The Drake & Icebergs (day 40 - 45)

Day 40 - 45 (23rd - 28th Feb)
Argentina: El Calafate, Ushuaia, Buenos Aires
Antarctica - Danco Island, Orne Island, Damoy Point.

I got up and checked out of the hostel in El Calafate then spent a few hours catching up on writing and photos before getting picked up by the airport transfer. It made a couple of stops to collect other customers then dropped us at the airport, I checked in and waited for another flight.

An hour and a half later I landed in Ushuaia, got an uber to the Oshovia Hostel and was welcomed back by the owner. Aside from the 4 weeks in the UK at Christmas, I'd spent more time in this single hostel than anywhere else since August 2024. It was good to see Colum again and catch up after a month of travelling around Chile/Argentina for both of us, we had some dinner, watched Limitless and head to bed. The only task I had to do on my day in Ushuaia was to collect my rental ski jacket, gloves and 'pants' (trousers) for the outdoor activities of the expedition then pick up some snacks and final bits for the trip. I tried one final time to get some crampon ready expedition boots for the mountaineering but hit another wall and figured it wasn't so critical in the end and let the errand go. It was 20:00 by the time I left town and started to walk back to the hostel, but the weather had shifted dramatically. There was a dusting of snow on the mountains surrounding the town and my shorts/t-shirt and sandal combo was no longer enough for the biting cold, luckily I was carrying ski kit so layered up in the street then continued back.

The morning of our trip, Colum, a Taiwanese chap from the hostel and I got an uber to the bag drop for the expedition, then spent a few hours waiting for our boarding time of 16:00. Walking along the pier toward Plancius, I passed two other ships moored up which dwarfed ours, had a luxurious appearance and strange shaped bows/sterns, but I felt an affinity for the ex-dutch navy vessel prepped for ice expeditions sat waiting for me and the next cohort to begin an adventure. I met the expedition team lined up to greet everyone, and was checked aboard by the hotel manager and taken to my room squirreled away at the bottom of the boat, closest to the engines with a porthole 1m above the waterline. Colum was in the same room, as well as a Dutch chap Tjitse, and I had the third bunk tucked under the low ceiling. The beds had privacy curtains, there was an en suite in the room, storage space for luggage, and a cosy feeling, it was all I needed - home for the next two weeks.

Once all 105 passengers were aboard, we cast off and sailed east through the still waters of the Beagle Channel. All hands were mustered to the lounge area where we had some basic information about the hotel aspect of the vessel from Albert the hotel manager then were taken through an abandon ship drill by the Chief Officer. Fetching our life jackets and dressing warmly, we were taken to the stern of Plancius where two 63 berth life boats were mounted, and talked through the procedure of evacuation. After the drill I stayed on deck to enjoy the air and view down the channel, meeting Chloe & Erika who had come down from Preston way for the expedition to Antarctica before they spent a month exploring Patagonia. They were as up-front and northern as you'd expect, and a lot of fun throughout the trip! A few hours later I was on my way to the 'captains cocktails' introduction, and met the Meredith family two doors down in our corridor, as their son, Alex, was celebrating his 30th birthday and they were putting decorations up on the door of their room. Anna popped out from the room opposite theirs and introduced herself, as we chatted for a bit then all wandered up a few minutes late to our russian Captain Evgeny's address which oozed charisma - as you can imagine. After the captain had taken his leave, our expedition leader Adam introduced himself then led the rest of the expedition team to give a little background of their experiences, concluding with Jacob the doctor advising the best ways to manage sea sickness and for people to begin any medication they had brought to mitigate it before we reached the Drake Passage.

The format of each day would be to have a wakeup call around 07:15, followed by breakfast, then a schedule of departure for either zodiac (rigid inflateable boat) trips to see wildlife and ice formations, or one of the additional activities such as mountaineering or kayaking depending on which programme each person had signed up to. We would be back for lunch at 12:30, then back out afterwards for an afternoon mirroring the morning schedule. There was also going to be an opportunity to camp on the continent, and all timings were flexible because we would be accomodating weather, sea conditions, opportunities arising from the environment/wildlife and different locations around the Antarctic Penninsula. The first two days of sailing would be across the Drake Passage - one of the most treacherous voyages a ship can make.

The first night's meal was buffet food and some of the finest I've had, definitely beyond what I'd anticipated during this trip. Alex's family had mentioned it was his birthday so part way through the meal, Maria one of the kitchen servers, danced through the tables with an entourage of staff toying with and working the crowd all the way up to the moritifed Alex - it was the most energetic restaurant birthday delivery I've seen and had a huge applause of laughter from the full dining hall.

