Antarctic Cruise, February 27-->March 8, 2024

Warning: this journal transcription does NOT do the trip justice! The Rumbo Sur travel agency gave us an Antarctica Log Book that was chock full of excellent information: maps, geography history, places, wildlife and lots of pictures. Plus it had space for us to enter our position, temperature, weather, wind and speed along with our own narrative. And on the last day the boat crew gifted us a thumb drive with detailed information about the journey, their lectures, and a complete checklist of the wildlife we saw. And much of the experience itself was beyond words. Even for this Alaskan who has seen lots of glaciers and icebergs.

Here is an overview of our journey. 11 days, 5 were transiting out and back and 6 in Antarctica. High temperatures ranged from 0°C to 6°C and every kind of weather. Winds ranged from 1 knot and calm seas to 46 knots and high seas. We were off the ship in Zodiacs or on shore five times. We logged sightings of 13 species of birds including 3 species of penguins, 4 species of seals, and 4 species of dolphins and whales. 

Tue 2/27. We boarded our ship the M/V Ushuaia at 3:30. We immediately made friends in line with Matt. The ship departed the Port Ushuaia at 5pm in calm waters with light wind. The first order of business was the welcome and introductions, followed by a safety talk and evacuation drill. The passengers are organized in two groups based on room numbers, odd or even. There were lots of reminders about safety protocol in the Drake Passage, which is notoriously rough water. This vessel was built as a NOAA research vessel in the sixties. Rumor has it it was also used by the CIA.  It is very well maintained.  At 90 passengers (87 on our voyage), it is the smallest and oldest cruise ship touring Antarctica. It is also the only one that is owned and registered in Argentina and provides lectures in both English and Spanish. Because it was originally built as a research vessel it doesn’t have all the tourist-class amenities of a larger ship. We were gifted an upgrade to a private suite: two single beds, not bunks, and an ensuite bathroom.

The 44 crew members are mostly from Ushuaia. We have staff with backgrounds in tourism, biology, political science, medicine, and of course lots of maritime training. The passengers are from everywhere, including the US, Brazil, Europe, India and Australia. Everyone is expected to take seasickness pills handed out by the doctor.

The seas picked up a bit when we entered the Drake Passage around midnight, winds 10-12 kts. The passengers, by contrast, were not tranquil: lots of camaraderie, bon homme, tall tales, accomplishments and travails.

We 2/28. Up for breakfast at 8. The seas were unusually mild for Drake Passage. The captain opened more of the decks for us to be outside. 10am lecture on the history of the Antarctic Treaty. The wind came up and the seas got rougher as the day went on, so the captain closed the decks again. The afternoon lecture was about birds. We spent some time up on the bridge talking shop with the first officer. It was sunny and the petrels were flying. We saw Southern Giant and Storm Petrels and a Wandering Albatross. The sea is the darkest blue with white-white strands. Late in the day all the officers gathered on the bridge for a little birthday celebration for the captain. We went down and dined with a Japanese couple.

The boat has a lot of motion. It is entertaining watching us all adapt to walking in a weaving, leaning, up hill down hill pattern. We are under strict orders to always have two hands for the grab bars, especially on the stairs and around the doors, and always wear closed-toe shoes. The crew all say this has been the easiest, calmest crossing for the Drake Passage they have seen. Expect it to be more challenging next time.

Th 2/29. Up for breakfast at 8. The morning lecture was about what makes Antarctica unique, and in particular different from the Arctic. A unique character on this vessel is Fabiano, the head steward in charge of hospitality. He is an outgoing, gay Brazilian now living in Chile five months a year when not on the vessel. His incredible talent is learning the names of all the passengers. He is a cheerful, playful, high-energy extrovert. On day 1 he demonstrated his mode of adapting to the roll of the ship, and he is extremely skillful carrying a tray of dirty dishes between the tables on the way to the kitchen. Watching him is like watching a dancer. Everyone else (passengers) look like drunken sailors. Today he recruited five different language speakers to the lunch announcement in five languages, each ending in the exclamation “whoo-hoo!” Our bartender Leo was also top notch.

On the bridge in the morning we sighted our first whale blow. We were about 70 miles NW of South Shetland Island. As forecast, there was a lot of fog around the islands. As we approached we started seeing icebergs and a dozen more whales: probably Fin or Sei whales, hard to tell. We almost hit a whale, but the captain swerved to starboard as the whale was passing to port. The junior officer stepped aside to look for evidence of a strike or injury, but found none.

At 5:15 pm we passed through the South Shetland Islands with calm water, and mountains and tidewater glaciers flanking our port. The icebergs were as big as Alaskan villages, breathing whiteness in the afternoon sun, contrasting with the black backs of breathtaking whales, rock and glacier of all forms. Deep blues against the reefs and shallows around the Islas Livingston, Greenwhich and Roberts.

Fri 3/1. Overnight we crossed the “Little Drake Passage”—more rolling, less sleep. We anchored off Paulet Island. The morning was perfectly still, calm and sunny. After breakfast and our mandatory gear inspection we disinfected our boots (gear provided by the vessel) and loaded into heavy duty, military style Zodiacs to go ashore for 1.5 hours. Walking on shore, it was so cold Mike was layered up with all the clothes he had packed. And taking pictures without his gloves, he snapped a tendon in his right ring finger and it never completely healed. 

The relatively small number of Adélie penguins in the colony were still molting; the other members had already molted and left for the season. The guano was pink from their diet of krill. There was a larger colony of cormorants with lots of chicks: at about four weeks old they appeared to be almost full grown. There were also a lot of hauled out fur seals. 

