Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America I got a knock on my door at the hostel this morning and I was pleasantly surprised to see Karin, my Dutch friend. She and her boyfriend Tristan just arrived this morning and they’re spending the next few days here in Buenos Aires before heading back to Holland. It was nice to see Karin, and meet Tristan, and catch up on what she had seen since we last met up. I think the last time…
Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America I got up today at the hostel after a great night’s sleep on solid ground for the first time in a while. I spent most of the morning just trying to get stuff organized from the Antarctica trip, and get some blogs uploaded, since I haven’t had internet in the last ten days. The only problem is that I took so many pictures while I was down there, that it’s taking me forever to look…
Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America We woke up this morning after another really smooth ride through the Drake Passage. Drake Lake indeed. We left our big bags outside of rooms this morning with a specific ribbon colored for when you are getting off the ship and where they are going to take you. Ryan and I put our blue ribbons on our bags because we were on the first bus to the airport. We had been a bit concerned that…
Drake Passage, Antarctica, Antarctica Today was our second day on the ship, with nothing much to see or do. We had breakfast and then they called us up to the library by deck so we could settle our bills. We could pay by credit card, and everything was in US dollars, and it was all a very easy process. We took a tour of the ship with Danny today and it was interesting to find out that this was NOT…
Drake Passage, Antarctica, Antarctica We started heading back through the Drake Passage last night and it is so much smoother than the first time we passed through. I heard a couple of references to “Drake Lake” last night while I was in the bar and I didn’t get it, but now I do. This water is just about as calm as a lake, so no excitement of dishes flying or anything like that. Ryan and I hung out in the…
Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, Antarctica We got up today for another good breakfast, and probably had our last peaceful night’s sleep before hitting the Drake Passage again. Breakfast has definitely become my favorite meal of the day on the ship. There are always eggs of some sort, fresh fruit, and usually a pancake or french toast thrown in for good measure. That fueled me up for the day that started out with an excursion to Half Moon Island to see a…
Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, Antarctica We got up today for an early breakfast, at 7:30am, and then went back to bed for a nap. This morning they were running zodiac tours in the bay, but they split it so at 9am they were doing tours for the starboard side, and our port side wasn’t going until 11am. It was nice to have a relaxed morning with a little more time to rest after a pretty big night of drinking and karaoke….
Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, Antarctica Last night was literally the worst night of my life. At times I thought I was going to die, and other times, I thought I was going to kill someone else. It turned out that the snow only continued to get harder through the night, and we even broke the record for the most snow that has ever fallen on a camping night for this company. Lucky us. The snow wouldn’t have been an issue if…
Gerlache Strait, Antarctica, Antarctica Today was a huge day for us! We had our first excursion this morning where we went out on the zodiac boats and got to walk on land. This was really exciting to finally step foot on my last continent. We got the zodiac over to shore and were created by Boris with a sign taped to his chest that said “Welcome to Antarctica”. Right next to him was a big colony of Gentoo penguins just…
Gerlache Strait, Antarctica, Antarctica We got to see Antarctica today, and it did NOT disappoint!! We woke up and we were in the Gerlache Strait, and we got our first view of land. We saw some icebergs, orcas, penguins (Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie), crabeater seals, and a leopard seal! It was incredible!! It was like a wildlife overload! Everywhere we turned there was more wildlife popping up to say hi. There was also talk of Minke whales showing themselves, but…