And I turn 31

Date: 17th Jan, 2011

The day we arrived in Ushuaia happened to be my 31st b'day too. Thanks to Andy and the enthusiastic/friendly co-passengers on Akademik Ioffe, we had a great celebration the previous night on board the ship. I thoroughly enjoyed the party and ofcourse the drinks that flew through out the evening. While turning 31 is not very exciting, we were quite excited to get back on land to give the news of engagement to our parents/friends. We checked in at a cute B&B in Ushuaia and immediately headed out for some brunch. Andy was missing for some good hot chocolate that was never available during the entire duration of our trip.

Having already visited Ushuaia 2yrs ago, we decided to avoid all the touristy destinations and instead head towards the Tierra del Fuego national park for a hike. We hoarded an hourly van to reach the park. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Given that the sun sets at 11pm in this part of the world, we had plenty of time to finish the hike. It was a great hike, mostly in shade with wild rabbits along the path by the side of the Beagle channel. After 3hrs we arrived at a restaurant where we gladly tried several Argentinian empanadas and beer.

The host at the B&B where we were staying follows the custom of playing some Tango music for the guests accompanied by wine. We enjoyed the show before hitting the bed to wake up early for our flight to Buenos Aires in the morning. In the morning we head to the airport on time where we came across some of our friends from the expedition ship. The airport at Ushuaia looks like a cute wooden cottage that is maintained very nicely by the staff but the flight was delayed.

The rest of the journey back to San Francisco was smooth. We were quite surprised to see some great weather in San Francisco. Overall it was a great trip. As the cliche goes, All good things come to an end. I am left with a sinking feeling of all fun getting over and now it is time to get back to routine.

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Dreaded Drake passage

Date: 15th Jan - 16th Jan 2011

When we woke up we get a last glance at the south shetland islands and the ship was already in open waters. Everybody were preparing for the dreaded Drake passage with their anti-sickness patches and pills. It turned out that Sir Drake was not angry at our expedition and we had an absolutely great sail through the Drake passage for almost 2 days. The sea was very calm and all our preparations went down the drain. The last chance to encounter some adventure before the end of the trip did not materialize.

On the first day at sea back to Ushuaia, we had the usual 4 talks planned for the day - 1 related to the history of antarctic treaty and the other 3 on birds and marine mammals. We conveniently skipped all of them and caught up on some movies and books which we had planned for the trip. The weather outside was quite cloudy with calm waters. In the evening we decided to head to the bar for some happy hour where Carlos (our bartender) was pouring "screwdriver" cocktail as the special for the evening. The bar is usually filled with people with many of them sipping on beers or wine. DJ Weddell was also there spinning brazilian music off his iPod. At dinner we were given hints about the program for the next day which is going to be our last day at sea.

We skipped breakfast in the morning and marched our way to the talks directly at 10am. Jamie was giving a presentation on climate change. It was quite interesting to see some of the myths/facts about climate change and its effect on the polar regions. This presentation was followed by a tour of the ship that includes the bridge where the captain controls the ship, the engine room and the mud room. It was quite fascinating to see the internals of a big ship like the Akademik Ioffe. This is a ship that was built in 1989 for research purposes. It can carry fuel for 20,000 nautical miles and 400 tones of fresh water. There is a team of 14 russian crew members who manage the ship in 4-hr shifts. The captain seems very friendly and we are going to have a special dinner with him this evening.

Cape Horn is the chilean tip of south america which is notorious for sinking many of the ships in the early 1900s. Due to calm open sea we were back at the tip of south america early in the afternoon. The captain decided to take us close to Cape Horn before heading to Ushuaia via the Beagle channel. We arrived in Ushuaia at around 9am after breakfast and Quark had arranged to drop off our luggage at their conveniently located luggage room near downtown. They had also confirmed our outgoing flights to Buenos Aires and collected boarding passes from Aerolineas Argentinas.