Around midnight the ship started rocking and rolling as we entered Drake Passage, and were riding 4m swell. The beds in our cabin were traverse to the boat, which in turn was traverse to the direction of swell and wind from the un-impeded reach of the Southern Ocean, so I was lying in the direction the swell was rocking, as I felt my stomach and internals wash toward my feet and back again. I've slept on boats before but never with such a dramatic effect from the waves, Tjitse knew he suffered from seasickness so had brought some patches to wear behind his ear and some medication to ease the sensation. I hadn't considered that seasickness was going to be an issue on this expedition at all (and had largely been unaware of how dramatic Drake Passage could be), so was applying the belief that I'd probably be fine to it. The night's sleep wasn't the most restful but I think largely because the sensation of being moved around a lot in the night was new to me, despite that, I woke to Adam's voice over the tannoy feeling okay, got dressed and went up for breakfast.

The restaurant was half full at best. On my way round the ship, I noticed the crew had strategically placed sick bags in the handrails of every corridor and flight of stairs, it clearly wasn't their first rodeo. Breakfast was a delicious buffet of hot food, cold meats, cereal, bread, pastry, fruit, everything you could want at breakfast from pretty much any culinary angle. Colum had been feeling relatively okay, but had a coffee which had given him the signal that he had a few moments before it came back up, and dashed off, but felt much better shortly afterwards. Tjitse made it up for breakfast but was much more comfortable lying down so went back to the room after, which was evidently the plan for a large portion of the guests. I went up to the open bridge and was able to walk amongst the controls, ship staff and expedition crew looking out over the sea, watching the bow crash through the waves, and Giant Petrel glide over the uplift.

The first scheduled task of the day was to attend a series of mandatory briefings which would lay the groundwork as to why we had to adhere to various rules and behaviours on the expedition. The first was a brief about the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) from Adam, which was established to protect the pristine environment and wildlife of Antarctica, to provide rules for the operators so that the impact of human presence was minimal to the land and that they act responsibly. As well as the IAATO rules, we learned a little of the Antarctic Treaty which was signed by 12 nations in 1959 and acts to protect the continent from any boundary claim, that no military activities can take place within the area bound by the treaty (below the -60° latitude line) and to ensure that the continent can be accessed and used for scientific research - it is one of the most successful international treaties ever signed, now with 52 signatories.

Linked to the IAATO briefing, the next session was to learn about biosecurity and the importance it plays in preserving the environment and wildlife. Once we'd been given a greater appreciation of the conduct we needed to adopt and the reasons why, we had a briefing on the zodiacs which explained the boarding and disembarking procedure. The 60hp outboard powered inflatable boats with semi-flexible bottoms (corrugated aluminium plates interlocked on top of a rubber skin) carried 10 passengers plus a pilot/expedition guide in normal operation and were accessed by the boat launch which was deployed on the starboard side of Plancius. They provided the access for all other activities, so the attendancce of the briefing was key to be able to do anything other than spot whales and birds from the bridge.

After a buffet banquet of a lunch, we were called up by floors to the boot room to collect the ‘muck boots’ we would be doing most of our land-activities in. Once that was done we were called in the groups we'd been split into (Seals, Mighty Krill, Penguins & Whales) to attend a biosecurity session of de-seeding and removing any foreign articles from the clothing and equipment we intended to take onto the continent over the next few weeks. It was a thorough task to inspect every crevice of fabric, velcro, pocket liner, the cast seams in rubber boots, logos and brands where anything could get stuck, and to pick it out with paper clips, or fingernails, brushes, and thoroughly inspect it all. As tourists on a land largely un-impacted by humanity, we needed to make sure our 'footprint' was as small as possible. This meant we couldn't introduce any species of plant life not native to Antarctica, that we had to disinfect our boots before and after every visit to the land which would also help prevent the risk of spreading virus' like avian flu, and that we couldn't place anything on the land that hadn't been sterilised. No sitting, leaning or resting on any surface, no placing of bags or other items on the ground unless they were steralised, it was serious business, this land was pure and needed to remain that way for as long as possible.

I went up to the bridge again after the biosecurity session and met Simon the birder who was there with binoculars looking out for seabirds travelling alongside and around our ship. He spotted a Southern Royal Albatross whos wingspan reached 3m, it was a graceful flier, and with its wings locked into position it is able to travel thousands of miles with very little exertion. The record for the fastest circumnavigation of Antarctica by a Wandering Albatross is 46 days, from a bird that was wearing a GPS tag, covering some 13,000 miles - serious contender for Phileas Fogg's 80 day challenge. We were called to dinner then I spent a few hours back up at the bridge in the evening with Anna for a little while, and met Solina the 3rd Officer, in charge of the ship from 8-12, on rotation twice a day. The seas had calmed a little and were forecast to improve from this point onward, with the prediction that we would be within the northern islands of the Antarctic Penninsula by the following evening, sheltering us from the swell and wind of the Drake Passage.

