They have been making wake-up calls earlier and earlier each morning, and it seemed like we got up very early today as they prepared us for additional trips/treks in various regions. We had quite an itinerary planned for the day, but after an early announcement things soon went sideways. There is ice in the first passage we were going to take, ice threatening the second… and more moving in all over the southern routes we were headed for. Sea ice moves so quickly here… and what on disembarkation seemed like a safe plan has to be put by the wayside at this point. Jen and I got up, had breakfast, and waited.
About an hour later, approaching nine o’clock, the announcement came out. We’d found one spot, potentially our only spot, to land directly on the Antarctic continent. While we’d already stepped foot on land “technically considered Antarctica”, this was the real deal… the land mass below the snow and ice. We jumped at the chance, and were some of the first off the boat.
A typical landing for us from a zodiac consists of pushing the nose of the zodiac onto land, and then sliding up to the edge and stepping into a few inches of water while coming ashore. This probably explains the waterproof pants/boots, but would have been of very little help here. Our landing cove was a few feet of rock where snow had cleared itself, and the zodiac was left running full-speed nose-first into the rock to combat the waves, tide, and passenger movements as we moved to exit the nose of the small zodiac onto the rock face itself. There were plenty of helping hands this time… falling here meant a drop directly into deep water just under the nose of the boat. Jen went first, and after the rock face we found ourselves climbing a shelf of rock, fresh snow, and ice as we stepped up, up, up onto the continent further. We took a brief moment to celebrate (and Jen to remind me she’d stepped on Antarctica first), we’ve both now stepped on six of seven continents in the world! Many on the trip were celebrating their seventh (it’s not uncommon for Antarctica to be the last one visits… rather than one in the middle) but there were others like us that had one or two more to go. The rest of the continental excursion was… well… let’s say almost vertical.
The zodiac’s motor was running constantly, forcing it to stay against the shore where steps had been dug into the snow.
The guides in the Poseidon tours have been fantastic (we’ve actually had more than a few drinks with some of them at the bar by this time), and they go out every morning and afternoon before an expedition and set up the route with red flagpoles to tell us where is safe. This is extremely important on this trip, as this meant tamping down snow on a mountainside, and ensuring that nobody would fall into a crevasse taller than most of the explorers on the trip with us. They sometimes, however, forget what a mass of people will mean on the same trail. You’ll see it in some of the pictures, but in short the trail they had laid in what was about a 45% vertical climb was a series of switchbacks that started wider horizontally and got thinner as they made their way up the mountain. In theory, for a few people, this is great, but most of those on this trip are not hikers, and they’re definitely hoping to travel in groups (sort of refusing not to, really). So, when one person stops… groups of four or five stop, and traffic has nowhere to go because the approved (and tamped-down) path is only one-person wide with no area at the corners for passing or resting.
Beginning the hike up
For me, this problem is twofold. For those of you who don’t know me, or aren’t familiar… I’m 77 inches tall (6’ 5”), and haven’t exactly eaten healthy enough in my life to be considered light-footed. Tamping down snow with the guides and a few pre-runs of people who weight 180 pounds didn’t do much to prepare the path for me, and every few steps I would sink in between 8-14”. Step to the side, off the tamped-snow, and this would change from 8-14” to anywhere up to crotch-height (which I learned in the manner you’re imagining, and yes it was as much fun as getting kicked there). With little ability to get out of the way, frustrated boaters behind me having to wait as I trekked a new, deeper path through the snow every few feet, and the added benefit of people starting to come down the mountain in front of me and having to sink into the snow on purpose to let them go by… I climbed about 150 feet of the 400 marked feet… and decided that was quite enough (shortly after the crotch-height incident mentioned above). I gave the snow next to the path one more test, spread my body-weight as widely as possible, and hopped off the path into a seated perch.
Relaxing on Antarctica
After a bit of maneuvering, and some snow being pushed around, I was set! I got some good shots down the mountain towards the landing site, got some of the hikers passing me to head up at a much faster pace, and got some time to relax and reflect on what makes me happy in life. I was here, I had made it, my feet (boots) had touched soil and here we were… at the bottom of the world. In the long run, it’s just another thing, it’s just another step… and while I’m no Antarctic explorer and this trip wasn’t “hard” by any means… I can’t imagine my life without this moment, this achievement, this step. There are so many more moments like this to come, and I’m glad that I have this outlet to share them.
