My whole life I have had a goal to visit all seven continents. The hardest one to get to is also the driest, despite all the ice, Antarctica! Only about 10,000 people actually get to step onto the continent of Antarctica each year, less than the number of people who visit a theme park in one day, so I feel very fortunate to have gotten to be one of the few. My husband and I traveled with a company out of Connecticut, Quark Expeditions, and I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting to travel to Antarctica.
It took two days to cross the Drake Passage from Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world). The Drake Passage has the roughest seas in the world, a good 80% or more of our fellow passengers got seasick although neither my husband nor I did. We got to listen to several talks given by our expedition staff, a group of scientists leading the group. After about 1.5 days we saw our first iceberg and the estimate is that it was about 1 mile across.
We arrived at Aitcho Island in the evening of the second day and got to see a colony of chinstrap penguins as well as a herd of elephant seals lazing on the beach. The next morning we took our first step onto the actual continent at Brown Bluff where we saw the other two types of penguins that live in the region, gentoo and adelie.
Luckily we went late in the summer and there were many baby penguins like this one who is about 10 days old!
For 6 days we visited sites all up and down the Antarctic Peninsula. We visited two Argentinian research stations and a British Research station. We took cruises in the zodiac boats and saw a 300 foot glacier calve off into the water. (click on the link to see the video taken by our South African friend, Manie). We got to see seals and whales and all kinds of birds. We even got to swim in the Southern Ocean; yes, it was @#$$% cold!
We were in the zodiac boat in the Lemaire Channel that made it furthest south on our trip, 65 degrees. Then we had to head back to civilization via two more days across the Drake Passage.
The continent of Antarctica is highly protected by the Antarctic Treaty and is one of the last great wildernesses in the world. If you are an adventure traveler like I am I highly recommend adding this trip to your list of must do’s.
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