Vacations Blog

On the ship’s navigation table, two nautical charts are laid out. Never surveyed waters surround the ship, according to both charts. A reasonable path, the captain opts to maintain a course drawn on depth soundings. This channel is new to him, though he’s sailed the Antarctic many, many times. When you would like to get more information on antarctica cruise ships check out this site.

The sun sets and our ability to see is reduced.  After that, the heavy, thick snow starts to fall. The bridge windows start to accumulate the large flakes and we have difficulty seeing the icebergs ahead. Radar clearly shows them, even with our diminished eyesight. Orange blotches, the program’s choice for icebergs, fill the screen. All at once, a giant orange blob fills the screen. It’s only three kilometers away.

The captain issues a quiet command as we near the one kilometer mark. With quick response, the helmsman alters the course of the ship. A tabular iceberg, which can only be seen in this region, looms like a ghost through the fog and snow. This type of iceberg sports a flat, wide top with sides that rise straight upwards.

The sheer magnitude of Antarctica has dumbfounded me again. Hopefully we will reach the Antarctic Circle in this polar class cruise vessel. We’d passed extremely removed areas of land and some of the least life-filled places on the planet. Even after being found in 1820, it took another 79 years before a human would live on it during winter. Explorers searching for the southern pole struggled and scientists were the next to approach Antarctica. You used to have to be rich to travel to Antarctica. You could experience Antarctica for about the same cost as visiting a Caribbean island. You can get the best exciting antarctica cruises information by visiting this website.

Antarctica looks a little bit like a manta ray with a curved tail. Between the very tip of the tail and the very tip of South America sits five hundred miles of water. This is known as Drake Passage.  It is home to the roughest seas on the planet. Also known as ‘the slobbering jaws of hell,’ it is truly difficult to pass through this area to the planets last continent. One of the passengers told us all to stow everything and secure the latches on the cabin portholes before they went to bed.

Our ship left the Argentine port city of Ushuaia and passed through the Beagle Channel.  Later we reached open ocean. The ship was tossed for two days on very rough water with no land in sight. Winds that could have registered as gale force blew for the whole two days. As waves broke over the bow, ocean spray shot up beyond my fourth deck window. A passenger’s seasickness greatly affected the height of the swells he or she saw.  Some reported swells between fifteen and forty feet.

Two days out from South America, we reached the Southern Ocean. When I got up the next day, I saw a coastal archipelago. The sea seemed to be settled a bit by the surrounding land. Wispy clouds shielded high mountain tops. Sharp ridges poked through the smooth glaciers and stood dark against their relative whiteness. Rough, tumbled ice filled with cracks and dirt fell into the sea in large slabs. These mountains, which could have been in Everest’s range, looked out of place sticking up out of the water.

Our Antarctic cruise reminded one passenger of the labor of childbirth. Compared to all the other seven continents, Antarctica is the windiest, coldest, driest and highest. The continent may have seventy percent of our fresh water, but its polar plateau gets the same amount of precipitation as Death Valley does annually. This continent doesn’t have an indigenous human population, animals that call it home all year round, or even an owner.

Depending on how the weather is on a single day, shore landings and sailing routes are altered. We were warned to be flexible with when we expected to land, luckily we were right on time. We meet on deck in the groups we were assigned to be in. My group of ten gets into an inflatable boat. We finally reach the continent after crossing one more quarter mile of sea. And then, with just one step, I am among the few who can say they’ve stood on the Antarctic Continent.

Antarctica is larger than or Europe and encompasses 10 percent of the world’s land mass. The continent’s enormously barren and formidable landscape can see minus 89 degrees Celsius temperatures and 192 mph winds. This continent lies in the Southern Ocean. As a person looking for antarctica travel packages you should visit that site.

The seas are blessed with the richest concentration of nutrition in the universe, sufficient to feed numerous whales, fish, etc. Trapped beneath the massive ice shelves, micro organisms, also more commonly known as krill, multiply. Whale, penguins, and seals eat krill primarily.  In Japan, it is also served in homes.

Because of the extreme cold, windy, and dry conditions, animals living in Antarctica must have special adaptations for the environment. Antarctica holds the highest average elevation for any continent, and is perhaps the driest with only approximately 200mm of precipitation along the coast each year. The many different species of algea, vegetation, and animals that have evolved to stand the extreme cold.

There is a very unique condition here in Antarctica that makes it critically valuable to mankind. The atmosphere is comprised of a variety of molecules, and the heavier ones have a tendency to settle near the poles of our planet, making the greenhouse effect more pronounced in these areas. Likewise, the absorption of the sun’s radiant energy is more concentrated at the poles, warming the earth’s surface. You will gain a deeper understanding about antarctica travel by checking out that resource.

Atmospheric make-up is comprised of about 79 percent nitrogen, with only 21 percent oxygen. There are also minute amounts of carvbon dioxide and methane. These gases, combined with water vapor, reflect radiation back toward the earth causing it to warm. Scientists call this the Greenhouse Effect.

