Kayaking in Antarctica

The good news is that I have some very exciting vacations in WARM places coming up this fall... the bad news is that it's been eight months since I got back from Antarctica and I still haven't finished writing up that trip! So, I better get going. Today's post takes us back to November 25th, 2007, probably the most beautiful day of the entire voyage. And on this day, we were lucky enough to find a serene, picturesque harbor in which to kayak.

Normally, I hate kayaking. I'm way too paranoid that I'll tip over, and I am absolutely awful at paddling (or whatever the technical term is for: "trying to use the oars"). My husband and I discovered that kayaking was not my strength while stuck in the middle of rough waters near Thailand seven years ago--but that is another story for another time. Let's just say that he and I now have a silent understanding that I pretty much just sit there while he does all the work to propel us around.

But since the water in Antarctica will kill you in about 15 minutes, should you accidentally fall in, I was very, very wary about taking part in this little excursion. Everyone else was doing it, though... so I caved.

How they got us all into the kayaks was very cool. We would take the Zodiacs from the ship just like we always did for a landing, except this time we went to a slightly-underwater platform they had set up off the shore of Danco Island. There are two empty Zodiacs on either side of this platform. From the Zodiac full of passengers from the ship, two people climb over into one of the empty Zodiacs (a staging area, so to speak) and then slide their behinds across the top of the empty Zodiac into an inflatable kayak that's resting on the platform, and then they're off.

Here's the platform (as always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them):



Here's me chilliln' up in front (it was actually really hot out that day so all of my winter gear soon came off):



And here are a few scenic shots... one of another couple kayaking and one of the guide marking the boundary of where we were allowed to explore. Sometimes these guys would have a huge thermos of hot chocolate with them so you could pull up alongside and get a drink. Pure genius.





The shore of Danco Island was covered with penguins, and they were all doing this "March of the Penguins" sort of thing. In the picture below, you can see the reddish lines in the snow on the mountain... they call those "penguin highways" (the reddish-brown is from their, uh... well, you know). They pave the way for each other to get to the beach area, and then they just hightailed it back and forth along the water's edge, it was hilarious.






Here's a very, very short video we took of the penguins so that you can see what it looks (and sounds) like when they are all waddling in unison.

Some penguins would eventually find their way down to the water and then would show off... swimming under the kayaks and jumping up in the air around us. I REALLY wanted one to jump OVER us in the kayak, but I didn't have enough time to train them for that trick.



It had been a sunny, gorgeous day, and to just take in the beautiful scenery from that perspective was nothing short of breathtaking. This was my favorite experience of the trip.

- e

Cooling Off with More Memories of Antarctica

When it's been 92 degrees out for the past few weeks in Chicago, with absolutely no sign of the heat letting up, what better way to cool down than to write another installment about my Antarctica trip, complete with pictures of huge icebergs?

For those of you who haven't been reading this site for that long, you can catch up on the past entries about my Antarctica trip with National Geographic in November 2007 here.

We last left off on November 24th. The ship was moving south again and on its way to Useful Island. The very cool thing that happened on the way was that a pod of about ten killer whales started swimming in formation around the boat. At one point they even swam straight at the ship, under it and then continued out the other side. There were a few calves with them, which could be identified by yellow/orangeish patches on their eye area, rather than the white patches we're all more familiar with.

Here's one picture of an adult killer whale by itself, and then a wider shot of a few of them swimming away from the boat.



Then it was time to disembark the ship for more exploring. They have a very organized process of getting everyone on their way... they'll call certain floors, or even vs. odd cabin numbers, etc., to have everyone line up in order rather than jostle for first position. They will check all of your gear in a little holding room as the Zodiac in front of you leaves, and then you just wait on this small platform by an open door to climb into the next raft (it is pretty bouncy, so they have two guys grab your arms and lead you to your seat. Here is one Zodiac leaving, and then me waiting anxiously for my turn in the shadows on the right.




The crazy thing, as you can see from the pictures above, is that you're just sitting on the edge of this inflatable Zodiac, and you only have a rope that is BEHIND you to hang onto. I seriously am still amazed that I did not fall overboard backwards, because I have NO balancing skillz and am totally clumsy. There were a few times when we would hit a wave where I thought I was a goner. To add to the fun, the wind can get pretty vicious as you are motoring toward land, so I usually looked like Michael Jackson while on the Zodiac.


Once we made it to Useful Island, we were of course greeted by more penguins chasing each other around.


My husband and I then followed one of the naturalists up to the tippy-top of this small mountain to have a look out at the bay. The reason I look unhappy in the picture below is that I am actually standing on a very narrow ledge... all that snow to the left is just covering a huge cliff. Once again, since I am clumsy, I was positive that I was going to fall off.