Here is a summary of the trip:

Total: 3350 nautical miles

Furthest south: 63 deg 31.3s

63 species of birds

15 marine mammals

1 land mammal

Heading back north

Date: 14th Jan, 2011

It was quite sad to leave the Antarctic peninsula behind as our ship made its way towards south shetland islands. The plan was to land at two islands before proceeding back to Ushuaia. The first one was supposed to see the chinstrap penguins which we haven't had a chance to see a lot of them during this trip. The second one was at Yankee harbor which is an Argentinian base station that is also home to many seals and penguins. Sadly we had to face force-9 winds that made landing almost impossible. The ship did circle around to seek other wind protected islands but with no great luck. An unfortunate decision was made to abandon our plans and head north towards Ushuaia. It was very important to reach Ushuaia on time because many of the co-passengers had a flight out of Ushuaia on the same day we land there. The wind was so strong that the ship had to literally crawl through the passage at 0.5-0.7knots/hr between south shetland islands.

On our way back to Ushuaia we have to pass through the Drake passage. This passage is famous for high winds that cause gigantic waves where the pacific and atlantic oceans meet. It is also called the "sea-sickness passage". Knowing that we will hit the dreaded Drake passage later in the day when we set sail in the open waters leaving behind the south shetland islands, we ended up applying the anti-sickness patch and popping a dromamine pill. There was a screening of the movie "slumdog millionaire" in the presentation room and having watched that movie 3 times already, we decided to take a nap instead.

In the evening, we were invited to an after-dinner beach theme party in the bar. According to the staff this made sense because we are heading north which is way warmer than the south and the beach party was relevant to welcome this change after 15 days in the southern oceans. They were quite creative in coming up with beach costumes. It was good fun enjoying some beach music played by one of the co-passengers (Larry who was called DJ Weddell for this event) who had a good collection of music readily available based on his long experience in the music records label industry. We danced a little bit while sipping on some Amaretto sours. Ofcourse the life of the party were the members of the expedition team who put great effort in dressing themselves in creative beach costumes.

The sunset was absolutely gorgeous which we could conveniently enjoy right from our cabin window.

Link to photo album

Mainland Antarctica

Date: 13th Jan, 2011

Finally the day for the Antarctic continent arrived. The plan was to land at two places on the main continent - brown bluff and hope bay. The ship was stationed closed to a huge mountain which is at the tip of the Antarctic peninsula. It was pretty cloudy with low visibility. We dressed ourselves in lots of warm layers and hit the gang way to load the zodiacs. Due to constantly changing weather conditions we were informed to make this a short landing for about 1hr only. Brown bluff has some nice rock formations which are beautifully covered with yellow lichens. We landed here and immediately made our way to the sharp icicles that seem to be melting because of summer. There were lots of these hanging at the base of the glacier along the coast. The right side of the island was home to 2 species of penguins - Adelies and Gentoos. We walked on the little rocks encountering sparsely spread out colonies of the penguins until we arrived at a big one. It was amazing to see a lot of penguin chicks nourished by their parents. We could rarely see any penguin chicks unguarded from the predators such as Skuas. The Adelie penguins like marching along the beach forming long lines until they come across a right spot for jumping into the water. They tend to stick together even while hunting for fish/krill in the sea.

I was so glad that we could get at least an hour landing time on the actual Antarctic continent amidst bad weather. I had planned to propose marriage to Andy on this special continent that is also my favorite. Here is an opportunity to make it the most memorable too. I did pop the question going down on my knees with a solitaire in hand at around 10am amidst penguins and light snowfall. She accepted and here are some after engagement pics.

The Gentoo penguins were hanging out away from the sea just below the rocky mountains leaving the region close to the sea for the Adelie penguins. It was quite windy and these penguins nest behind the rocks to keep themselves warm. We could also spot some albatrosses scouting the scene to salvage any dead birds. The wind was blowing hard and it also snowed a little bit while we were walking back and forth on this landing site. This is the first time we had set foot on the seventh continent and many fellow passengers wanted to take of their shoes/socks to step the actual foot here. The kayakers were having a good time after paddling their way from the ship to the coast. Apparently it was difficult to navigate for them in these strong winds and they were constantly pushed towards the coast. They got a bit of both kayaking and landing experience and seemed extremely happy. Shortly we had the expedition staff chasing us back to the ship so that we can get to the next landing site quickly.

