priceless. Later on, after the band finished and most of the people left (it was packed while they were playing), we started to break out dancing, which was a ton of fun. At one point Garnett got out from behind the bar and started doing the Soulja Boy dance with us – quite a sight I am sure. Thanks to all dancers and dance partners, but especially to Mary Grace, who absolutely kicked my ass out there. It is always fun dancing with a better partner than you are – she taught me a few moves!

Quote of the day comes from Amundsen, who if you have been following along or at the very least know your history, was the first man to make it to the South Pole: “An adventure is an expedition not planned correctly.”

Orne Harbor

December 17, 2011

ORNE HARBOR, ANTARCTICA -- Hello, sunshine!!! For the first time since we were still in the Drake Passage, we got some really nice sunshine and weather all around. The wind wasn’t too terrible, nor were the waves, and the sun felt great. Almost more importantly, the sun granted us some good light for pictures, so all those gentoo penguin close-ups should turn out now. J

Our first stop was at Danko Island, where we climbed up a mountain, over 500 feet over the bay. The hiking trail went around a number of gentoo penguin colonies, with some very well-defined penguin highways. I ended up getting stuck in the snow on the way down – it had just fallen the previous few days, and therefore it was really tough walking and hiking conditions, but it was a lot of fun!

It was interesting watching the penguins – despite their appearance, they walked straight up this mountain way faster than we could, at probably 3-4 times our speed. You see penguins waddling around and walking quite slowly most of the time, but put a penguin on a penguin highway heading straight up a 500+ foot mountain, and they absolutely whoop our butts.

I fell over a number of times hiking, but the snow was refreshing in the sunshine and wind! Sometimes with all the gear on it becomes really easy to over-heat, so you need to slow down for numerous reasons – you don’t want to break a sweat and then be out in Antarctica with a cold body for several hours. As such, the quickest way to cool down is usually to just pull off to the side of a hiking path and throw yourself into the snow, laying there for awhile.

After our landing on Danko Island, we did an iceberg zodiac cruise right around the island. We saw a Wedell seal as well as a Crabeater seal. We also saw a number of ice arches and ice bridges that were rather unique. We asked our zodiac driver, Matt, if we could drive under one, and the response was that despite their innocent appearance, they weigh hundreds if not thousands of pounds and could kill you instantly. We wisely took in the view from afar (not really afar, per se, but from 15 feet away instead of directly under it).

In the afternoon we cruised over to Orne Harbor, where we saw an iceberg with four Crabeater seals all sharing it. By this point in the blog, you’ve read a number of times about Crabeater seals. No, they do not get boring in the least bit – quite the contrary, you start to analyze them and look for traits, such as scars on the back (finding one without any is extremely rare), scars on the face (mostly fighting amongst males), and other characteristics. It is fun but also educational, and our ability to noticeably identify these animals as well as birds and others is a testament to the staff here and their lectures that have been top-notch. Thanks staff!

In addition to the four seals, we saw a colony of chinstrap penguins. Interestingly, there was one gentoo there amongst them as well, which isn’t extremely rare, but you really notice the differences between them when they are standing next to one another and one is twice the size while the others are more nimble and adaptable, etc. The colony of chinstraps was on the steepest mountain and rocks we have seen so far, virtually a cliff, and I gained a newfound respect for them in watching them attempt and succeed at scaling them.

Tonight was camping night, so for those lucky enough to have booked it (camping was sold out by the time I knew about it), they departed immediately after dinner. As such, for the group still on board, we were determined to have a memorable evening. We ended up in the Discovery Lounge quite late. At one point I was out on the deck behind the Polar Bear Bar, and saw an iceberg come flying by us as we were anchored. I decided to put the camera and tripod to action – I set it up on the ship railing, and shot a 10 minute HD video, that I later sped up to eight times speed. At that rate, you can really see the iceberg moving, our ship spinning on anchor, the zodiacs bringing out the campers zipping by, and even the penguins coming by into and out of the frame, swimming along.

During all of this, I was outside wearing my white workout shorts and a long sleeve black workout shirt. Why? No, I was not running (although that always sounds good). Instead, tonight was Black and White dinner night, so everyone was dressed up in black and white, and that was all I had. After dinner, however, we voted on the best costume, and the winners won some champagne. From there, we played a fun game of guessing Antarctica vocabulary – three staff members would go up and tell a story explaining the meaning of a word (lurker and doomix, to name a few examples), only one was true, and we had to guess. Our group did terribly – out of eight words, we got all of two correct, but the staff members were great and it was a lot of fun.

Quote of the day, courtesy ship historian Scott, comes from Barry Lopez, and I think does an excellent job of capturing the majesty of this place: “Antarctica reflects the mystery called G-d.”

