Wanderings

There was the obligatory couple of days in Buenos Aires (and the Evita tour), and the dodgy currency cambio from US dollars into Argentinian pesos, and the early morning COVID test at the hotel (phew!), and the flight down to Ushuaia and the hanging around looking at the almost surreal landscape before boarding the Roald Amundsen for our Antarctica expedition cruise. Several cruises offer a sail-past of Antarctica, but Hurtigruten puts you ashore, weather permitting. Because of that, we had to have certificates from a GP that we were fit to do the trip.

The first obstacle is the 2-day 500 mile Drake passage, where the great Southern ocean sweeps through a relatively narrow gap giving two options: the Drake shake, or the Drake lake. On our first day, the full breakfast turned out to be a big mistake – say no more. The second day was gentler, and by the end of it we could see Antarctica (technically the South Shetland Islands) under the grey skies.

We were allocated to our group – the giant petrels – and given our big waterproof jackets and our boots and lifejackets. We hoovered the clothes we’d be wearing when we went ashore. If we went ashore: it’s all weather-dependent, and the weather here can change in a moment. We’d followed a previous cruise on Facebook, and they’d had most landings cancelled. We put our name down for the kayaking, but declined the overnight camping and the snowshoe expedition. After that we just had to enjoy the ship, and the lectures, and hold our breaths for the weather to be kind. My sister insists that I’m always incredibly lucky with the weather on our holidays, and we just had to hope that for this – the most important one – it came true again.

Nothing I can write can fully express the wonder at that first morning – still grey skies, and some snow in the air, but calm, so the landings in Orne harbour were on – as the ship eased through the Antarctic landscape of snow-covered peaks and iceberg-strewn water.

The expedition crew, in their distinctive yellow jackets (passengers were red with yellow hoods) went ashore to check the landing site and mark out paths. We’d had a clear briefing – and warning – about how to get in and out of the Zodiacs and how to behave ashore: stick to the paths, leave only footprints, and don’t go near the penguins. We all had a time slot to limit the number of people on land at any one time to 100. We went down early on to demonstrate that we’d put all our thermals on, and from our balcony we watched the first Zodiacs go from the tender deck right below us.

When our time came, we sat in the departure area sweating inside all our gear. Then it was onto the Zodiacs – the fisherman’s grip – and racing to the shore. Getting out of the Zodiac was always awkward but there were plenty of helping hands.

And there we were, on our final 7^th continent. The air was clear and crisp, and didn’t feel all that cold because of the lack of wind. We trudged up along the path – I found coming down much harder – and took in the scenery. Yes, we had others around, and the crew, and the ship was just sitting out there, but we remembered that warning about the weather, and we really got that sense of isolation, and we wondered what those early explorers would have felt a hundred years ago. (We live in Dundee, where Captain Scott’s Discovery sits, so we’ve felt that connection before.)

And the penguins – so many varieties! And the smell! While we stayed away from them, it seemed they hadn’t got the memo. They regularly blocked the path, gazing round as if knowing they were in the way but otherwise ignoring us. Later we came across king penguins, who really were arrogant, as if they knew how gorgeous they looked. The penguins live relatively far from the water, on bare rocks, which means they have a long awkward waddle down. But once they dive in, they’re off, sleek and fast. We’ve seen them on nature programmes, but we’re right there now, watching them.

The weather held – in fact the next day was the start of a run of bright sunny days – so we got a Zodiac cruise round Danco Island, through the ice and some larger icebergs.

Next day was the cruise down to Port Charcot, slowly through a narrow passage filled with broken ice. Here we had the glorious sight of twin peaks known as Una’s Tits. When the name of this feature had been queried as sexist back in the day, the actual Una had declared that she was proud of the recognition. We got our landing, again.

The following day we’d been drawn in the ballot for our kayak trip, and we waited to see what the weather would bring. Calm and sunny again – we were good to go. By now the team were commenting that this spell of good weather was unheard of.

We’d watched previous kayak trips head off, so we knew the routine. There was lots of help to get us into the kayak, which I need, as well as practice inside the ship’s big bay. Then the group of us paddled off into Borgen Bay, around the ice.

This was just the best part of the whole trip. Silent, except for when there was a rush of water as a group of penguins raced past, porpoising and then throwing themselves out onto the rocks. Close to the water so that you got the full sense of the environment, and the remoteness. Everyone took photographs of everyone else, and the group leader took pictures of the whole group, and that evening we got together in the bar and did some air-dropping.