Next stop was Hope bay which is located very close to Brown bluff in the Antarctic sound. Sound is the term used to describe a strait or passage between islands. The ship did sail close to hope bay but the captain could not manage to anchor it due to the heavy winds. We had to abandon this landing and move on to our next destination which was carefully picked based on the direction of the winds and the protection offered by the surrounding mountains. As we moved along the Antarctic sound we could see a large Agentinian base station called Esperanza at Hope bay. It was quite foggy but still nicely visible due to sunshine. The sea was getting rougher due to the winds and this means less food to avoid sea sickness symptoms.

In the late afternoon we arrived at an island called Madder cliffs with calm waters surround by huge glaciers and abundant wildlife. Seemed like a perfect spot for zodiac cruise. We headed out to the madder cliffs to spot some Weddell seals and penguins on the cliffs. There were lots and lots of Adelie and Gentoo penguins walking on the glacier to reach the top of the glacier to their nests. It was quite a scenery to see black dots spread all over the white ice that covered the mountain. David who was our zodiac cruise driver was enthusiastic to heed to my request to get closer to the glaciers. This is quite a brave thing to do because the glaciers can break away and fall into the ocean causing huge waves that can topple our zodiacs easily. Seeing these glaciers from close is the true Antarctic experience in my opinion. The weather was great with abundant light to snap away at these glaciers. We were also greeted by some Antarctic terns but no whales which apparently hang out close to the glaciers. After our close encounter with the glaciers we had to head back to the ship. It seemed like all I needed was this zodiac cruise to complete the missing piece towards a true Antarctic experience.

Back on the ship the sunlight was so good to capture some great shots of the glaciers surrounding us. We went to the deck followed by a visit to the captain's bridge to enjoy this beautiful scenery. Very soon all the zodiacs returned back to the ship and we set sail northwest towards south shetland islands. There were lots and lots of ice bergs scattered all over the sea.

There was a special pre-dinner event planned to raise awareness about "save the albatross" initiative. Lynn proposed 3 toasts before the auction started - to pristine Antarctica, to all of us whose friends and family asked "why go to antarctica for holidays?" and never quite understood/appreciated the beauty of this wilderness and to the crew who made this all happen.The ship staff auctioned off 6-8 items and all the proceeds were meant to fund the initiative. Duncan did a great job auctioning these items quickly one after the other while we sat at our tables sipping champagne and enjoying the show. It was fun cheering the bidders. After dinner we spent some time at the bridge spotting whales until sunset. It was a beautiful sunset with the sky turning completely orange that looked like somebody set it on fire. Many of us tried to capture this scenery when this orange light hit the huge tablets of ice bergs that created a fantastic effect.

Link to photo album

Frozen continent...finally here!

Date: 12th Jan, 2011

We woke up to peep through our cabin window looking for a stunning scenery and it was right in front of us as expected. It was absolutely gorgeous to look at floating ice bergs with amazing glaciers in the background. The ship was parked close to Paulet island which is close to the Antarctic peninsula. We quickly got dressed up and joined the rest of the passengers in the dining room for breakfast. As usual, Lynn had made a plan after consultation with the ship captain. Everybody looked very happy with a constant grin on their faces that seem to suggest "Yes, we made it!". The plan was to land at Paulet island followed by Devil's island. We had absolutely no clue on what to expect in either of these islands. After a short zodiac cruise we were on the island. The situation here was quite similar to the Salisbury plain in south georgia except for ice and type of penguins. The island hosted a massive collection of Adelie penguins which we haven't had a chance to see during this trip so far. The Adelie penguins are neither shy nor curious. They seem to be interested in getting along with their life and not bothered with our presence on the island. A french explorer d'Urville named these penguins Adelie after his wife's name. These penguins use stones to build their nests. It is quite a common situation to see a penguin steal the stones religiously brought by its neighbor. Apparently the stones are used as tokens of currency in this strange penguin world. It is also one of the factors that the females consider before mating with the male penguins.

