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.