Because of a phenomena known as the “slingshot effect”, carbon dioxide and methane accumulate more rapidly at the poles than they do in temperate regions. Because the temperature increase from Greenhouse effects is 4-5 times greater in Antarctica, this region makes an ideal location for research, especially into the Greenhouse Effect.

The ice blanketing Antarctica is almost three miles deep. Snow accumulated over millions of years and compacted to form an ice cap. Studies regarding prehistoric areas are possible in this region by drilling through the ice and studying core samples, more specifically the atomic isotopes and air bubbles contained within.

The well-known ozone layer breach is said to be the result of harmful CFC’s … an atmospheric imbalance caused by these toxic pollutants. These refrigerants combine poorly with ozone. As such, it has created a warming effect in the area, destroying ice shelves.

Once the ice pieces sever they float north and thaws. The sea level rises as the chunks thaw and add water to the ocean. Furthermore, this reduces the area where krill may grow.

It is estimated that the seas would rise over 180 feet if all the Antarctic ice melted. This could send rising to the 20th floor of skyscrapers in New York City! Countries that are more low lying, like Bangladesh and the archipelagos of the South Pacific, would disappear entirely.

Those who have made the trip to Antartica testify that the continent is absolutely stunning to look at. The animals are not disturbed by the presence of people in the area. It is an inspiring sight to view the mixture of animal innocence and nature’s beauty.

We must remain optimistic that people in our era and future eras will care for and maintain Antarctica and its unspoiled beauty. However, the destruction of this continent has been ongoing for a very long time, and irrevocable damage is being done to it. Numerous countries have formed a coalition for the express purpose of reversing this negative trend and saving the beauty of Antartica.

It was only a hundred years ago that the first wailing ship, called the Antarctic, landed off the coast of this wind-battered, volcanic coast and sent a part on a longboat through the rough Ross Sea to explore the shore and surrounding area. January 24, 1895 marked the first time humans set foot on the continent of Antarctica when the landing party, headed up by Captain Leonard Kristensen, stopped during their voyage to hunt whales in waters that were unclaimed by any other country. When you would like to get more information on antarctica cruise check out this site.

The continent of Antarctica’s baptism was bloody. Millions of seals were slaughtered and their fur was collected. Penguins and whales were killed for their precious oils, which were used in the machinery used by the Industrial Revolution. A harrowing process took place on Macquarie Island where hundreds of thousands of helpless penguins were herded into boiling cauldrons of oil in order to render the sought-after oil of these peaceful animals.

It is only now, after centuries of abuse of Antarctica’s resources, that this Frozen Continent is being appreciated for it’s natural and scientific wonders.  Humans have made the decision to forgo the easy money made through destruction of Antarctica’s resources, and instead chosen to treat it as a preserve of nature and science. There has even been discussion about a world park being established. It is on this continent that evidence of environmental threats such as ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect, can be observed by scientists. Our perspectives on Antarctica have changed rapidly, when you consider our minimal, but violent, presence in the area. Small areas of the coastline, some trails to the South Pole and a few islands were explored up until 1958.

It is shocking to look at the hundred years of ferocity, nationalism, idealism, and constant killing that fills Antarctica’s history since people first landed on this continent. There have only been occasional attempts to perform scientific research here. The artillery shells of World War One required oil from whales to operate, so whaling increased during this period. Post-WWII, the Soviet Union and the United States both hunted the oil from sperm whales, as this was used for jet engines. It was not until the International Geophysical Year that Antarctica was referred to as anything but “Terra Incognita,” a term used by medieval mapmakers to describe this undiscovered southern continent. To get a closer look on antarctica vacation visit this site.

It is important to note that even the first person to be born in Antarctica, who is still not an adult, was born here for the sake of patriotic affectation. It was 1978, on Argentina’s Esperanza Base, that the pregnant mother of Emilio Marcus Palmer was flown in to give birth to him on location, specifically to underscore Argentina’s claim to a large portion of Antarctic territory.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had planted the American flag on the moon’s surface nine years earlier, as a show of America’s dominance. Norway’s Roald Amundsen 1911 race to the South Pole was done explicitly to honor King Haakon VII, and make a direct claim on the territory. For the honor of the British Empire, a similar trek was made by Robert F. Scott and a team of explorers, who themselves, collected and physically hauled rock and fossil samples employing the use of sledges.

After discovering that despite all their hard work, Amundsen had beaten them to the Pole by an entire month, Scott’s party perished in Antarctica due to a combination of bad luck, the pain of hauling massive amounts of rock, and poor diet.  This made them the first team of martyrs for the cause of science in Antarctica. America’s claim to the South Pole was entrenched when Richard Byrd flew a Ford Trimotor over the Pole in 1929. In 1821, the soviets utilized Russian Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen’s voyage passed Antarctica in 1821 to justify their interests in the continent.