Southernmost Point

December 16, 2011

LEMAIRE CHANNEL, ANTARCTICA -- Good evening again from Antarctica’s version of an “Inside Passage,” this time specifically at the Lemaire Channel, only about 15-20 miles south of where I wrote from last night, the Neumayer Channel. The reason for this is we began our day by reaching our “furthest south” point, which we officially clocked at 65 degrees, 08.478 minutes south (and 064 degrees, 03.839 minutes west, in case you were curious), accomplished at 9:40am. We were actually intending on heading further south than that, to Petermann Island, but unfortunately about midway through the channel, we encountered heavy ice. We actually tore a good mile or so into the ice, but it got to a point beyond our ability, and given the slow pace, we decided to turn around from there.

While drying off, we had a lecture from Alex, the ship’s geologist, on the subject of ice and icebergs. We covered the coreolis effect, which I first learned about back in AP Environmental Science in High School – thanks Mr. Carlson! The effect basically explains global weather patterns, which come into play down here in Antarctica as well. Since the planet obviously rotates, and the equator is the hottest part of the planet, there is a distinct pattern whereby weather heads in a specific direction and a specific angle, creating points of emphasis at the poles, 30 degrees, 60 degrees, and the equator. This partially explains the Antarctic convergence occurring right at around 60 degrees south. It also explains why the Southern Ocean circulates in a clockwise, west-to-east direction. This is a large part of what makes the Drake Passage so powerful – these unchanging, uninterrupted currents that circle the continent endlessly allow the swells to grow quite powerful, and are what makes the Drake the roughest crossing in the world, and also making the Antarctic convergence the largest biological barrier on earth.

This same effect is what keeps Antarctica so cold – virtually no heat is able to reach the continent, thus keeping it rather covered in permanent ice, which was the actual subject of the lecture. Ice covers over 99 percent of Antarctica, and it is essentially the historical data bank for climate science on our planet. Just recently, scientists were able to drill ice cores giving air samples going back 800,000 years, an increase from the 650,000 year record I previously knew about. Apparently there are ice cores that are known to go back to 1 million years, but getting the confidence interval on their accuracy has been too challenging thus far.

In Antarctica there are basically two types of ice – sea ice and glacial ice. The sea ice freezes on an annual basis, in the winter, and then melts off during the summer. Much of the floating ice around is sea ice. Occasionally, however, we have seen amazingly blue ice, that is actually glacial ice. The glaciers flow out to several ice shelves, such as the Ross Ice Shelf, Ronne Ice Shelf, Amery Ice Shelf, and closest to us, the Larsen Ice Shelf. From there, they eventually break off into the ocean, where they form the majestic blue floating icebergs.

Last note from the lecture – while there is an alarming amount of ice melting in West Antarctica, including the peninsula where we are now, the ice is actually growing in East Antarctica. Regardless, if enough ice melts in West Antarctica, the global impact would be tragically irreversible, which helps to explain the importance of working to combat global warming. If all the ice melted in Antarctica, global sea levels would rise by about 800 feet. Not very likely, but indicative of just how enormous the impact can be.

With our Petermann Island landing impossible, we altered course and set off for Booth Island, somewhere the M/S Expedition had never been before, which is always exciting as an event, bringing a ship into a new place. We had an hour ashore in a driving snow and occasional hail, where we saw a large number of gentoo penguins, blue-eyed shags, as well as the landing site of the most important explorer of the Antarctic Peninsula, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, a Frenchman who was conducting 28 volumes of scientific evidence around 1909.

Despite the fact that we were all thoroughly soaking wet from the precipitation, the wind had died down, and we decided to do a zodiac cruise through the Iceberg Graveyard, an area where glacial icebergs notoriously run aground and thus leave them susceptible to close-proximity exploring. Usually we stay at least as far away from the icebergs as they are tall, in case one flips over (which apparently happens somewhat frequently). When they run aground, however, we can get as close as we want, since that danger is muted. The cruise was phenomenal – it actually stopped snowing, the wind died down, and while very cloudy, the weather was the best we have had in three days down here!

The glaciers were phenomenal – I got a great shot of one reflecting off of still water, and another off of Alison’s (a fellow passenger and Brit on the ship with us) ski goggles reflecting to myself with the ice behind me. I also recorded a lot of video – the still waters made for great moving videos from the zodiacs without fear of water splashing onto the camera. Then, just as we got to our hour and thus time to return to the ship, we got a call over the radio that one of the other zodiacs spotted an orca! We raced off to the sighting, where we saw two beautiful male orcas traversing the bay, surfacing every couple of minutes. Later we found out that one of them actually swam under a zodiac. Perfect ending to another great day in Antarctica!