We did it! We visited Antarctica!! Concurred 7th continent and ticked our bucketlist item!!!
Motivation
In Dec 2018 after we visited amazing Africa, we realized, we had now been on 6 continents. In that very moment we determined, to concur the only continent remaining, Antarctica - The Great White Continent. It was already on radar for Akanksha through the travel group she follows - Girls Love Travel (GLT) and we had seen lot of inspiring girls completing their bucket list by visiting Antarctica.
Booking Logistics
We started to look into booking the expedition to Antarctica early in Jan 2019 with aim to complete the dream destination in Dec 2019, year of our milestone birthdays. We like to plan early and have all the logistics in place. Summer is the only season when visitors are allowed to travel to this land far south. This season to visit Antarctica runs from Nov to Feb, with holidays in December being high season. Also when deciding which months to visit, in November most of the Antarctic Ocean will have ice and it can limit where your expedition ship can go. Feb will be nice and warm but by that time all Penguin islands turn pink due to penguins droppings and molting. (Also, penguins smell is a real thing, especially when you see them in colonies of thousands).
Expeditions to Antarctica can be divided into following itineraries -
1. Fly the Drake (You take flight out of Chille to Antarctic peninsula, though its short and sweet option, it costs a fortune)
2. South Georgia + Antarctic Peninsula (This gives you option to witness big colonies of King penguins on South Georgia and then visit Antarctica), but this will last 13-17 days and will cost more.
3. Antarctic Peninsula (10 days standard itinerary)
4. Crossing the Antarctic circle
5. Chasing mighty Emperor penguins (Remember 'Happy Feet')
6. Visit South Pole.
All of these can cost anywhere from 5k to 25k per person based on whichever option you choose. These are all inclusive costs, except special activities. So these costs only include boarding, food and zodiac cruising and generally don’t include excursions such as Kayaking, Camping etc, they can easily add up to 1k-2k.
We tried to do online search and quickly realized its not easy to find availability of what we are looking for, so we deferred this to amazing travel agency- Swoop travel to find best possible expedition for us. Our requirements were, Antarctic Continental Landing, lots of penguins, and one night camp in Antarctica. Also we preferred to go in late December so we can maximize our vacations.
Swoop found us cabin on Hondius ship operated by Oceanwide expeditions and we were all set to Sail to Antarctica on Dec 20th.
Ushuaia
All ships sail from Ushuaia which is southmost city in the world located in southern tip of Argentina. Its highly recommended to arrive couple of days earlier as ships won’t wait for you if you or your luggage gets delayed. We arrived 48 hours before our embarkation.
We used this time to explore Ushuaia.
Day 1 (Embarkation)
On the day of embarkation, you need to drop off your luggage at tour operator office at the port in morning, as you can’t carry it yourself to the ship. Around 4PM, we reached the port, boarded the ship to our bucket list destination - Antarctica.
Most of the evening of first day was spent taking care of logistics such as check in, safety training, introduction to crew and staff. Captains also had welcome cocktail hour to meet and greet other co passengers. After dinner on first night, ship slowly started to move out of Beagle channel and on its way to Antarctica.
Day 2,3 (Drake's Passage)
We spend most of the day 2 and 3 on board while navigating notorious Drake’s passage. This is where three oceans meet- Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic Ocean, and all hell breaks loose. No matter how many videos you see, nothing can prepare you for real experience. Taking sea sick medication is absolutely recommended. For most of the time of this journey, it was even difficult to stand still on ship. By the evening of day 3 we slowly started to see icebergs, signaling to us that Antarctica is nearer to us than ever. Our expedition crew told us before going to bed, when we will wake up next morning we will be in Antarctica. Couldn’t go to bed more excited than this!
Day 4 (Brown Bluff, Antarctic Sound Zodiac Cruise)
Well day 4 arrived and as we looked outside, it was all gloomy and foggy with winds blowing in excess of 40mph. Our expedition crew had warned us that all activities are weather dependent and will only be allowed if its safe for passengers. Weather has ultimate say in Antarctica and it can change for better and worse in the span of few hours and that’s what makes Antarctica special, wilderness in its pristine form, humans can only control so little here.
We waited for few hours but weather did not budge and we had to cancel our very first expedition at Brown Bluff. Everyone was bit disappointed, but we got to experience harsh realities of Antarctica.
That afternoon weather started getting better, we couldn’t do the landing but we were able to get on Zodiacs and cruise along the icebergs. We saw our first penguins - an Adelie couple sitting on ice berg sun bathing, and then they decided its time to go, and dived right in front of us.
