Sunday, January 26th, 2014
We awoke this morning at around 6am from our campsite on
mainland Antarctica. “Awoke” is a general term, of course, since for my part, I
slept nary a wink because I couldn’t quite get comfortable. The ground that we
set up on had about a foot or more of snow, but had been semi-frozen in place.
The snow would pack in, but only if you put a little bit of weight on it. As a
result, our tents started out “floating” on the snow a bit and this flexibility
of the snow could provide an interesting cushion of sorts. It would be like one
of those foam mattresses that conforms to your body shape, except this one
wouldn’t bounce back. As I shuffled into my sleeping bag last night, I think my
butt sank a bit farther down than was comfortable and so my sleeping position
wasn’t quite right. That, and, the sky seemed to be illuminated all night too.
Many others had not slept so well either, even Mrs. Crox
& Sox, who had her husband carry a large duffle of comforts to the tent
from the ship including her bed pillow. By the time I worked up the courage to
leave the warmth of my 0-degree bag and venture outside to relieve the morning
wood issue that we men are afflicted with, I quickly realized that most of the
camp had already started taking down their tents. I guess everyone was a bit
ready to go. In the end, camping really wasn’t all that special in itself – I
think most of us just did it for the sole purpose of being able to say that we
camped on Antarctica. And as of this morning, we could all now say exactly
that.
As the Zodiacs zipped us back to the ship, we were greeted
by Andrea (staff) holding up a “NO VACANCY” sign at the door. And behind her,
the wait staff had another unlimited pot of hot chocolate waiting for us. I
hopped in my room to brush my teeth real quick before partaking – I can’t stand
the taste of food/drink in my mouth before brushing. Why so many people brush
their teeth AFTER breakfast is beyond me. I would think that the last thing
you’d want to do is swallow the sleep scum that has formed on your gums &
teeth en la noche.
I so very wanted to go to sleep and take a nap, but the
captain and the geography had different plans that didn’t make this a good
choice. We took the ship south into the Lemaire Channel, a very narrow swath of
sea between two towering & breath-taking mountainsides that gets as narrow
as 500m wide in some parts. Given the size of the vessel we’re on, that’s quite
tiny. The landscape was positively breath-taking and it was worth staying up.
During this jaunt, we sidled up next to a large whale and
followed it for about an hour. Positively everyone was out on deck – either up
top or on the bow. We were collectively watching for the tell-tale air blows,
watching for the feeding dive, hoping for a beautiful tail flip that never
materialized, and anxiously scanning the water to figure out where she would
resurface. And, of course, snapping pictures like mad all the while. We got to
within 50 meters of the whale, so everyone had a good view. This, of course,
didn’t stop some of the ruder camera-happy couples to jostle for position and
edge others out… though this was definitely more the exception than the norm. I
suppose the reason it bothered me so much was that this couple was Asian (the
same one with 7 cameras between them), and I hated that they were representing
my continent of origin so poorly.
In the afternoon, we went to Port Lockroy, a very old
British station that serves as an Antarctic museum of sorts. Since the facility
can’t handle the entire passenger load at the same time, we were first taken to
a small island virtually next door called Jougla Point, where we could watch
some small colonies of nesting Gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags. It was so
very crazy windy that I wasn’t much enjoying myself and was anxious to move on.
I’m sure my lack of sleep contributed to this in some small fashion.
The scene at Port Lockroy was a little better – inside the
museum, we were protected by the wind. The museum was interesting and showed
how the earlier researchers lived on the bases and how they managed to stay fed
and what types of research they were doing back then. Today, in addition to the
museum, there’s a gift shop on site along with a post office. The funny thing
is that the post office doesn’t really have a standard pick-up mechanism for
the mail – they generally hand a sack of mail to the next cruise vessel that
stops by to take to Ushuaia. If speed were important, we’d do better to mail it
ourselves from Ushuaia… of course, speed was generally not of concern for most
who sent anything.
When we got back aboard, the kitchen crew had another dinner
surprise set up for us. Since the weather was nice outside, we were treated to
another outdoor BBQ. It started snowing lightly as dinner got underway, but how
often can you BBQ in Antarctica? Not very often. Even though I was exhausted, I
reluctantly had a beer. You know, because it was forced on me. Worst thing is,
it was a Guinness, which I absolutely can’t stand the creamy wonderful
awesomeness of. My arm was twisted.
