Antarctica 2014

Antarctica

We arrived in Ushuaia, regarded as the most southern city in the world, spent a night and then boarded our ship, the MV Expedition.  With life vest and boat drills out of the way, we departed port gliding our way down a very smooth Beagle Channel bound for the infamous Drake Passage. 

Ours is the red one 

As we sailed south, we all had stories from people who had just arrived back from Antarctica on the same ship, of 8+ mtr seas across the Drake and many days unable to use the zodiacs due to very bad weather.  We all wondered what our turn was going to be like.

Well our 2 day crossing of the Drake Passage was not too bad, 4-5 mtr seas and the occasional larger wave to keep everyone on their toes trying to balance.  The seas however were not coming from one direction, rather it felt like we were in a top loading washing machine and this meant few people in the dining room for meals.  Rob with the help of drugs, handled it really well.

So how do we describe what happened and what we saw from the first time we saw the sun rising over the Antarctic Peninsula until our floating home turned north to take us back across the Drake?

First Antarctic Peninsula sunrise

Let’s try with amazing, vast, alive, astounding, staggering, serene, stunning, breathtaking, exciting, violent, demanding, changing, towering, surprising, seductive… and it can simply could go on and on and on!

We were blessed with very kind weather including some clear blue skies, wonderful sunrises & sunsets.  There were some days when snow fell lightly and a day of a snow blizzard, but it did not deter us from any activity.

Cat & Cal renewed their vows on the mainland of Antarctica at Neko Harbour with Rob as celebrant and penguins as their guests, before sliding down the side of a hill, their Nepalese pray flags held high.

But the rest of that story is for them to tell.

So every day many of us climbed into zodiacs to go exploring, whilst others kayaked in amongst the ice, leopard seals and humpback or minke whales.  Half the ship decided to go camping on the ice overnight, with a colony of very inquisitive penguins keeping them company.

Every day was different and we were kept very active.  We got up close with different species of penguins, seals and whales.  We cruised around icebergs, walked on sea ice and slid down hills covered with fresh snow.  Visited on old British but closed research hut, and enjoyed the hospitality of an active Ukrainian research facility including their home made hooch… very warming!

enjoying hooch at Vernandsky Station

We even managed to visit and explore an island that no expedition ship has ever visited before (Mist Island) and this made everyone, including the ships’ Captain very excited because it was simply stunning.

We achieved and then enthusiastically celebrated our crossing of the Antarctic Circle, and for many of us when we stepped onto the mainland of Antarctica, was to achieve our ‘7 Continents’ goal.

well can you find us...

The landscape also changed every day from towering mountains covered by snow and ice, to sailing the ship into the caldera of a still active volcano called Deception Island. 

It was here that we were surrounded by landscape which looks black & white and it was here that some of us took the ‘polar plunge’ in 0 deg C water during a snow blizzard, then warmed our hands in the volcanic warmed water a few centimetres below surface of the beach near the freezing waters edge.  Having taken the plunge, I am in no hurry to do it again but the neat rums on the ship sure helped!

well here goes nothing

the grimace - the plunge and horizontal snow coming straight for the face

They say ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, so with this in mind, we hope our pictures can describe in their own way what we experienced and felt during our time down in Antarctica and crossing the Drake.

There are multiple categories to choose from, so just pick and click on a link you are interested in and a new webpage will open up for you then just click 'Slideshow' and hopefully it will all work.

1 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Ice in Antarctica 2014

2- CLICK HERE for more photos of Penguins in Antarctica 2014

3 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Seals in Antarctica 2014

4- CLICK HERE for more photos of Birds in Antarctica 2014

5 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Whales in Antarctica 2014

6 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Scenery in Antarctica 2014

We were a ship of 130 people of all ages including an 82 yr old, everyone keen to experience something truly amazing and for the 12 days we were travelling together we were one large happy ‘family’, thanks to what Antarctica immersed us all in.

Would like to close with giving all due credit to G Adventures for a truly stunning experience…  our sincere thanks.