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This next set of paragraphs will take you through our adventures for the past week as we cruised south on the Orient Lines ship the Marco Polo. 20 January 02 : Departed at 8 PM from Ushuaia. Our cabin 319 was on deck 6 which is the third from the bottom. We had two portholes but had to shade them off each night to eliminate the polar sun. We really lucked out because we could have been below the water line. The Williams charm must have been in effect some place along the line. We sailed out of Ushuaia, East into the Beagle Channel to the mouth of the Atlantic, then south into the Drake Passage. It was very rough but we managed with some drops of scopolomine purchased in a local pharmacia. 6 meals a day and Jerry hit them all except the midnight snack. Had an orchestra with singers and dancers. We still wonder how they danced with the ship going up and down as it did. The meals and entertainment were sparcely attended the first two nites, however, we were there for it all. The drops or our constitutions or the desire for free food were winners over sea sickness. Desserts were wonderful. To quote Jerry: I am going to eat this free food until I can´t. If I get sea sick then I will just start over¨. He did that and I was not far behind although we NEVER were sea sick. 21 Jan 02 : All day in the Drake Passage. This is one of the roughest seas on Earth. No land stops the wind´s passages as it moves around the poles and the lower lattitudes. We had 20-40 foot swells. The wind was blowing the tips of the waves. Lots of ups and downs. But birds, the wandering albatross and the giant petral were there as were other birds. Later on this day we would be entertained by whales of all kinds passing the ship on either the PORT or STARBOARD sides. We both now can use those words. also AFT and FORWARD and PROW. WOW. Lots of ups and downs on this trip but with dessert they are not bad:-) 22 Jan 02 : After an all night cruise we arrived early in the morning at Deception Island in the South Shetlands. This is the location of an active but flooded caldera with a very narrow, hard to manuever entrance. The inside of the island houses an old whaling station. We anchored off Pendulum Cove near some hot water vents. The zodiacs came to take us ashore. They landed near some hot water vents. The water from the vents mixes with the sea water (38 degrees) to form swimmable water at 70 degrees. Some folks went swimming but we decided that was too much. The ship had lots of different body types, most old and larger so the view was rather interesting. The couple of slim ones attracted much attention. Us old guys get excited about little thingsJ In any case we explored the shore and observed our first penguin. ALSO began to see some of the Antarctic birds. Saw some Krill that had washed up. Krill is a shrimp like organism that is the basis for the entire food chain in these waters. The krill was killed by the hot water and came ashore often but stayed only a short time. Kelp Gulls patrolled up and down the beach for these easy meals. We departed the Island and sailed south the rest of the day and night. 23 Jan 02 : We headed south through the Bronsfield Strait and down to the Lemaire Channel. This channel is a very narrow passage between the Antarctic mainland and the outer islands. The ship sent up a helicopter to view the passage and decided that it was too full of ice for us to continue. We turned around at that point and made our way back north. Our stop here was the furthest south we would go at 65 degrees 1.3 minutes South and 63 degrees 51.7 minutes west. We would have gone another 15 miles had the ice been ok. Such a loss. But it was a strange place being totally surrounded by the snow and ice. AND the water temperature here at just above freezing. Those early explorers were such brave persons. About noon we arrived back north at Port Lockroy. Here we would go ashore and also anchor for the night. Port Lockroy is an old whaling station. Almost every safe water in the Antarctic is an old whaling station. A group of three volunteers from the UK are spending their summer here. They work for a group that restores and supports saving historic Antarctic buildings and sites. They do a little science and a lot of putting together of stamps and collectables for tourists who visit. The two men and a woman came on the boat and spent a good part of the evening with us. First, they sold stamps and collected the cards that will be mailed through the Falklands and Great Britain and finally to the USA. The process takes a couple of months but the cards are stamped the Antarctic. The group shared their adventures with us in a short lecture. During the day, we boarded the zodiac boats, 14 at a time. 400 people were on the boat so lots of trips were made back and forth to the shore. The birds that brought us here were the Gentoo Penguins. We walked through the snow to see them. Because of this snow, they had mated very late and most, if not all, of the young will not survive. All the penguins have paired up and a few chicks can be seen. They are going through the motions but will have no results. A sad but regular happening in this harsh climate. Our naturalist says that this happens about every ten years. Want to know the most used sense when visiting the penguin colony? If you said the eyes then you were correct. Lots of activity goes