Feb 2013 Antarctic Peninsular
Number one on my bucket list
In Febuary I became a member of an exclusive club, an elite group of explorers and adventurers that have travelled to Antarctica.
Antarctica epitomises the remote, untouched, exotic and romantic, it is the stuff of dreams and documentaries.To have the honour to travel here is an amazing expeience.
You have a vision in your mind of what you are going to see on the voyage through Antarctica but nothing can prepare you for witnessesing beauty first hand.
As you get closer to the Antarctic the air gets colder, the sun dips below the horizon for only a brief time and its never completely dark, so when you wake the first morning to see an iceberg the size of a small car drifting past, you cant help but be excited.
Everyone is out on deck or snuggled up to windows madly taking photos, you look up there another iceberg, the size of a bus, another the size of a house, and towering is a iceberg the size of an apartment block.
It takes your breath away. The size, the colours,the majesty.You begin to run out of superlatives for Antarctica pretty quickly.
For the next few days we were surrounded by a breathtaking scene. Pure white snow and brilliant blue-green ice spread out in all directions beneath an ever changing sky.
A slow and silent cruise around Antarctic Peninsula through Gerlache Strait, Lemaire Channel, Danco Coast,Paradise Bay, Neumeyer Channel, Petermann Island, Anvers Island, Esperanza, Hope Bay and Weddell Sea. The names might not anything to the most of us who havent been there but each and every name means a different experience. Anvers Island to pick up researchers from Palmer Research station to accompany and inform us, giving talks and guided commentary all aspects of Antarctic exploration; wildlife, geology, history and climate science. one of the most spectacular locations of a stunningly beautiful part of the world, the Lemaire Channel full of icebergs of every shape and size.
Hope Bay known as “Iceberg Alley” because of its gigantic tabular icebergs some the size of Skilled Stadium.
Esperanza with its colony of over half a million Adélie penguins.
Every direction you looked, every scene you took in was so unique. Most passengers were so quiet, respecting the invorment with awe and reverence. You could hear the sound of the many Humpback and Minke whales breathing,tails slapping the water. Seals barking on splashing into the water. Hundreds of penguins porposing along side the ship..
You learn a whole new vocabulary brash ice,tabular icebergs,bergy bits and growlers while trying not to fill up another memory card with the next Amazing photograph.
Antarctica remoteness means it is hard to get to and expensive to get to but that also means that you can say you are one of the few that have been to the white continent.