Can it get more magical than that?
Well it actually got bit grim in next few mins, on one of the smaller iceberg, big skua landed with baby penguin in his mouth, oblivious to our presence he feasted on its its kill. It was disheartening to see, but its nature and it has its own rules.
Day 5 (Oren Harbor and Island)
As we could not land on Continent on first day, (probably that was main reason most of us came on this expedition), mood was bit somber on the ship. But our expedition leader Flo, figured out another spot for us to land and made it happen.
Soon we got on the zodiacs and landed on the 7th continent the final one- Antarctica. It was on our bucket list to complete this by our 30th year and we could not be more happier.
We also got to witness our first chinstrap penguins sighting. As penguins (grown ups at least) dont have many predators on land and unaware of human species, they were not afraid of coming close to you. Rule is you need to maintain 5m distance from penguins but if they come close to you, its okay, dont scare them by running away. We had lot of encounters where these cute little fellas came near to us, sniffed our shoes and went their way.
Day 6 (Lemaire Channel, Port Charcot and Petermann Island)
It was Christmas Day!!! We woke up to a snowy morning with white snowflakes pouring all over the ship deck from the sky. It was perfect White Christmas for us!
Our ship started to sail through Lemaire channel. They call it graveyard of icebergs, as most icebergs born south on continent float through this channel and die down in ocean. As its entire channel is filled with these beautiful icebergs our expedition leader called it “Garden of Icebergs” and we loved it.
By afternoon weather started clear up and suddenly we had clear skies, blue water and snow capped mountains around us. Talk about postcards from Antarctica- it was picture perfect!
We had 2 landings this day, to watch another type of penguins, Gentoo penguins. After the expeditions everyone gathered around deck of the ship and we celebrated Christmas evening with hot chocolate while surrounded by this pristine land.
Camping
After dinner we had a very special activity which was the main reason we came on this expedition. It was camping time and this is not your ordinary camping, here you are supposed to dig a hole in the snow, get inside 2 sleeping bags,2 thermal covers and sleep through night while sky is your ceiling. Original spot we were supposed to camp was not in good shape due to hardening of snow, however our camping expedition team arranged us another spot near Argentinian Research Center.
And yes while sleeping you will have ice bergs calving nearby, seal sleeping few feets aways from you, whale cruising in the bay and wandering penguins around your snow grave.
Can it get more wild than this?
Toilet with the view, while penguins watch you do your business!
As this is Antarctic summer, sun never really sets during this time, it never gets dark and you will have twilight throughout the night.
Next day, we got up really early at 4.30am, packed our sleeping bags, filled back the hole we dug for sleeping in and went off to the ship with visuals of an amazing night!
Day 7 (Danco Island, Portal point)
Since we got up really early this morning, we went straight to bed again and slept through breakfast. It was time for our last 2 landings of the trip. We had one long snow-shoeing expedition in the morning and polar plunge in the afternoon. Morning expedition simply let us take in the vast snow land and the wilderness of this serene land. The afternoon expedition included the famous polar plunge in the Antarctic Ocean. Few of us braved the cold and went ahead to take the dip. Others like us enjoyed the snow plunge in our own way!
Last spot of our trip was Bay of Whales, where we saw hundred of whales. We were mesmerized by close encounters we had with these magnificent beasts. Especially Kayakers had very close encounters with them. We spent hours here watching the scenery.
After the dinner that day, our ship set the course back to Ushuaia via Drake passage again.
Below map shows the itinerary route taken by our ship.
Day 8,9,10 (There and back again)
Drake became even violent in our return journey. There was also storm coming our way in next couple of days, so our ship sped up by running both the engines. This made sea sickness even worse than while the journey coming in. Look at the video below, we were standing on 8th deck, highest deck on our ship, and waves were easily crashing onto the glass of bridge.
Although this time we had more activities planned on board, with people exchanging photos, there was photo competition between passengers, couple of stand up comedy shows. Also we made lot of friends on the trips so we spent most of time talking with people and exchanging contact details. This kept all of us distracted from Drake terror.
As we sped through Drake we reached Ushuaia on the night of 9th day itself instead of morning of 10th day. We had option to go out in town for drink and we grabbed this opportunity, as everyone was craving for land, beer and that coveted free internet.
Our group of 10 hit bar, shared our stories and kept it going through early morning.
Next morning we disembarked ship with heavy heart but lifetime of memories and boarded bus to the airport. It was time to get back to reality.
(Note: Though most of the pictures on this post are ours, we also included some amazing pictures taken by our expedition crew and fellow passengers.)