But we made it up there alive and stood by a few stray penguins taking in the view. It's a rockier area so it's not quite as pretty as the other places we visited, but it gives you a sense of how different the landscapes can be across the region. See how small some of our fellow passengers are down there by the shore?


We bid adieu to Useful Island and pulled up anchor once again. The next day of the trip was probably my favorite... it was brilliantly sunny out and we actually kayaked around a calm harbor. But until that post, here are two stunning pictures of ice--one of a massive iceberg that floated by, and the other of an "extreme ice close-up."





Ahh, I feel cooler already.

- e

Continuing On

Time for another Antarctica trip installment...

After the terrifying Explorer rescue the morning of November 23, 2007, our Captain and Expedition Leader held a meeting with everyone to share information about what they knew and to answer questions. At that early point in time, not much was understood about what actually caused the Explorer to sink, though the obvious guess was that it had struck an iceberg near its engine room. When asked, "How could something like this happen, in this day and age, with all this technology?" our Captain simply said, "I've known the Captain of the Explorer for several years and I know that he was distraught, and so I didn't think it was an appropriate time to ask him what happened this morning." (The Explorer's Captain and Expedition Leader were the last two people to leave the ship.)

Once the rescue was over and everyone was safe, our ship turned back to its original route. Later that afternoon, we made a landing at Half Moon Island in the middle of a snowstorm. It was the only day of crappy weather during our entire voyage. Quite honestly, I think everyone would've been a little disappointed if we hadn't gotten the chance to brave the elements, so it was fun (in a twisted way).


Plus, once you get close to all of the goofy penguins, it makes getting pelted by blowing snow in every direction totally worth it.





You may have to click the picture above to enlarge it, but there are a bunch of penguins burrowed into the snow with just their heads peeking out. That's what happens when they go to sleep on their bellies and then the snow keeps piling up around them. They seem to like it.

The little guy below was, no lie, "tobogganing" down a hill on his belly. Since there's so much snow it's kind of hard to tell that he's propelling downward (you can see people climbing up, though), but trust me, he was. It was hilarious.


Below you can barely make out our ship in the distance... that's how crappy the weather was.


After we left Half Moon, we made our way into a caldera. We ended up coming back to this spot later on our trip, so I'll talk more about it then, but needless to say, it was ridiculously windy.


After that, I headed back to my cabin to attempt to unsnarl my hair and rest after what was one of the most eventful days I've ever had.

- e

The Explorer Rescue

The usually chipper voice of our Expedition Leader, Tim, no longer sounded upbeat--that was the first thing I noticed as his voice came over the PA system the morning of our third day in Antarctica aboard the National Geographic Endeavour.

The PA system in each cabin cannot be turned off--it is used for a wake-up call each morning, to make people aware of lectures going on during the day, and to announce the order passengers disembark the ship during landings, among other things. The wake-up call would normally come between 7 and 8 AM, but as I squinted my eyes and peered over to my digital alarm clock on November 23rd, I knew something was wrong when the time read 5:30 AM.

Tim proceeded to announce that at 1:45 that morning, our Captain had received a distress call from the Explorer, which had been about 5 hours away at that point. He had immediately turned our ship around, and we were now about an hour away from the accident site. While typically the ship had an "open bridge" policy, meaning that any passenger could hang out in the Captain's navigation room at any time, because of this emergency, Tim asked that we please stay out of the bridge until further notice.

"This doesn't sound good," I mumbled to my husband and proceeded to shut my eyes again. When you've been dead asleep for hours in a Bonine stupor, it's hard to snap back into reality, trust me!

But an hour later, Tim's voice came over the PA once more, and said that we were nearing the Explorer and were coordinating with another ship, the Nordnorge, to rescue all of the Explorer's passengers, who at this point had been drifting at sea in life boats for about FIVE HOURS. He repeated the request that no one enter the bridge.

"You better go check it out," I grumbled to my husband, who promptly got up, grabbed all of his weather gear and his camera, and left. This was the first scene he saw... the Nordnorge a bit ahead of our ship, and black and orange Zodiacs in the water starting the rescue.

(All of the pictures in this post can be enlarged by clicking on them, but this is as big as Blogger lets me paste things in...)


About ten minutes later, it finally hit me. Good God, a ship is sinking! I hopped out of bed, bundled up, and headed outside.

I stepped into the fresh air from a door on the port (left) side of the boat. The first thing I saw was the Nordnorge, which we had pulled up closer to by the time I got on deck.