January 26th is also Australia Day, so the
Aussies on-board were making a massive party of the day non-stop. This evening
promised to be a rowdy time. Given the lack of sleep and the planned agenda for
tomorrow, both Chelsea and I opted to pass, while A’ron and Brittany continued
their trend of staying out late and enjoying as much as possible. In this instance,
we had made a major mistake.
Monday, January 27th, 2014
Today’s agenda was action packed – we were slated to go to
Deception Island, a very large U-shaped land mass for both the morning and
afternoon landings. This would include animal-watching, of course, but also a
few hikes on varied terrains. And the gem? A chance to do a polar plunge – yes,
a bunch of idiot tourists jumping in freezing cold waters just to say they’ve
done it. And the staff would reward us with our very own frameable certificate to
put right up there next to our diplomas. Excitement!
Except that mother nature decided to intervene, and in a big
way. The seas were extremely choppy – so choppy that many were having trouble
doing anything upright. Breakfast itself was quite the adventure in a rocking
boat, and I surprised myself with just how fine my stomach was with all of
this.
So Deception Island was completely out because the wind was
whipping 40-50 knots (that’s a lot of knots) – Austin K and the Captain set
course for another location called Yankee Bay that was a bit more protected to
try and salvage some of the day. Most people chose to wait it out in their
cabins, but Brittany and I held court in our table in the lounge. I figured I
should probably drink some water, so I downed a couple of glasses and… then it
started sloshing in my stomach. A lot. I ran to the bathroom, but someone was
in it, so I started heading down to my cabin but only made it one floor before
it was up and out. And there was a huge wave of embarrassment that flushed my
face.
After cleaning up a bit, I came back upstairs in a fresh set
of clothes. One of the waiters, Danny, told me that drinking lots of water is
the exact wrong thing to do – it’s far better to eat crackers and soak up all
of the liquids in your belly. This makes absolutely perfect sense in
retrospect. Damn.
When we arrived to Yankee Bay, the sea was definitely
calmer, but it was still too windy for the safe deployment of zodiacs. So our
back-up plan had to be aborted as well, and at this point, there was no time
for a Plan C. It looked like our last day in Antarctica would be a complete
bust. We’ve definitely been terribly fortunate with weather through the trip,
but it was a shame that this was the day that was ruined by bad weather. It
might sound kind of dumb, but I feel like we didn’t really get to say goodbye
to Antarctica. I also didn’t really feel like we saw all that much of it either
– there was only one real day where we traipsed on snow amongst the icebergs.
The first day on Elephant Island was interesting, but probably more so for the
crew than for us. The afternoon of the second day was at the Polish base, which
was really quite underwhelming. And the afternoon of the fourth day was at Port
Lockroy, another pseudo-useless day in my opinion. I would have gladly traded
in those days for more time on snow & ice. Even so, it was impossible to be
disappointed in the crew – they did everything they should and then some. I
just have this “incomplete” feeling about the trip in some strange way.
That evening, we had a black & white dress-up contest,
where we were to use our own clothing + anything else we could find to create
costumes in honor of our mostly black & white penguin friends. I put a
pillow under my jacket to dress up as a seasick penguin, complete with barfbag
and yellow barf (my bright yellow T-shirt). I certainly didn’t have the same
level of creativity as a few of the others, so I came in third place. For those
heroics plus a wee bit of gratuitous over-acting, I got a free drink.
I asked the bartender Garnet what I should get for my free
drink and he told me to get a scotch since it was the most expensive drink on
the menu. But after he handed it to me, I remembered that I don’t really like
scotch and ended up nursing the drink for the next 2 hours as we all headed up
to the Polar Bear Bar once again with Jeff. Since we were headed back to port
after today’s aborted expeditions, Jeff played an extra set and we stayed out
extra-long as well. But everyone present agreed that the previous night was far
better. Chelsea and I were both kicking ourselves.
Tuesday, January 28th, 2014
Today was a largely uneventful full day at sea. Heidi gave a
rather informative lecture on Antarctic invertebrates in the morning. The ice
creates a barrier from the changing seasonal weather above to create a more
stable, though cold, climate at the sea floor. As a result, there’s a
tremendous amount of biodiversity on the sea floor in the Antarctic. In
addition to a wide variety of beautiful colors, there’s also a “gigantism”
phenomenon where many creatures have grown much larger in the polar regions
than in more moderate or tropical sea climates – the theory is that this
happens because the polar water is richer in oxygen and carbon dioxide,
allowing for a more efficient process of metabolism. More efficient metabolism
= increased growth. Works for me. If the ship had offered scuba diving, it
would have been pretty spectacular to see. I don’t believe any of the ships
offer this though, unfortunately.
