Thank goodness we were up for the buffet breakfast sharply at 8 as breakfast items were begun to be removed at 8:25 by the staff! That turned out to be the case every day, we found out and not just the first day.
The night before, we'd left the city of Ushuaia at the southernmost tip of Argentina, then the scenic Beagle Channel and headed for the open South Atlantic Ocean through the Drake Passage. Steven and I both had put small prescription scopolamine patches on just behind one ear before boarding the ship so we wouldn’t experience seasickness. Was I glad we did, because all night long the ship had rolled constantly. We couldn’t fall out of our bunk beds, though, because there was a bar almost the entire length of each bunk that was about six inches above the mattress. Steven had his bar up the entire ten days of our trip because he was on the top bunk, but I took mine down after the second day so one of us could sit on my bunk and one on the sole chair in the cabin while dressing or undressing. It was far too chancy not to hold onto something while changing or doing anything in our 100 square foot cabin!
After the first couple of nights, I removed the bar altogether even while we slept as I felt too hemmed in by it and knew I wouldn’t have far to fall even in the event of a major swell.
In 1839, Captain Robert Fitzroy published his narrative of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle between 1826 and 1836. For the first time, the world learned about the discovery of the Beagle Channel where Ushuaia was located. The narrative described South America and the Beagle’s circumnavigation of the globe. On board was the young naturalist, Charles Darwin, who went on to develop his theory of evolution based partially on observations he made in South America.
Steven and I were thrilled to be finally in open waters heading south on our way to Antarctica. We well knew the Drake Passage, though cloudy and pretty wavy, could have been infinitely worse and were therefore very thankful.
The crew had planned well for the two-day trip across the Drake Passage when there was basically nothing to see and obviously no place to go by arranging lectures by the scientists on board on a variety of topics that we could listen to and watch in the lounge if we wanted. If not, the only option would have been to 'chill out' out on deck or stay in our room.
Paola, a biologist, gave a talk on Pelagic Birds, i.e. those that spend most of their lives at sea. They only move to land when nesting to raise their chicks. Petrels are the biggest flying birds with an incredible three-meter wingspan! They are completely white on the underside when they’re older. The birds are very efficient flyers, spending little energy flying which I thought was surprising considering they’re almost always at sea. Petrels were also called Jesus Birds because they look like they walk on water.
My thanks to Juan Cascallares, the Ushuaia's naturalist and guide, for taking the following bird photos and allowing me to use them here.
During the trip, we had lots of chances to talk with many of the other passengers and discovered a large contingent came from Poland and China but they stuck to themselves exclusively as they'd brought along their own guides. There were about twenty from the US including a dozen or so semester-abroad students who had been studying in Ushuaia since August. They had homework to do on board which entailed conducting one-on-one interviews with passengers at the beginning and end of the trip about our views of climate change. There were also a lot from Germany, four we knew of from Australia and whom we got close to, a couple each from the Netherlands and Spain and one each from Russia, Slovakia and Canada, etc.
Most of the passengers I spoke to were like us and had booked their tickets well more than a year in advance. However, we talked to three people who had flown down to Ushuaia on the southern tip of South America without having bought tickets for the trip to Antarctica in advance on the off chance there might be cancellations. Steven and I were surprised to learn that Antarpply only discounted their tickets by $500, even for one young woman from Denver who bought her ticket just two hours before we sailed, thanks to parental help!
Unfortunately, my tech wizard aka Steven, hasn't been able to figure out how to load the videos I took with my new camera phone into this blog. I wanted to show you how much the ship was rolling from side to side as we lost sight of the horizon each time as the waves hit us broadside each and every time! A fellow passenger estimated the waves were about three to four meters high pretty well all day long. I can't say I enjoyed the ship's heaving but it was by no means unbearable. I had brought my knitting along and was quite content making mindless small squares in different colors for a baby afghan.
An announcement was later made that the waves had been much bigger than normal and therefore we needed to be extra vigilant walking around both inside and outside on deck. Once again, we were reminded to keep our belongings in a backpack to keep our hands free so we could reach for support on a handrail as needed.
In the afternoon, Juan, the naturalist, spoke about Antarctica being the largest continent and that, while we wouldn’t
see it all, we would get a good idea of its grandeur. He discussed the Continental
Drift Theory and how the continents had moved over past millennia. Millions of years
ago, Antarctica was in the tropical latitudes and was full of life with lots of
trees and it had even had dinosaurs. Similar fossils have been found in Antarctica
as well as Africa. But then Antarctica got stuck in the South Pole with strong ocean
and air currents.
There were two main areas on the continent of Antarctica:
The West or Lesser Antarctica which comprised one third of the continent and
the East or Greater Antarctica. Both areas were different in age and the types
of rocks they have.
We learned that the highest concentration of animals in the world is in Antarctica, something I was very surprised to find out. There were three different types of weather on the continent: Peninsular which was cold; Coastal which was very cold, and Inland which was very, very cold with temperatures from -40 to -85 degrees! The lowest recorded world record temperature was -89.5 degrees in the 1980s near Lake Vostok near the Russian station.
One hundred freshwater lakes have been detected with big sensors under Antarctica.
I hadn’t known there were actually ten different South Poles, not just one: The Ceremonial, the South Magellan Pole, the South Pole of Inaccessibility, the South Geomagnetic Pole, and I lost track after that!
Another crew member talked about the Antarctica Treaty System which began in 1959 when eight initially, and then twelve countries, signed the treaty in DC for peace and science and to develop programs in Antarctica. Subsequently, 54 other nations had consulting input. In the 1990s, the countries agreed to new regulations called the Madrid Protocol of Environmental Protection which governed waste and environmental concerns in Antarctica.
There are 80 research stations in Antarctica, the last continent reached by explorers. The understanding is that research on a specific topic conducted on site will then be shared with researchers interested in the same field living outside of Antarctica.
We learned that whale hunting thrived until 1950 when countries agreed to eliminate all hunting in Antarctica. Spoiler alert: We were provided far more information on both research stations and the whaling industry later in the cruise by another scientist on board.
We went to bed that night thankful we would shortly be through the much-feared Drake Passage and would soon be approaching land again and therefore one step closer to Antarctica!
Next post: Our first landing and plenty of penguins!
Posted on December 8th, 2019, on a sleepy Sunday in Asuncion, Paraguay, where we discovered everything closes down for the day, even the majority of restaurants!
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