But I didn't realize it was the Nordnorge at that point. It was much bigger than our ship, and I thought, "Well that doesn't seem to be sinking..." Then I turned to my right and saw the Explorer and gasped. No pictures will ever do justice to what it was like to actually see this ship sinking in the middle of the Antarctic. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, and my heart went out to all of the people who had to abandon ship. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to bob up and down on the waves in the cold with nothing around for so many hours. One passenger from the Explorer actually videotaped the evacuation from the ship, and was interviewed on The Today Show after she arrived home. The video can be found in the upper-right hand corner of this page... you have to wait for a short commercial to run, but then it should automatically play.

The first picture below is of the crew from our boat in the black Zodiacs coming out to get one group of Explorer passengers, who were in white life boats (which did not have motors). It should give you a good sense of how there was just literally nothing around for miles, except floating chunks of ice in the distance. The second picture is a close-up of one of the life boats.




We later heard that the Explorer's passengers had been told that rescue was coming in an hour. Rescue (our ship and the Nordnorge) actually arrived in five hours--and we were by far the closest ships around. If the passengers were actually told that their ordeal would end in an hour, I think the time they spent waiting in the life boats would've been exponentially worse--it seems like you would lose hope once three hours had gone by and there was no sign of anyone coming.

While the rescue operation was in process, Jon Bowermaster, the National Geographic representative on our ship, filmed a video that was featured on ABC shortly after. Here is a picture of Jon starting to film his video. The video can be found here (you have to sit through a short commercial first).


There were 154 passengers and crew members on the Explorer, and all were saved. The Nordnorge could hold up to 1,000 people, and had 700 open spots at that point. This is because Antarctic laws dictate that only 100 passengers can go on land at any one time... so if a ship has more than 100 passengers, it can only take them out in shifts. If you get more than three shifts-worth of passengers, you're not going to make much progress sailing around the area. So larger ships that are used in other parts of the world during Antarctica's off-season have a lot of empty space when they are cruising around the White Continent. As our ship was pretty much at capacity (combined with the fact that they wanted everyone from the Explorer to stay together), the 154 people from the Explorer went on to the Nordnorge after the rescue procedure was completed. Our ship took some of the Explorer's Zodiacs onboard. And with that, we went our separate ways. Our Captain steered around the Explorer one last time to pay our respects.




This next picture was taken from the window/porthole in my cabin.


Um, yes, you could say that it was a bit freaky to see a sinking ship outside of your window, right at eye-level. But by far, the eeriest sight of that morning took place after the rescue was over. All of the abandoned life boats turned in the water and started drifting back to the Explorer. It was like they knew they belonged with her. Utterly amazing.


Needless to say, after the horrific events that day, everyone on our ship was on edge. But the Captain and crew from the Explorer, Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic could not have handled the situation more professionally. I never felt scared that we were in danger or that they were hiding something from us. Lindblad immediately called all of our emergency contacts back at home to let them know that we were OK and were NOT on the ship that sank (there was a lot of confusion in the media early on because Lindblad actually used to own the Explorer, and our ship, the Endeavour, was similarly named... on top of the fact that Lindblad now owns another boat named the Explorer...). The Captain and Expedition Leader also held a question and answer session that afternoon and discussed everything they knew about the situation with all of us. For the rest of the trip, they kept us updated on any news they were hearing. In a word, they were awesome.

It was an extremely emotional time for all of them, as nearly every team member from our ship, including our Captain, had previously served on the Explorer. I will save a summary of their comments, my additional thoughts on the incident, as well as what it meant for the environment (the good news: very little) and Antarctic tourism for a final post after I've talked about the rest of our voyage. But the one question that remains is, how could this have happened? Especially after seeing all of the high-tech equipment in the bridge, one has to wonder what went so terribly wrong.

And like I said in an earlier entry about this trip, suddenly the clipping I saw posted on the bulletin board in the bridge took on a whole new meaning.

- e

The First Landing in Antarctica: Aitcho Island

(clicking on any of the pictures will enlarge them)

Let's see, where were we? Ahhh, right. We had just crossed the Drake Passage and were recovering from seasickness.

By the afternoon of November 22nd, we were finally in calmer waters and it was time for our first landing. How it worked was that we would all get off the ship in shifts and take zodiacs over to the shore in groups of 10 or 12. (I'll show pictures of the zodiacs in later posts.) Our initial taste of Antarctica was Aitcho Island. "Aitcho" is a phonetic spelling of "H.O.," which is what this group of islands had been called for so long that the name just stuck (H.O. stands for hydrographic office).