We had a lecture from Osi today on IAATO, which is the
international treaty on Antarctica that was signed in 1959 (I think). It’s
really quite interesting in that all nations end up working extremely
cooperatively with one another, regardless of what political or military crap
is going on in the real world. The ancient Frank S. Todd shared a few examples
with us later on how during the height of the cold war, he was still able to
count on assistance from Russian bases a number of times as he was doing his
research on penguins.
Alex also gave a superb lecture on climate change. Actually,
I fell asleep during most of it, but based on his presentation performance last
week as well as the snippets that I did catch, it was clear that he hit this
one out of the ballpark again. One of the things I did catch was regarding the
ozone layer – a few decades ago, the deteriorating ozone layer was in the media
non-stop. It turns out that even now the ozone layer is still in major trouble;
the only difference is that the media got tired of it and moved on to other
things to report on. I think that’s given many of us (myself included) the
false impression that the ozone layer is just fine now.
The initial navigation plan for today called for us to try
and get to Cape Hope to take a look on the way back to Ushuaia. Unfortunately,
there was a huge storm on the way if we headed that direction, so the captain
decided to go full steam straight to Ushuaia to try and avoid the storm
entirely. They showed us later that the
storm was up to 50 knots wind and the waves were larger than 20 feet. I think
he probably made a good call.
In the evening, Austin K gave us our final quiz. My one-man
show, Team Daycare, was unsurprisingly last again. And I still don’t think
Austin K was amused.
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
We spent all day today in the ship – we had arrived to the
Beagle Channel which leads to Ushuaia soon after breakfast, but we needed to
wait until for a local pilot to steer us into port. This is common in most
ports around the world. When I lived in Hoboken many years ago, my roommate
Lisa started dating (and eventually moved in with) a fellow who had this same
job for New York City’s waterways. The way he described it made it clear that
it was about the cushiest and best-paid job in the world. Chelsea and I had
made our way up to the bridge to take a look for ourselves, and the local pilot
didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. We took some obligatory pictures of
pretending to steer the ship – I guess you could say that we were inspired by
his example.
The weather was fantastic outside as well, which made us all
a little suspicious about the story they told us about the bad weather in the
Cape. Okay, not really – we had seen enough from the captain and Austin K to
know that they probably wanted to go to Cape Horn or do something more
interesting more than we did.
We finally reached port by the late afternoon, and while we
were technically permitted to leave the ship, it was the furthest thing from
any of our minds. The three weeks really were kind of like an adult summer
camp, and we were already getting a bit misty at the thought of having to leave
our cozy little slice of heaven aboard this vessel.
We were gathered in the Discovery Lounge for a farewell of
sorts from the crew. The Captain gave us a farewell toast with his final
comments, and lucky for us, we had our own counter-comments from Lou (Sir
Shorts-a-Lot / The Friendly Unintentional Racist), who summed up the thoughts
in our collective heads quite perfectly. When we got on the boat, the staff
told us that they are a family and work together closely to pull off what they
do – this seemed like a standard line of schlock that they say because they are
supposed to say this. But over the following 3 weeks, they showed us first-hand
that this was truly the case and then some. They genuinely love what they do
and it shows in their smiles, their greetings, their genuine interest in the
passengers, and of course their own oohs and aahs at the wildlife and landscape
even though they’ve seen the same hundreds of times. While I started getting
tired of seeing “another penguin colony” fairly quickly, it was clear that
these guys could do this forever and never tire of it. We all left fully
impressed and thankful for their dedication to their craft.
A few staff members told us that previous groups had gone
out partying in Ushuaia the last evenings and sometimes they would even have to
go out and look for them in the morning when they didn’t show up. But it seemed
that we were all more than content to enjoy each other’s company in the Polar
Bear bar with Jeff until 1:30am. He is a wonderful entertainer and clearly
loves what he does. Fortunately for us, Brittany had gotten to the bar early
enough to claim “our table” too. Aron and I were in the room packing up our
bags and time had slipped away. We had a really great final night too – we sang
along with Jeff, we danced to slow and fast music, a group did the Macarena,
and I have no idea what kind of crazy dancing some of those older Aussies were
doing. I think I mentioned that Aussies are generally a boatload of fun, right?
They proved it again this evening.
Thursday, January 30th, 2014
I awoke to some interesting sounds at 5am and quickly
realized I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. After a quick situation analysis,
I decided the best course of action was to get up and go upstairs to the
lounge. Let’s just agree to leave it at that.