on and one must wait and watch to see it all. But the sense of smell is used very quickly. A penguin colony smells somewhere between a hog farm and a chicken farm. Get the picture? The ship has a special procedure for cleaning the boots when one comes back on the boat. Several crew are assigned to washing the boots with a big brush and we removed the boots when back at the ship entrance, carrying them in plastic bags. 24 Jan 02 : We stayed all night at Port Lockroy and departed early in the Morning for Paradise Harbor and Waterboat Point. Another whaling site but also the home of a Chilean base. It is the western most point on the Antarctic Peninsula. THIS point is on the Antarctic Mainland and the other places where we stopped were islands. Snow and massive glaciers can be seen stretching across the mountain ridge into the heart of the continent. Being on this edge gives one lots to see and even more to imagine. Ice was everywhere with an occasional rock ridge jutting from the ice where it had sheared off. On shore we visited the Chilean base and went out among a colony of Chinstrap Penguins. The Chileans have stuff to sell and stamps and maps and such. They were running out of most things. They stamp passports here for the Antarctic. Last year 6000 people came ashore here. Not many and will not raise that number much in 02. The Chinstrap is a more aggressive bird than the Gentoo and is expanding its territory. Over 3000 pairs are reported at this one location and we saw many rookeries along the shore as we headed north. Here we also saw a lone, and probably lost, Adelie Penguin. This was a messy and smelly place because the land was clear of snow and the mud and penguin poop was every where. The colony was busy and the animals came and went without much bother from us. They seemed to ignore us human penguins that lined paths at the outer edge of the colony. We were all dressed in red coats and were pretty awesome when lined up a hundred in a row. Upon departing the colony, we motored around the bay dodging icebergs. The blue ice was very beautiful. Some was clear white and others clear or even black. Ice of all kinds. Imagine reaching out to touch ice that had fallen as snow over 100,000 years ago. On some of these ice flows one could find seals. We saw most of the seals that occur in the Antarctic here. The leopard seal, the elephant seal, the crab eating seal, and the Weddell Seal were all sighted. We saw more crab eating seals than anything during the cruise. We also saw many whales. The minke whale, the humpback whale were seen with the humpback the most common. Saw lots of those. We departed from Paradise Harbour and steamed north and would not anchor again until reaching Ushuaia. 25 Jan 02 : On the water and heading north after an all night cruise, we arrived at Half Moon Island at the end of the Neumayer Channel. This is another collapsed volcano but one that is open much more. This island also contains thousands of Chinstrap Penguins. It is also another old whaling station and is the site of a large but unused Argentinian Base. I think that this would be a perfect location for a summer camp to sell tourists tshirts and stamps from the USA. ANY volunteers. We could start the American Heritage Antarctic Foundation. Half Moon Island was very rocky with little snow and the Chinstraps were doing well. Lots of chicks here and much noise and activity. One could go to the beach and see the párents returning after feeding in the sea. They were clean and pruned on the shore before making the trip up to the nest. When they met at the nest much ardor was expressed before feeding the young. All the young were plump and healthy at the sites we observed. After leaving Half Moon, about 2 PM, we cruised north at good speed for the Drake Passage and the sea sick drops. 300 miles of rough sea was ahead and then a view of Cape Horn before arriving back in Ushuaia. This passage was far less rough. We had seas with 10 – 20 foot waves rather than the 20 – 40 foot ones we had coming down. People had their sea legs too and far fewer were sick. We saw many more whales and many of the same birds that we saw earlier. The wandering Albatross and the Giant Petre seem to always be at the stern dipping highand low in the air in an almost effortless motion. We spent the night moving north through the Drake Passage. Our only consolation was the food that appeared at the appointed times. YES And the nightly shows entertained us. And the Aft of the boat was always there with chairs to lay and allow the summer polar sun to tan. We only exposed the face. BURR. And of course at 18 knots we were always with wind. 26 Jan 02 : We spent all day in the Drake Passage arriving at 4 PM at Cape Horn, the southern most tip of the Andes Range and an Island belonging to Chile. Just as we arrived the sun came out. We made a right hand turn and cruised along the coast up to the Beagle Channel which we entered about 9 PM. We arrived back in Ushuaia just after midnight on the 27th. While we slept through the docking, the next morning arrived with us tied securely to the massive dock of Ushuaia. We arrived refreshed but sad to end this blue and white experience. Yet we had traveled to this land of magic that is at the end of the world. “El Fin del Mundo” has been our destination for the past two weeks. NOW we go ON. Some Post Scripts
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