Trip to Antarctica

“It is an incredibly beautiful place, unlike any place I’ve ever been. There is ocean, massive amounts of water, full of life – from the penguins porpoising through the water to the whales surfacing to breathe to the petrels flying above. Unseen to our eye is the phytoplankton and krill, which everything else in Antarctica eats. Literally every other animal eats krill. [...] There are towering mountains, covered with glaciers and ice, icebergs of all shapes, and very little color. The landscape is incredibly monochromatic, whites and shades of gray and black, with washes of blue in the sky and ice. The gentoo penguins have bright orange beaks, and I found some lichen but there is nothing that grows on the ground – other than moss. No trees, no bushes, no grass. It is wild beyond imagining, so vast, so incomprehensible.”

“We had rough waters on the Drake Passage, both sailing to Antarctica and on the return. It was not as bad as it could have been, but it was not super comfortable. The first night entering the passage we had 16.5ft high waves and the guides compared it to “a small hurricane”. It thankfully eased up in the afternoon of our first day in the passage. On our second day in the Drake Passage things were a bit bumpy but not too bad and we actually made it to Antarctica early! In the afternoon we arrived for our first expedition which was a huge bonus.”

“On Nov 24th I boarded the World Explorer in Ushuaia with 160 fellow travelers for a 10-day Antarctic expedition with Quark Expeditions. $10 000 didn’t get me a private cabin, so I shared a room with Akira-san from Japan. We were perfect roommates: he spent his time at the bar while I rested in the cabin, and our shower schedules never overlapped. An introvert’s dream. [...] The real adventure, though, began in the mudroom, where we suited up in waterproof boots and life jackets before boarding Zodiacs – sturdy rubber boats that carried us ashore or on exploration rides.”