After breakfast, we awaited our disembarking instructions
and filed out around 8am as our groups were called. Apparently, since the pier
is a “working pier”, they don’t allow the passengers to walk out with their own
baggage. So we had to load onto buses again to drive the two minutes to a
nearby spot where they had arranged to store our luggage.
The first thing on everyone’s mind, of course, was getting
internet access and letting family & friends know we were alive and well. A
good chunk of people, including our little group, went to the nearby Albatros
Hotel where all the normal-paying passengers stayed the night before the cruise
as part of the tour package – and everyone knew the wifi password. Since 50+
people had this same idea, internet access was a bit slow to say the least. Some
of us fought through this while others took a much needed nap.
After grabbing some lunch, our little foursome walked to the
local airport – Aron and Brittany were thinking about taking a sightseeing
flight over the nearby mountains, and Chelsea and I didn’t have anything better
to do. The prices were a bit too steep to pull the trigger on a 30 minute
flight. So we walked back to town, grabbed our bags from the luggage storage
place and split up to our respective lodging places after settling on a time &
place to reconnect for dinner.
For dinner, we picked a charcuterie place that I had
stumbled upon my last night in Ushuaia prior to the cruise. The main fare at a
charcuterie is a platter of dehydrated meats (like prosciutto) and a variety of
cheeses. We ordered and got a massive platter that we picked at over the next
few hours. We were all a bit sad because our foursome would be splitting up
after this meal. Aron & Brittany would both be headed home from Ushuaia in
the next few days, whereas Chelsea and I (with Celine) were all headed to
Patagonia for some hiking and decided to coordinate to have some company along
the way.
Looking back, I’m really fortunate to have been able to
spend three weeks with such incredible people. I was impressed with how meticulously
brilliant/perfect A’ron was – his packing was impeccable and every bit of his
camera gear had a specific role and a specific home in the bag. Additionally,
he was so incredibly funny, more so than I think he realized himself. And we
had some fantastic long talks in the room a few times and I appreciated being
able to speak my mind freely and have a true conversation. Brittany was
incredible too – her enthusiasm and spunk never failed to amaze me. I have no
idea where she gets her energy from. She also lives a minimalist lifestyle,
actively choosing to forego excessive material goods. She packed a carry-on bag
for a 1-month trip in Argentina and the Antarctic – that should tell it all.
And I was inspired by how she lives her life – she has a combination of odd
jobs from friends and acquaintances back home and yet manages to cover her
expenses AND save up for hugely-expensive trips like this while continuing to
put money away for retirement. I was just thoroughly impressed. Chelsea left a
job that she’s good at and working for a company that loves her to take a year
off and figure out what she wants in life… and if nothing else, at least pursue
her hiking passion around the globe. It takes major balls to leave a good
situation like that, and I really have a great admiration for that. While the
trip I took 12 years ago to Australia/NZ and Southeast Asia was along a similar
vein, I only took 14 weeks off then and I most definitely wasn’t brave enough
to quit my job.
Yeah, I miss our quartet. When people inevitably ask me the
“what part of your trip did you like the best?” question when I get home, I’ll
point to the first week in Peru with the Give Back Cincinnati crew and to these
three weeks on the ship. And it sounds like a sappy rom-com-ish movie, but it
truly is all about spending quality time with quality people. I would have
loved my trip infinitely more if I had a friend or significant other with me
for the duration, but those just weren’t the cards I was playing with. And when
faced with the choice of doing the trip alone vs not doing the trip at all…
well, that’s really quite a no-brainer too. Ultimately, there’s frequently
never a perfect time – I figure I should take advantage of the opportunities
when they present themselves, and then keep my eye out for the next one. I
think the trick is keeping your eyes wide open enough.
Friday, January 31st, 2014
While A’ron and Brittany were headed to the Tierra del Fuego
National Park today, Chelsea and I hiked from town up to “the glacier”, which
turned out to be little more than a valley between two mountain peaks that had
some snow in between them. I suppose at one point in our ancient history, there
must have been a glacier there, but that’s really not saying much given where
we are at.