I have to say that it was quite a dramatic introduction to the White Continent. We explored the island for about 3 hours, and over every hill was a totally different breathtaking landscape. And the amount of penguins there did not disappoint... there were a few Weddell seals in the mix as well.

The rules are that you cannot come within 15 feet of the wildlife. However, the penguins often walk right by you, and if that happens, you are supposed to slowly drop down in the snow so that you are more at their level and don't scare them. They are pretty unbothered by humans... they're all on missions to build their nests with rocks, so they just march by you with rocks in their beaks and are undeterred if you are in their way.

As you may have gathered over the course of the time I've been writing my blogs, I am a big-time animal-lover. It is an indescribable feeling to see certain animals in their natural habitats. On my honeymoon in South Africa, when I saw a baby giraffe running through the bush, I literally started crying. I've seen many giraffes before, but to observe one running at full speed with no enclosure holding it back was amazing. While not quite as dramatic, it was very cool to be among hundreds of penguins with a vast snow-covered island laid out before them. To watch these little guys navigating up and down huge hills and jumping in and out of the water was well worth the queasiness we all suffered to get to that spot!



Above: A Gentoo penguin (larger white patches around its eyes) makes his way down a hill with our ship in the background.


Above: A chinstrap penguin (obviously easy to tell apart from the Gentoos) taking a rest.

Below: A skua with a stolen egg.



There would be one skua that would watch over each major group of penguin nests, waiting for an opportune time to swoop in and steal an egg. Anywhere we went for the rest of the trip, if there were penguins, there were also skuas.

Below: A Weddell sea in the typical seal position (on its back, sleeping or resting).



I'll end with a few pictures of the scenery, but these still can't convey the vastness and other-worldliness of the area. And it was only 30 degrees the entire time (and daylight all the time as well)! That's warmer than it's been here in Chicago now for weeks...

- e

Ay Ay, Captain!

Time for another Antarctica trip installment.

When I last left off, our ship had set sail and was crossing the turbulent Drake Passage. I popped Bonine to keep from getting sick... and for the most part, it worked. I still was often queasy and felt best when I was horizontal in my mini-bed, but I never threw up. Which, believe me, is saying a lot. The entire ship was pretty much bedridden for the first day because of the intense rocking. You know it's bad when they string large ropes all around the ship so that people can hold on to them just to make it across a small room. In addition, I found it humorous that all of the chairs in the dining room were chained to the floor:


I did brave the dining room for every meal (a girl's gotta eat!) and, at one point, was astonished to see the entire starboard (right) side of the ship get enveloped by a wave, which then sent silverware, glasses, dishes and the poor waiters sailing across the floor. Trust me, it is very scary to see nothing but water against the sides of the windows! But at that point, the other ship in the area had not sunk, so I don't think anyone was truly worried that anything could happen to our ship.

Especially after checking out "the bridge," or, "the place where the Captain hangs out." The expedition company that partners with National Geographic for these trips, Lindblad Expeditions, has an "open bridge" policy--meaning that guests are allowed in the bridge at almost any time. After my husband and I found our sea legs, we ventured up there to get a chance to check it out while everyone else was most likely asleep or wallowing in misery.

It is a very cool room that is filled with all sorts of tracking gadgets, maps and controls. If you're the kind of person who worries that if you accidentally press the wrong button on your computer, DVD player or PDA it might blow up, you would NOT want to be in the bridge. I found it fascinating, but stayed far away from all of the controls. One of our fellow guests was a pilot with Southwest, so I learned a lot listening to him talk to the navigators about all of the different machines.




We were told early on that nobody better sit in the Captain's favorite leather chair, but I snuck onto it while no one was looking - hee hee.

There was a ton of radar and sonar equipment that showed icebergs underwater and around the ship. However, our course was plotted by hand as well, and it was neat to look at the maps they had and see exactly where we were. It doesn't really hit you that you're at the bottom of the world until you look at a map and realize, "Holy crap, we ARE at the bottom of the world!"


I particularly liked two things I saw posted in the bridge. One was the "Beaufort wind scale," which I've pasted in below, but you may need to actually click on the picture to enlarge it and be able to read it. The far right column describes the effects of increasingly powerful winds. Gotta love that last line...



But my absolute favorite thing (at the time) I saw in that room was a small clip that was hung on a bulletin board near the kitchenette. On that second day of our trip, I thought it was funny. I asked our expedition leader where they got it, and he said it had been in a trade magazine, touting some sort of crew insurance. The next morning, as we watched the Explorer sinking, I couldn't help but think back to this small cutout and consider it in a much different light.

- e