We walked along the shore to a high cliff where we could see plenty of blue-eyed shags living harmoniously with the Adelie penguins. I had lots of ideas for taking photos here - penguins getting into water, jumping into water, feeding the chicks, pruning themselves, etc. Got some good shots of penguins and blue-eyed shags on these cliffs. The weather turned out to be great with some light sunshine. We had gone through the pain of carrying a tripod after seeing a fog filled island from our ship but I never got a chance to use it on the island. Both penguin and shag chicks looked like small brown balls carefully guarded by their parents. They had not yet molted for the season. There were lots of skuas wandering around looking for an opportunity to grab the chicks. We could even see two skuas tearing apart a poor chick. It was a great site to watch the penguins hopping on/off small sheets of ice near the island. We just sat there watching some routine penguin activity.

The plan for the afternoon was to land on Devil's island but due to bad weather we had to abandon this plan. Instead we were taken on a zodiac cruise that brought us close to the ice bergs floating around in the Weddell sea. We got to see some amazing ice formations and some of them reflected bright turquoise blue. There were some huge tabular shaped ice bergs and some small sheets where penguins took rest before continuing on hunting for more krill. Soon enough we came across a sheet of ice where a lazy Weddell seal was taking a nap. There were about 2-3 zodiacs in all directions taking pictures of this giant seal on the sheet of ice. It woke up occasionally realizing all the star-like attention it has been getting that afternoon. After about 2hrs of cruising we returned back to our ship. Apparently, our fellow passengers who were on other zodiacs saw more seals than us. They showed us pictures of leopard seal and crabeater seals. We did get a bit jealous but glad that at least some of us got to see more action on the floating ice bergs.

Based on the previous zodiac cruise experience, we decided to put on 2 pairs of gloves and 3 layers of socks. Apparently this turned out to be not enough for a long zodiac cruise. The feet and fingers were quite frozen by the end of the cruise. This is probably the effect of cold winds though the temperature itself was not very low. There were lots and lots of gigantic ice bergs floating all over the Weddell sea and it was quite a challenge for the captain to navigate through them. Low light conditions are great for photographing these ice bergs to highlight the turquoise blue color reflecting from them. Due to lack of phytoplanktons, we did not see a lot of wildlife in comparison to other islands we have visited during this trip earlier.

Link to photo album

Rough Antarctic waters

Date: 9th, 10th, 11th Jan 2011

The next two days were "at sea" days and the first day was supposed to be fairly relaxed with no wake up calls. We had brunch at 10am instead of breakfast and lunch. We woke up feeling the waves of a rough sea in which our ship was navigating. Everybody seem to be performing a wave dance in the corridors due to all the bouncing while trying to make slow progress towards their destination. I had popped in a sea sickness pill the previous night which did not help greatly. It was time to apply a sea-sickness patch behind your ear which was supposed to strengthen the defense against sea sickness. Unfortunately the effect of a patch is supposed to kick-in only after 4-6hrs. These pills and patches are supposed to cause drowsiness and after brunch we slept like a log until 3pm. Meanwhile we had missed the screen of a documentary called "congress of penguins" and a talk by Damien on "Shackleton - the boss". We did manage to attend the talk by Pat on "penguins in peninsula".

In the evening, we decided to laze around in the lounge area of the ship sipping some rum cocktails and watching "Mama Mia" which Lisa picked up quickly after going through a big collection of DVDs. I had not watched the movie and enjoyed some funny parts here and there. It reminded us of bollywood movies with contextual songs/dance sprinkled all over it. We barely sat for dinner and I could feel the effect of sea sickness. Immediately returned back to the cabin and tried to get some rest after throwing up once. The ship doctor was very nice to come by our cabin and gave some advice on what to eat and how I can feel better soon. We managed to catch up a little bit on "Star Wars 5" before getting to bed.

The wake up call was at 7.30am and they had planned for a packed day full of talks. Pat talking about "shorebirds in antarctica", Jimmy about "seals in antarctica", Damien about "Swedish expedition" and Jamie about "ice". The sea was not very rough and we had a good breakfast during which we planned on attending 3 out of the 4 talks planned for the day. We found out later that there was a heavy storm on the straight-line path from S. Georgia to South Orkney islands and the captain decided to take the longer less bumpy route which added an extra day to reach our destination. Just to laugh a little bit before visiting the penguins in Antarctic peninsula, Duncan had planned to screen the movie "Happy Feet" which we missed due to the drowsy side-effect of the sea sickness pills.

