Author: matt

After our final night on the ship, it was time to say goodbye to Antarctica and our friends. This being Antarctica, things were subject to change, and they did. After clearing out of our cabins, we spent most of the morning waiting to hear when we’d get a weather slot for our planes to come down and pick us up. The ship was anchored outside of Frei station on King George island ready to go, but we stayed on the ship until we got word that the planes had taken off. This wound up happening just after the hotel crew threw together an impromptu lunch, which looked like repurposed leftovers (sweet and sour turkey for instance, great idea), and they did a fine job.

Then we were off to shore for some more waiting. We walked roughly a mile back from the shore to the plane parking area and it started raining. Unfortunately we had to wait about an hour in the rain in the middle because of plane traffic so we couldn’t cross the runway. Luckily we all had our gear on so it wasn’t bad.

Once we made it back to Punta Arenas, and got ourselves settled and desperately used to internet to catch up, we had a really fantastic dinner at a French restaurant with some friends from the boat.

Finally the next day we were off to Santiago again to stay the night at the airport hotel. It was surprisingly nice, we spent most of the time at the bar going through photos and writing blog posts and enjoying being able to use the interwebs again. We also ran into another friend from the ship and chatted with her for a while.

The next morning it was off to Easter island (Rapa Nui.) Being at the airport hotel must have made us overconfident, because we started off running late and missed the window to check our bags. Luckily we had stashed one bag at the hotel and our other bags worked as carry-on in a pinch. We did have to race through the airport, and immigration for some reason, despite not leaving the country, carrying all of our bags, but we made it, with me swearing “never again.”

On the 26th, we woke up early to see us transit Neptune’s Bellows which is the entrance to Deception island. The fantastic naming aside, almost no one got outside to see it because most folks had been up late with trivia the previous night. It was also cold and windy and the seas we’re pretty rough the previous night. I made it out for a few minutes, but managed to miss the transit through the bellows. Deception island is actually one of three volcano calderas in the world that you can sail into. The volcano had a massive eruption and collapsed in on itself which let the sea into the caldera. It was a neat place surrounded by the rim of the volcano nearly all around and beaches filled with relics from an old whaling station.

We took the zodiacs out to land on the beach and explored the ruins. Unlike all the previous sites, this one did not have much wildlife. There were a couple of penguins by the landing site, but that was pretty much it. The whaling station had been abandoned and partially destroyed by a couple of small eruptions over the last 50 years. It was a bleak site, but it felt appropriate, especially with the driving hail and freezing temperatures. We felt like the early explorers trudging through the snow on our way back to our cruise ship with hot chocolate and a shower waiting for us.

Afterwards instead of cruising around in the zodiacs, since the weather was still marginal they gave us a presentation on the geology and history of Deception island. Unfortunately after we left the natural harbor of the island the seas were still pretty rough. I started getting a little seasick so I went to have a nap. Pretty much the rest of the boat did as well, and due to the weather and seas they wound up cancelling our next landing at Half Moon island. I was ok with it, a nap was very welcome.

We finished off the day with a fantastic farewell dinner with some of our friends on the ship. The chef went all out with an explosion of chocolate desserts all beautifully made and delicious. I had been trying to meet up with one of the guides, Marla the biologist, all day to show her my pictures of the crab eater seal eating a fish, and finally managed to do so after dessert. She was extremely excited to see them and I gave her copies to use in her presentations. A bunch of the other guides gathered around to check them out as well. It’s great how much they’re all truly into this stuff.

We started our journey from Santiago down to Antarctica yesterday. We didn’t really have time for anything in the morning other than to go to the airport. It turns out the reason for the previous day’s flight schedule drama was that they needed a bigger plane for all of the passengers, so wound up on a 787 which was only about 2/3rds full. That was a nice surprise, we hadn’t flown on one before. I enjoyed the electronic dimming windows instead of the usual sliding shades. It was somewhat incongruous landing such a big plane in the small airport serving Punta Arenas.

The town, and unsurprisingly the region of Patagonia was beautiful. It was chilly and rainy, which was a nice change from Santiago. There were wild flowers everywhere and lush hills right against the ocean. Honestly the town wouldn’t have looked out of place on the northern California coast. Unfortunately we didn’t get a lot of time there. After we got to the hotel we had enough time to make some calls before we dropped out of connectivity for a week. Then we had equipment distribution, weigh ins, briefings and a group dinner for the cruise.

The next morning it was finally time to get to Antarctica. After lots of time on group logistics we made it to the airport for more group logistics. Oh and our plane was painted like a penguin! The plane was a strange narrow body jet with 4 engines and only about 100 seats, but they only fly with 70 people or so since they need to be light weight to land on the airstrip on King George island. We had to get all of our gear on in the plane because as soon as we stepped off we would be outside in Antarctica. This meant trying to get everyone dressed in a bunch of bulky gear in a cramped plane and then standing around in a hot plane with a bunch of cold weather gear while we waited to get out. Once we were out though… It was shocking, an immediate blast of frigid, clear air and spectacular views of glaciers. The airstrip is in a Chilean military base which we weren’t allowed to take pictures of. We had to walk across the base, and next to a Russian base it turns out, to get to the zodiacs waiting to take us to the ship.

We had a very “sporty” ride on the zodiac where we all got pretty soaked from splashes. During the ride, Jack and I discovered that our water proof pants, weren’t. So we are going to have to do something about that.

The rest of the day was a nice dinner and more briefings. It was also our best shot at seeing an Aurora Australialus but after staying up until 11:30pm, it’s clear it doesn’t get anything like dark enough to see it because it was barely dusk then, so we gave up and went to bed.