That afternoon, my wife decided to join in the Antarctic swim challenge, with me as support. Not long in the water, and seriously helped by a lack of wind chill, but mighty impressive nonetheless.

By now the routine on the ship was clear. Meals were excellent, the service superb, the wine and beer (Cape Horn IPA) with the meal included. The lectures were informative, focusing on wildlife and the environment (with a guest lecture by Jo Bradshaw who happened to be on board). The expedition team – who were all scientists or wildlife experts with various specialities –  acknowledged the environmental impact of us just being there, albeit with all the restrictions, but vowed that they would send us home as ambassadors to protect the land. Each day there was a ‘science boat’ where a group of passengers joined members of the team to carry out measurements and gather scientific data.

We’re only on a very small tip of a continent that has seen an extremely unusual level of international consensus to protect it. Big cruise ships merely sail by, and it’s hard to get to at all because of that Drake Passage crossing – but there’s the threat now from plans to build commercial airport which would allow for much-increased tourism. Of course, we all flew long-haul to Argentina, so there’s that to be considered too.

Deception Island holds an abandoned whaling station, with massive tanks that once stored whale-oil. How things have changed, with our ship able to run on its batteries near pods of whales so as not to even disturb them. Yet again, we could feel the presence of those pioneers from the not-too-distant past, and sense what their lives must have been like. (By the way, the Norwegians built better huts than the Brits.)

Another hark back to the past was the Zodiac cruise around Elephant Island, where Shackleton left most of his men while a small team rowed to South Georgia. Amazingly, he made it, and got back to rescue all of them. There’s a memorial on the point.

Prior to our arrival in the Falklands, the expedition team member from Chile gave us the story of the Falklands war from his perspective. Much of it we’d known: Galtieri needed a war to deflect from troubles at home, and – unfortunately for him – Thatcher also needed a war to deflect from troubles at home. What we hadn’t known was that Galtieri had promised to turn his attention to Chile after taking the Falklands, so Pinochet discretely offered the UK support. AWACS aircraft were stationed in southern Chile (from where they could monitor the Argentinian air force), and Chile helped the RAF and RN with intelligence information. (We also got some background on how the CIA had systematically replaced democratic governments with these friendly-to-the-US dictators, and caused so much trouble down the years.)

So we landed in Stanley, with its British flags and statue of Margaret Thatcher, with a bit more perspective. Our walking tour guide was an ex-serviceman who’d come over to fight, and stayed, marrying a local woman. The whole place was interesting – a little bit of the UK here in the South Atlantic. We went for a drink – paying in GBP – and bought some local gin. We also took a selfie outside a pub where a friend of my wife’s had worked back in the day when she’d staying on the island. She now lives on Jura, and we could see the similarities in the landscape and the environment and why she’d feel equally at home in both places. Except that the Falklands has penguins. Obviously.

There were two more landings, with no snow now, and further kayak trips cancelled because of the wind – the first sign of anything inclement in the whole trip.

Then it was the voyage to Ushuaia and the flight back to Buenos Aires. Except that Argentina had just won the world cup and were also on their way to Buenos Aires, with crowds jamming the dual carriageway so that flight crews couldn’t get to the airport. Eventually our flight came in, and we got to Buenos Aires in time to join the party. We also spent the next morning hunting down replica (i.e. fake) Messi football tops (for the grandsons).

Our airport experience the next day was a nightmare with queues and queues for passport and customs, and the flight delayed. But we got home eventually, via Paris.

We’re left with the conundrum. A wonderful experience of a magical place, further from anything we’ve experienced before in every sense – and there’s no doubt that travel broadens the mind. And now a direct connection to that history of the polar explorers and a better appreciation of what they would have experienced. Yes, we’re Antarctic ambassadors, and yes we’ve done a bit to de-stabilise that pristine environment – but hopefully only a very little bit because of all the precautions the ship takes – and our carbon footprint to get there is huge. The evidence on global warming is clear, and the lectures told us about the reduction in multi-year sea ice (i.e. it doesn’t melt in the summer). But please god there won’t be easy mass tourism. Let’s keep the Drake Passage as a barrier to the faint-hearted.

For visual learners, here’s the video of the trip taken by the official expedition photographer: https://youtu.be/lH4Y1V4Eb0A