The hike was really more a walk than anything else though –
there were numerous lodges at the base of the hill and the road switchbacked
who-knows-how-many times but the weather was nice and the company was good so
we just enjoyed the chance to get some real exercise in after being on the ship
for the past 3 weeks. My assumption based on the number of lodges and cabins
and the chair lift was that this was some sort of ski resort during the winter
months. But when we saw the landscape, it was clear that this assumption was
wrong. There was really nothing there at all except a very rocky slope with a
handful of walking trails. And yet, there were plenty of people there too. I
was completely baffled. The view was merely just okay – the mountains on either
side weren’t particularly picturesque and generally detracted from the
potential view. Really, the day hike I did up a nearby valley just before the
cruise was far better and less crowded too. Who knows?
On the way down, we saw Audrey who was also on the ship with
us and was staying in the same hostel as me (in the same room too). Audrey and
I shared a special bond because we had the same camera. This bond cannot be
broken by conventional methods. At the base of the hill, we split up towards our
respective hostels.
Later in the afternoon, I spent a few hours at the prison
museum. Ushuaia was originally founded as a penal colony (much like Australia)
and so there is a ton of history here. The prison itself also housed a maritime
museum, a modern art wing, and a few other small collections. While it was an
interesting museum, looking back on it now as I’m writing this, I don’t
remember a ton about it. But it was worth spending a few hours there at least.
Saturday, February 1st, 2014
Today I went to Tierra del Fuego National Park early in the
morning to get some more hiking in. You might wonder why I didn’t join A’ron
and Brittany yesterday when they went to the same place.
I had gotten some recommendations from a few different
people on what hikes to do in the park. There’s realistically only about 2
days’ worth of hiking available in the park on marked trails. Chelsea had done
an all-day hike to Cerro Guanaco just before the cruise but warned that
portions of it were very wet and shin-deep muddy when she went. I wasn’t in the
mood for that. The lady at my hostel highly recommended a coastal trail, but
this was a very flat simple trail and would only take a few hours, meaning it
would do little to help me get into hiking shape.
In the end, dry feet option won. I had the bus drop me off
at the start of the Costera trail along with scores of others. Fortunately, I
was able to make my way to the front of the group and get some separation within
about 15 minutes so that I could slow down and enjoy the scenery in some peace
& quiet. This was definitely a good choice. The weather was perfect – it
was overcast, but only chilly enough to keep me from sweating. More
importantly, the scenery was gorgeous. I felt like I had stumbled into some
pristinely manicured secret garden of sorts. Every pebble, every leaf, every
twig, every strand of moss – it all looked like it had been placed purposefully
to create a blend of textures and colors that would imprint in the mind’s eye
over and over. Or maybe I was just high.
Within a few hours, I had completed the trail and headed up
to the park visitor’s center, which had a small museum in it about the region
and the native peoples who had lived here. One tribe in particular lived in
this very cold region without clothing at all – they smeared animal fat on
their bodies to help protect against the elements. Unfortunately, all of the
local tribes were more or less wiped out completely due to European diseases
but the museum lamented the ill-advised early attempts to assimilate those
tribes into European culture. Based on the information presented at least, the
tribes were peaceful and there was never any armed conflict of sorts unlike
other regions in the Americas.
After eating my packed lunch, I decided to do the lower part
of the Cerro Guanaco trail – there was supposedly a viewpoint halfway up the
trail, so I figured I’d at least try to get to that point before returning
down. Within 15 minutes, the trail took a pretty steep uphill bent and the next
90 minutes was more or less pure uphill. It had started to rain a little bit,
but the shade of the trees kept the trail (and me) dry for now. After about two
hours, I could see that the tree line was not far so I kept going, hoping that
there would be a viewpoint coming up – and it did. I was rewarded with a
beautiful view of a completely fogged in valley and mountaintop. I couldn’t see
much, but whatever I could see was nice. And I was happy to have gotten a nice
workout in to boot.
I rested for a few minutes and made my way down the hill.
There was another section of the park I still wanted to explore before the 5pm
bus would pick me up, so I didn’t have additional time to spare on this
particular trail. On top of that, the rain was picking up a bit and I wanted to
get off the mountain before the really steep parts got too slippery. Slippery
rocks and slimy mud can be a pain in the butt to descend on.
Once at the bottom, I walked about 6-8 more kilometers to
the Lapataia area of the Tierra del Fuego park. I wouldn’t say that the
landscape is all that different here from the rest, but rather I wanted to get
there to take a photograph of a sign. Yes, you read that route. This location
is where National Route 3 ends – the significance of this route is that it
connects all the way non-stop to Alaska. One day, I’d like to drive from one
end to the other. That would be interesting.
Tonight was my last in Ushuaia. Brittany was still in town,
so we met up for dinner and caught up on all of the gossip. It felt like we
were two teenage girls.
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