Antarctica - Yes, you should go there!!!

the Artist Photographer, Gerri

On my second attempt, finally, I got to Antarctica!!!  And YES, it was worth it.

There are SOOOOO many beautiful pictures taken in Antarctica, that rather than attempting to compose this lame summary of my travel diary, showing 20 odd pictures of the best shots taken would be sufficient to appreciate the absolutely beautiful, remote, unique, commanding, unambiguous, and inhospitable world (in terms of its kindness to humans) of the Antarctica peninsula. 

Getting there via Santiago, Chile and then to Ushuaia, a quaint port city of <100,000 population at the southern tip of South America was an adventure in itself.  While admitting the luxury and comfort of two legs of a Delta flat bedded seated flight from Honolulu to Atlanta to Santiago, the charter flight from Santiago to Ushuaia was on an Airbus 321 with agonizingly cramped coach seating, squeezing my already confined body, and providing an unwelcomed, real-time preview of my ‘life’ in a coffin. 

The cruise ship – the Silver Cloud – I was familiar with prior to the dry dock conversion of an aging luxury cruiser to an exploration ship.  On a short Antarctica cruise of 10 days, at least 4 of those days would be spent crossing back and forth through the Drake Passage, a very restless mess of turbulent winds and angry sea waters that circle the Antarctic peninsula, famed for thrashing seafaring vessels into submission.  Not much to do but pray that the endless swaying, balance busting, torturing, nauseating, vomiting, weariness would end soon.  Plenty of sick guests hoping that the anguish would end, and the majority of the guests had a tell tale transderm  patch behind their ear.

A blizzard of penguins, whales, birds, and seals greeted us in Antarctica.  Clearly the penguins had the most personality, and we saw hundreds to thousands of these petite, humanoid like creatures doing just about everything including caring for their young, trashing around in the water, strutting and bobbing along the shore, on snow and on land, taking spirited jumps to navigate up and down the mountain, swimming, diving deep and cutting over the surface of the water in a perfectly constructed sign wave, relaxing on the fractured ice masses and more substantial icebergs, and shooting poop out of their bottoms without excuse or embarrassment.  We observed the lazy, solitary seals languishing on icebergs for hours, whales emerging from the ocean depth with surprising grace and fluidity, and the magnificent albatross gliding it seemed forever in large numbers truly commanding the airspace with precision and purpose.  Hands down, you have to love the penguins, one of the most interesting, approachable, intelligent, resourceful, community-oriented species on this earth.  Many of the cruise ship guests could not get enough of the penguins.  We were only able to see three species, and missed the emperor penguins, many people’s favorite but unfortunately not found in the locations we visited.

But on the first day after our arrival, I was lucky enough to be selected to join 11 other guests in the first kayaking experience of the trip.  A glorious day mostly cloud covered but with a peek of sky, clear and windless, the surface of the ocean glistening with pride, we were treated to a decent dose of paddling around the bay, through a mass of broken ice masses, and slushing around attempting to pass through hundreds of mini-icebergs that imprisoned our two-man kayaks to the 100 yard surrounding perimeter.  I volunteered to navigate the kayak in the back position with pedals that guided the back rudder, a feature I was previously not familiar with. It did take a little time in coordinating the rowing motion with the movement of the pedals but I finally mastered this chore without any serious repercussions. My kayak mate was very nice but was fixated on taking a bunch of pictures which he shared and so I had a duel role of satisfying his interest while attempting to keep up with the rest of the kayaker guests and expedition staff that were guiding us through the mass and mess of the ice and freezing cold water.  We were directed to seals, penguin sightings, whale sightings, and the glistening beauty of the pristine waters, icebergs littering the scenery with magical formations of truly creative and artistic magnificence, one never the same as the other, a land mass covered mostly but not entirely with snow, ice, the protruding finger tips of melting glaciers, the surrounding masses of land and snow, an occasional man made research facility on the horizon, and an environment that is forbidding to humans except under the most fortunate climate conditions.

Needless to say, the water was glistening clean and unspoiled, there was no litter to be found anywhere, and not only was this a result of the dearth of human inhabitance and contamination, it was also due to the governmentally imposed, programmed orientation and behavior that was demanded of all human guests that set foot on Antarctica.

I’ve travelled a lot. A quick review of my passport allowed me to calculate, since renewing it in 2015, that I have had over 90 government immigration stamps populating its pages.  But I have been travelling frequently for at least 10 years, and I haven’t calculated the exact number of countries that I have travelled to.  At least 50 for sure, and maybe as many as 100. I remember how I felt when I first travelled around the world, and felt the vastness of the planet as I hopped from city to city from west to east.  Now, travelling the distance of the circumference of the earth seems ordinary.

Not really oriented as a naturalist, my big city roots have guided my interests toward cities and cultures, ruins, monuments, temples, museums, languages, dress, societies, lifestyles, and everything else revolving human existence.  Nevertheless, with the vastness of the oceans on earth and the two dozen + cruises that I have taken, I have increasingly found solace and inner peace by the cosmic immensity of the ocean mass. I am not a mountain climber nor am I a seasoned traveler into the wild, I am yet to take my first safari and appreciate the animals I have only witnessed imprisoned in zoos and aquariums, but I have truly been touched by my experiences both in the Arctic and Antarctic.  

Most people don’t travel far from their homes. I see the masses consumed by the routines of the day, by their self-imposed, claustrophobic focused physical and mental perimeter of comfort, affected by the vagaries of the moment competing for the fulfillment of their duties and responsibilities, surrounded by family and friends, and generally accepting and contented.  Turning on an electric switch seems natural and brainless, driving on a paved road routine, and even smart phones, computers, social media and the internet now seem second nature to most humans, including those living in third world countries!  A teenager growing up in Bhutan is really not much different than one growing up in Chicago except for the feeling of security and safety in Bhutan. One turns their attention to street lights and turn signals, to daily routines and societal norms neglecting the long history of the evolution of mankind and society.  We should all be forced to spend a week on a remote island without running water, electricity and the million and one items that lull us into false security and comfort, and dull our senses with entitlements and expected outcomes.

Even from the protected and safe cocoon of our cruise ship, the ephemeral peek of Antarctica renewed my respect for the power and vastness of the earth we live in. Standing as a human exposed to the raw beauty and art created from nature in Antarctica, with the strong aroma of the sea and penguin colonies, and the vast surroundings, humans stand as insignificant and inconsequential. Here in Antarctica, no money, no beauty, no status, no intelligence, no talent, no NOTHING gives you any advantage or disadvantage here.  Nothing you can do can compete with the overwhelming scale of ice, cold, wind, and land, and the fortunate collection of sea, land, and sky inhabitants who have adjusted over centuries to make the polar regions at least their seasonal home, protected from the nefarious shenanigans of the bulk of humanity, while embraced by the few naturalists who will spend their lives attempting to understand and facilitate the habitat and environment so challenging to most living species.