Behind the seals you can see the remains of a stone shelter built in 1903 by shipwrecked Swedes awaiting rescue. The crater lake on the island was relatively warm and the rocks were bigger around the lake, but the hill above was compact earth. It was all basically frozen in place even though this year’s layer of snow was gone. The icebergs were endlessly varied and gorgeous. The crew posed a contest to see who could guess how big the biggest one was. It turned out to be 1800m long and 75m tall.

We continued our transit between Isla Dundee and Isla Urugay enroute to Brown Bluff. The wind and ice conditions prevented landing, so we continued on to Whalers Bay.

Sat 3/2. We got a wakeup call at 5:30am so we all could all go out on deck to see the passage through the channel into the caldera Port Foster where we anchored. It is an active volcano. There are extensive ruins of an old whaling station destroyed by eruptions in 1967 and 1969. It would be interesting and quiet to kayak around the shore.

We continued on to anchor at Hannah Point where we had a fabulous excursion! Mike and I were in the first Zodiac to reach shore, and one of the last to leave. The place with thick with penguins and noisy seals. As we walked we encountered HUGE Elephant seals lying in piles on the beach. Some were snoring. Some were sparring and grunting. There was also a nice swimming beach for those of us hearty enough to indulge. Mike and I didn't.

Sun 3/3. By morning we were anchored at Hydrurga Rocks for another outing. There were lots of Chinstrap penguins and Fur seals, one Crabeater seal and two Weddell seals. We had spectacular views of glaciers, glaciated peaks and glacial walls at water’s edge. Less wind and more sun. We were toasty warm in five to six layers of clothing, though walking on the firn ice our toes got cold. We preferred rock-hopping.

Bancroft Bay was too windy, so we went up Gerlache Strait heading for several small coves for exploring in the Zodiacs. The max speed in the Strait is 9.5 knots because of the presence of whales: we saw three Humpbacks! We hung out near them for a long time. Another cruise ship is also in view. One of the whales is young and a lot smaller. The scenery is absolutely ethereal: sea flanked by white summits and walls of ice. We saw a whale breach spectacularly near the ship. Over the next hour we saw nearly 20 more whales. We did a one-hour Zodiac tour in a glacial fjord on Brabant Island, with LOTS of spectacular icebergs. It was a sculpture garden with glaciers and rock mountains on the sides. It looked like a fantasy land designed by Disney animators.

We cruised down to anchor in Paradise Harbor. It is aptly named. It is absolutely still, calm and sunny. There are lots of bergy bits in the water. We saw a humpback feeding right next to the boat. We were in the second group for the Zodiac tour. The ice bergs had fabulous shapes like I’ve never seen before. I was particularly fascinated by a black berg, but we never got close enough to see it clearly. On shore we passed and waved to the staff at the Argentine Brown’s Base research station. We landed a short ways away to set foot on the continent and view the Gentoo penguins. Our fellows for whom this was their seventh continent celebrated.

Mon 3/4. It was too windy at Anna Cove so we moved our afternoon Zodiac ride to Wilhelmina Bay. Lots of whale watching, glaciers and icebergs, and birds: cormorants, petrels, terns, and a fulmar. The clouds came down heavy and dark, now spitting a few crystals of snow.

Tues 3/5. Our luck ran out. Our exceptionally good weather has turned to socked-in, windy, rainy, cold weather more typical here. They had to cancel our outing for this morning, but are cruising south to see if we can find one pocket of better weather before we head back across the Drake Passage to Ushuaia.

3pm we are done. No break in the weather and no more outings. We turned in our boots and life jackets and were issued our ration of seasickness pills. We are filling our time reading books, with breaks to visit the bridge or nap. Some passengers are seasick and retreated to their cabins. I read the book Empire of Ice: Scott, Shakleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science. Now I’m reading Lost Antarctica, another book about Antarctic science, especially marine biology and climate change.

“Watching passengers cope with the increasing swell height is always amusing, but it also brings on seasickness in some. Drawing the folks who are now listless is also much easier.” –Mike

The rain stopped in the afternoon, but wind, waves and clouds continued.

One of the interesting things about the boat is the people onboard. While most chose this ship because it is the cheapest, a few non-English speakers chose it because it it the only one with lectures in Spanish. There are people from six continents. There is a 19-member tour group from south India—they dine separately and don’t socialize much with the rest. There is a nine-member photography tour group from Italy. The rest are mostly young, independent travels, in ones and twos. Many of the young socialize and play cards together. France, UK, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, South Africa, Netherlands, US, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Austria.  The oldest is 83. The youngest is 24. Only 7 of us were from the US. Our best buddies are Matt who worked in offshore oil exploration, Jack, a world-travelling US State Department employee, a widowed Jewish-Austrian, and Leo and Suzi from São Paulo. Jayden is a PhD physicist at Stanford. Many are travelling widely, for months or a year. Gap years, sabbaticals, retirement, or just wanderlust-primary, working only enough to afford travel. One Italian woman had 126 countries and the seventh continent checked off of her list. Twelve others have now been on seven continents, and celebrated on the beach on the peninsula.

Wed 3/6. Transiting Drake Passage, the weather and sea condition are typical. Some people are seasick.

Thu 3/7. We are three quarters of the way through the Drake Passage. We will pass Cape Horn about noon, and arrive at the mouth of Beagle Channel about 4:00pm. We will wait there for the Ushuaia pilot to meet us about 2am for our final transit into Ushuaia. After lunch, a lecture about the future of the Antarctic Treaty, governance and development versus conservation. Later in the afternoon we had an award ceremony with certificates for crossing the Drake Passage and stepping on the Antarctic Continent.

Fri 3/8. It was a sunny but sad morning. We said our goodbyes and left the boat about 8am.