On the 3rd "at sea" day, the sea got rougher again. We spent some time in the bridge, after lunch, trying to spot some whales but with no luck. We could sense the restlessness in everybody's faces since this was the longest we had gone so far with no land or wildlife in site except for some flying prions and albatrosses. By dinner time we sighted our first big ice berg with the orkney islands in the background. Almost all the passengers were on the bridge and nobody wanted to head to the dining room for dinner. The ice bergs were huge with interesting formations and amazing colors. The blue ones are the oldest and densest. As we approached the Orkneys islands we could spot some fin whales crossing across the front of the ship. The temperature had dropped terribly and it was quite a challenge to go on to the deck for taking some photos without proper windproof gear. It was almost the time for sunset and the sky colors were amazing with beautiful patterns. The conditions were not great for a landing on South Orkneys. The island was hardly visible. After cruising through the ice bergs we moved along to our next destination which would be the Antarctic peninsula. The sea continued to be rough and I applied the anti-sickness patch along with a pill to counter the menace of sea-sickness. We could see fewer people coming to the dining room and many skipping lunch/dinner due to motion sickness.

We had no problem sleeping through the rock-n-roll of the ship. We were looking forward for the next day when we will be reaching the frozen continent. We slept early thinking about those beautiful images of ice bergs and abundant wildlife which will entertain us soon.

Link to photo album

Bye bye, South Georgia

Date: 8th Jan, 2011

Today is the last day in South Georgia and Lynn decided to pack it up with lots of action. The ship was heading north passing some of the spots we had already visited during the past 3 days. The wake up call was at 5.30am and we were promptly at the gang way boarding the zodiac at 6am. The plan was to go on a zodiac cruise around prince olive harbor and elephant cove. It was a cloudy morning with some rough winds churning the ocean. We got quite wet on the zodiacs and I manage to get some shots along the way. Prince olav harbor has the ruins of a whaling station with huge tanks that were used to store the whale oil. It also has a ship wreck that is more than 100yrs old. The shore was full of fur seals and it was a great idea not to land there. The mountains were covered with fog but we could still see the horizontal/vertical strips of sediments that could be a great playground for archaeologists. We learned from our guide that the vegetation in s. georgia is similar to that of south american continent and very unlike africa. This lead to the speculation that s. georgia was probably a part of s. america and not africa before the gondwana land split apart. The elephant cove is quite secluded with decent bird life and shallow waters.

Back on the ship we had a fairly late breakfast while we waited for our next landing at right whale bay which is supposed to be the place where the right whales hung out before the whaling began. Due to strong winds and bad weather, we could not land at this site and decided to head south again towards Prion island. Apparently Prion island is a paradise for albatross and other air borne birds. The south georgian government has some rules to let us land on this island only on specific days/times. Fortunately, today was one of those days and Lynn was trying to work around our itineraries in the past 3-4 days to make this landing possible. Probably this explains why we started heading south earlier and then came back up north keeping in mind that our next major destination Antarctica is located further south.

Visiting Prion island requires following some extra rules because it supports a delicate vegetation that can easily be disrupted by human intervention. This is one of the few islands that has no rats and birds like pipits can survive here. Only 50 people are allowed on this island at any time. We were put in groups 10 and shuttled off to the island. The weather was cloudy with strong winds. The ocean was very rough and it was a quite a challenge to maneuver the zodiac. There is a nice board walk to reach the top of the island where the albatross nests are located. As always we were greeted by fur seals on both sides of the board walk. We reached the top and could easily spot many albatross es and soots. There was one big male albatross sitting on its egg right across the board walk. We got some great shots in spite of the rain which was trying hard to spoil our camera gear. After about 15-20 min, we had to leave making room for the next group. This was our last landing in south georgia and we had to sadly bid goodbye to this wildlife paradise of the south. We were informed later that the last 14+ people could not make it to the island because of changing wind conditions that apparently picked up during the later part of the day.

Without wasting much time, the ship sailed crossing south georgia's northern tip. There was an announcement that we need to secure our things in the cabin before we hit the open waters that night. The sea got rougher with terribly long waves. We could feel the difference and it was barely possible to walk without having one hand on the rails. For tonight, everybody was invited to attend a "hat" party at the bar to raise a toast for south georgia.

Link to photo album