It was a great way to start a day, and unfortunately the only outing we would get to do that day at all… as I sat in the snow and started to figure out how I could get back down without the same amount of trouble (it ended up being the same amount of trouble anyway), I could feel the weather changing. The wind was picking up, the snow that had been constant was getting worse, and moving sideways. It’s still early in the season here, and as I passed by some of the guides I could tell that this outing seemed a little different than the others. This outing seemed desperate. The ice is on the move again, and passages further south aren’t opening how we thought they would. Wind and snow are our enemies when we’re trying to land a zodiac, and both began increasing exponentially. We did finish the outing without having to call it back early, but by the time we were all back on the boat (I was one of the early ones to leave) it was getting hard to see the landing area at all through the snow that was falling across the bay. Jen joined me later, having hiked all the way to the top and meeting a group of fellow passengers (now friends) who cheered her on as she made it, and we headed up to the club area for coffee and to warm up. Jen grabbed Uno (remember this from South Africa?), and soon we had a game of six/seven people who were playing with us. We fit a few games in, I don’t remember if we actually got lunch or where that fit into the day and really it wasn’t very important (I think it came after Uno), and then we were informed the rest of the day would be very fluid with no set plans due to the weather. We had a meeting to discuss that Antarctic camping would be cancelled that night due to weather (dammit!) as there were no suitable spots left, but we would hope for another day. I again could feel the desperation in the way the message was delivered. I felt like the guide (Ryan, who is from Svalbard but has not heard of armored polar bears, and has not read Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”) wasn’t just cancelling tonight, he was cancelling altogether. This wasn’t addressed though, and we went from that meeting to a lecture on Shackleton.
An iceberg in the harbor where we landed earlier today
Shackleton is worth looking up, though I feel bad for a man who will always be remembered best for his greatest failure, and the way he showed adversity and leadership that was a shining example in a time of great peril and need. He returned an entire crew, every single man (and even one stowaway) alive to their families after years stuck in the ice of Antarctica. The story was well delivered, woven with history, fact, pictures from the trip (they brought those back too) and audio clips from the adventure as well. The guide who delivered it (Christian, who is from Svalbard but has not heard of armored polar bears, and has not read Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”) is something of a history buff, and would eat dinner with us this evening and discuss more of his life and his interest in the story.
Following Shackleton, the crew made one more attempt to find a landing spot, but again they were defeated by the fast-moving sea ice. We had traveled far south on the ship (pictures to come eventually of the map and where we were), and it seemed like now we were perhaps just too far south for conditions. I was getting the feeling we’d be turning North, and the end-of-day wrap-up just before dinner confirmed it.
The weather kept fighting us most of the day, ice drifting around every landing we had planned
Out of all the possible landing sites, we’d made a few of them and ruled out others. We’d radioed other ships, only to find more disappointment further south. It was time to change our plans entirely. We would be heading North again, into the tip of the Antarctic peninsula in search of vast tabular icebergs. We would attempt Deception Island tomorrow, where Whaler’s Bay has sat dormant and decaying for decades, and sail through a gap in the caldera wall into one of Antarctica’s active volcanoes (no lava, don’t worry! At least… none at sea level.) They confirmed that this would cancel camping, as the ship would not have time to sit still for a night, but promised us a great dinner tonight and “March of the Penguins” to watch shortly after dinner. We left excited for the new things we were going to do, but still a little sad that camping was off the itinerary. Maybe another time (FreeRangeHobo, Arctic Edition?).
On the way to dinner, we ran into Katie, a twenty-something woman who has a great deal of passion for what she does. I didn’t mention her before, but I had met Katie, and her mother and father at one of the end-of-day briefings previously, and Katie and her father both work for the San Diego Zoo. Katie specializes in birds, and in an odd “they’re both from California” way that I don’t understand somehow Jen and Katie hit it off pretty well and she joined us for dinner. We were also joined by another of the crew, an amateur birder (this is apparently the name for people who watch birds) and biologist named Ma.
(Ma is not from Svalbard, does know of armored polar bears and has not read Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series but saw the movie “The Golden Compass” and remembers it starred Nicole Kidman, and that Svalbard had armored polar bears. Ma is from Asia, and is familiar with all things Hollywood. FINALLY I have some armored polar bear backup on this trip where all the guides are telling me they’re from the home of the armored bears but nobody understands why that is so exciting to me! Yes, I know they’re not real.)
At dinner, Katie, Jen, and Ma (joined by the guide Christian) all got to talking, and we had a great meal full of discussions of birds, jellyfish, trains, big data visualization and analytics, armored polar bears, and whether or not color refraction is based on something an atomic level (it’s not, not exactly…) or not. Dinner led to drinks, and Katie, Jen and I headed to the bar before the movie to grab something. We ended up running into a few more of the guides, one drink turned into more than one drink… and I got popcorn to bring up to the bar as it didn’t seem like we’d be leaving. I ended up talking primarily with Keith (another guest) and the guide Ryan, and after noticing that Keith was drinking Talisker he offered to buy the next round. Ryan bowed out, and Keith and I finished one more round of scotch before we realized it was eleven and we had a wake-up call at 5:45 the next morning for Deception Island (the volcano). We bid each other farewell, I told Jen and Katie goodnight, and headed down to bed myself.
I just like this picture…
