At the bottom of the world
November through March is the season when ships make their way down through the rough-and-tumble waters of the Drake Passage from the southern tip of South America to the northern reaches of Antarctica. It’s the ice continent’s summer. Photo by Gene Korte
Antarctica is home to 90 percent of the world’s ice. Because of that, it’s a thrilling other-worldly place. As our ship moved along iceberg alley, bergs almost as large as small towns appeared and ranged in hues from white to blue and green. Our ship, the Endeavor, occasionally stopped to cut through ice, sounding like the largest blender ever.
Despite being the continent with the most hostile environment, last season there were 37,000 visitors to Antarctica, about 1/3 of whom are from the USA. They come in the southern hemisphere’s summer, November through March, when temperatures likely reach from 30 to 50 degrees, and the sun is out a glorious 18 to 24 hours a day.
Most travelers get to Antarctica by flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina or Santiago, Chile and continuing on by air to Ushuaia, the town on the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of South America. It’s in the harbor of this colorful place where passengers board ships that travel through the Drake Passage, an often tumultuous body of water where the world’s oceans mix. Some 40 hours later, they arrive in the calm waters around the northern Antarctic Peninsula.
Although there’s no government, as such, down here, dozens of nations have research stations and most tour operators are members of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), http://www.iaato.org, which advocates environmentally responsible tourism travel.
Here are some favorite parts of the Antarctic experience.
The penguins
Yes, you’ll find dozens of sunning seals and diving whales spraying water through their blowholes on a trip to Antarctica. And, sure, there are hundreds of birds to admire from the albatrosses that surf the wind of the Drake Passage to the white petrels that pester the penguins. But the penguins steal the show with their charming waddling walk, devoted parenting, chirpy chatter, and total obliviousness to human presence. These birds never paid any attention to us, even when we stood only a couple of feet away. Of course, visitors are forbidden to touch any animal here. Penguins have no enemies on land in Antarctica. It’s not until penguins go into the water to feed or migrate that they are in danger from seals and whales.
Our first landing was on a brown sandy beach. Even if we hadn’t seen the many thousands of penguins on the hillside, the smell of their guano miles away announced their presence. Home for most penguin couples is a dry rock or side of a hill. Perched about 18 to 24 inches from their neighbors, they crowd their nests close together like big city apartment dwellers.
We saw rookeries of Adelie, Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins, all basically black and white and three feet tall with a few subtle differences. The Chinstrap, for instance, sports a black line under his chin. Our biggest sighting on this trip was an estimated 6,000 Adelie penguins in one place. Penguins return to the same rocky islands each year to nest, and will usually return to the same spot they had the year before.
The place
What visitors see in Antarctica in the summer is mountainous islands, bays, sandy beaches, and the occasional field of orange-and-green lichens with snow never far away. The numerous icebergs have strata, which are many thousands of years old. Imagine looking at ice that was laid down before recorded history. Our brief close-up moment to all this was from the seat of a kayak inches from the cold waters of the Southern Ocean. Away from this northern peninsula where ships visit, this continent is somewhat flat and covered with a mile or two of ice topped with a layer of icing-like snow.
Port Lockroy, once a British research station, is now a tiny museum and post office station, complete with the sounds of Benny Goodman. It’s home to Gentoo penguins that live right outside the door and two staffers who sell stamps and pens and will mail your postcards to anywhere in the world.
The food
Sure we dressed in red parkas, long underwear, insulated clothes and knee-high rubber boots whenever we left the ship. But onboard, we had hot water for showers, three meals and often pre-dinner appetizers every day. I thought of those early explorers, like Sir Ernest Shackleton, who came down here in wooden boats. These adventurous men wore wool that was usually wet — not the water-resistant micro fibers we had. And they ate penguins, from all published reports not the tastiest of meals. We, on the other hand, dined on smoked reindeer mousse, Swedish pancakes, and cream soups, while admiring the world of ice and water outside the panoramic dining room windows. On one occasion a snowstorm chased us all inside just in time for afternoon tea. Because the weather outside was frightful, crustless egg salad sandwiches, muffins and the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate marble cookies were the tastiest of tea offerings.
The ship
The optimal way to visit Antarctica is on an icebreaker expedition ship because the ship’s smaller size — about 100 to 125 passengers — allows access to areas unreachable by the big ocean liners. If you’re going to go all the way to the bottom of the world, wouldn’t you want to get off the ship and walk on the land? You can do that if you travel on an expedition ship. They have zodiacs, inflatable boats that hold a dozen people, just for that purpose. The ship’s staff is experienced in getting people of all ages, sizes and physical condition into these boats. If you can walk, you can manage this exotic trip. Expedition ships are low-key with no swanky shows and casinos, and evening entertainment is usually a briefing by one of the several naturalists onboard.
Lindblad, http://www.expeditions.com, was the first company to take non-scientists to Antarctica more than 40 years ago and the first to offer kayaking when weather permits. They have numerous Antarctic departures as does the Silversea Explorer, also an icebreaker expedition ship, http://www.silversea.com.
© 2011-2015 Diana and Gene Korte
