January 06, 2004
antarctic overview
"Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried them all --
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good
For such as canot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done
And go observin' matters till they die"
-- Kipling, Sestina of the Tramp Royale
I worked from home today because I was a total idiot and forgot to take my laptop back to work, having brought it home for the holidays for safety. As you will realize, this means that I drove all the way in, realized only then that I didn't have it, returned a few phone calls and drove all the way home. Oops.
Because of that little screw-up, I did have time to write about our trip. I just haven't figured out how to do it: where to start, what level of detail to use. I think I'll just start with an overview today, then write about various topics in more detail.
We booked our trip through Mountain Travel-Sobek, but the ship is actually run by Peregrine Adventures, an Aussie adventure travel company. They have several different trips; we took the shortest one, with 10 nights aboard ship, due to time and money constraints. Here's the itinerary and some other info. I would recommend Peregrine to anyone traveling to the Antarctic or the Arctic. The ship is totally sparkling clean and well run, there are only about 110 passengers, and the expedition staff are total knowledgeable pros. (I was less impressed with the Argentinian company Gador Viajes who ferried us to and from the ship, hotels, and airports in Argentina.)
Itinerary: We flew first to Buenos Aires, spent a day and a hlf there, and flew on to Ushuaia at the tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego. We boarded the ship on December 23 in Ushuaia, spent a day sailing though the Drake Passage, then hopscotched along the northern half of the Antarcitc Peninsula. There were every morning and afternoon to islands, bays or the mainland; we had signed up to kayak so had that option as well. Some outings were just cruising/kayaking, some involved hiking. We camped on the mainland one night on 2m of snow and stopped by the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Station our last day.
I want to write much more about Buenos Aires, which we didn't especially like and Ushuaia, which we did; about the wildlife, including seals, whales and penguins -- penguins are the most endearing animals on earth; about icebergs, camping, Vernadsky; about the people along with us (ship's crew, staff, and passengers). Each is probably an entry on its own. A bit of advice: when dancing with crazy drunken sailors on New Year's Eve, make sure you have friends along to help extrcate you.
What we didn't know but were delighted to find out was that this trip was focused especially on photography. There were two professional photographers on staff(one was also a kayak guide) and they had invited the editor of Practical Photography magazine along. We have most of our pictures back (10 rolls of slide film, over 200 digital photos, just waiting for the waterproof disposal cameras to be developed) but we don't have the film ones (aka the good ones) digitized yet. Here, for a taste, is one of the digital ones, taken with my little Canon Elph:
