The measure of a trip away to me is the question, if money were no object, would you go there again? When it comes to our trip to Antarctica the answer would definitely be yes. In fact Birdlife Australia are adverting a trip, including South Georgia, for November this year and I would love to win lotto and go. There are things I would do the same and others I would do differently, so on the off chance I ever…
Our last day in South America was supposed to have an early start. However all these late night dinners are messing with my early morning wake up and we didn’t hit the streets until after 8. A quick march through town, with a short stop for brekkie and we were at the ecological reserve. I thought it would have a few more vistas than it did, but the cyclist and runners clearly enjoy it. By reputation it used to be…
Walking around Ushuaia over the last few days has that awkward feeling of running into the same people over and over again in the supermarket. Sitting her at the airport we are next to a lovely German couple who shared our coldest day of the trip on the Pira tour to visit the Magellanic penguins. More about that to follow. Lots of hugs with the crew as we left the Ushuaia. As everyone disembarked the must reach the polar circle…
We woke this morning to Monika’s announcement that there were humpbacks breaching around the ship. I shrugged on my Gortex jacket and pants over my pjs, grabbed my camera and beanie and I was out the hatch. No gloves, very few extra layers, but I wasn’t missing this. Luckily my camera habits meant that I had a memory card ready to go in camera and the batteries were fully charged. The visibility was sub optimal (snow / rain / low…
Last night a few of us had a mini session with Alex going through some of her common Photoshop edits. The thought process behind them was, for me, the most interesting part. The art rather than the science so to speak and a peek inside someone else’s thinking process. I hope she doesn’t find that creepy… The science of how to make the edits I’m more familiar with, although I tend to use Lightroom for the basic things I do…
We had an early morning wake up from Monika, inviting us on deck to watch as we started to navigate the Lemaire Channel. This stretch of water is apparently quite scenic, and navigation is entirely dependent on the weather as it can be too full of ice to get through. We all donned our cold weather gear and climbed out of bed to see what we could see. Which wasn’t very much.. On this occasion there was enough water and…
We started the day watching humpback whales breach in the Gerlache Strait. It’s a hard life. After breakfast we arrived in a small harbour names for a whale factory ship that used to operate here. The only person unhappy with the weather for our first steps on the Antarctic continent was our fearless leader, Alex. As we should all know beautiful blue skies and sunshine does not make for perfect penguin photography conditions. It does make for a unforgettably magic…
The good news for today was the weather was good for Elsie and her husband to be evacuated from King George Island. There were a number of boats in the harbour making the most of the same weather window including a sailboat waiting for its captain and crew and a navel vessel offloading their sadly deceased doctor. Did I mention we were in the remote wilderness and that we were at the whim of the weather? Puts things in perspective. …
Monkia, our expedition leader woke us up with her cheery “Good Morning, Good Morning Expeditioners” and an announcement that we would have a briefing on plans in the bar after breakfast. The weather continued to be foggy, but there was hope that the afternoon would present a weather window that would allow the medical evacuation to go ahead. There were not facilities on King George Island that would make it possible to offload the injured passenger and her husband to…
A day of firsts. Today we saw our first penguins swimming in the ocean. We were all very excited, which must amuse the crew no end. They swim like dolphins, porpoising in and out of the water to maintain their speed. I don’t know why I was surprised to see them out so far away from land. We spent some time out on deck trying to get photos, but they are quick and quite little so I certainly didn’t get…