The start of our second full day at sea begun with a wakeup call from Adam as usual, breakfast then a series of mandatory meetings for anyone wishing to take part in the mountaineering, camping or kayaking activities which were run in addition to the zodiac trips and landings. This was around the first time I met Vaila, Anna's friend who had been the keystone in their joining the expedition, having met one of the guides on her travels through South America and learned of the opportunity to come and visit Antarctica, then convinced Anna who was 3 weeks in to a new job back in the UK, to join for the adventure. The seas had remained a bit calmer compared to the first night and morning, so a few more faces were appearing from their rooms for the mandatory lectures and briefings.

From a couple of discussions with the mountaineering lead Owain, and Narly, the conditions this late in the season for arduous mountaineering activities weren't appropriate anymore. We were the last mountaineering expedition of the season, which had seen the sunshine and lack of snowfall combine to produce crevases on the glaciers so we were limited to where we could safely access. As such, there wouldn't be any crampon-related activities, only snow-show hiking up some of the hills, so my lack of expedition boots would have no hindrance to the trip afterall and I was grateful to have not pursued it to any great expense. The camping was one of the primary interests I had before joining the trip, so was keen to hear how it would work. Weather permitting, we would land in two or three large groups, dig our own snow 'grave' the size and depth of a bivy bag, pile the snow up on the exposed side of the hole then sleep beneath the stars with camping mat, sleeping bag, liner and bivy bag to protect us from the -5°C world around. Getting the chance to sleep on Antarctica just felt surreal.

Following the briefing on kayaking and how that would work, with some caution of leopard seal interactions (i.e. don't just sit there taking photographs, they are apex predators and perfectly capable of having a human wrapped up in a BA in a kayak), we were called to lunch. The afternoon was the chance for us to sign up to any activities we were keen to take part in, so was a hectic display of queuing and juggling to ensure everyone had the opportunity to do each one once. I teamed up with Colum to do the camping the first night we were at land (which would be the following night), then mountaineering and camping. Anna and Vaila had strategically opted for activities later in the voyage to make sure any illnesses had subsided before they were called up to participate.

Following the sign up session, one of the expedition guides, Elizabeth, was an expert in cetaceans and gave a lecture on the various species of whale and dolphin we were likely to encounter over the coming few days as well as the habits, statistics and behaviours of the whales from her knowledge and experience. One of the most memerable takeaways from the lecture which included some advice on how to identify what we were looking at, was that cetaceans with the dorsal fin in the middle, were dolphins, and when their dorsal fin was 2/3rd the way along their body, they were a whale - therefore, Orca, Killer Whales, were actually - dolphins. The day concluded with the recap and schedule for tomorrow from Adam, describing our intention to do a landing on Danco Island as we would be approaching land in the night, the chance to swim in the antarctic with a 'polar plunge' and visit a Gentoo Penguin colony - it started to feel very close!

Late that evening I went up to the bridge as we spotted land, and the first few ice bergs in the far distance, with snow blizzards whipping the outside of the ship. By the end of the trip spotting ice bergs was so commonplace it was more about their intricate shapes and forms that brought awe, but I still remember how it felt to consider that I was in a ship sailing so far south there were huge chunks of ice floating in the waters around us - I was a long way from home. Through talking to Solina a little about the ship, Antarctic ocean conditions, and drawing some of my own conclusions, it was clear that falling into the water here would not end well. We had crossed the Antarctic Convegence - a marine belt where the warmer waters of the Southern Ocean meet the colder nutrient rich waters of Antarctica, and it drops from around 5-6°C to 2°C in a very short distance. At 2°C, without appropriate cold water equipment, you would probably survive around 5-10 minutes in the water before your body temperature dropped too much and you wish Rose had shared her wardrobe with you. Even through Plancius wasn't a huge ship it was still 89m long, and not particularly nimble. My conclusion was that if someone went overboard this far south, we would be lucky to take the body home nevermind recover a survivor, especially at night with total darkness and waves concealing any chance of finding Jack.

One of the things Adam had mentioned in the evening recap and plan for the day ahead was the opportunity to send some postcards from Port Lockroy - a UK Antarctic Heritage Trust outpost and the southern most post office in the world. Knowing I was scheduled to camp tomorrow night I took the opportunity to write some post cards that night so kept Anna company and scrawled a few momento's to be sent home, along with a self-addressed card I gave Anna to complete, to remain a mystery for me until I'm back.

The next morning I woke early, well before Adam's voice over the tannoy system, I looked out of the port hole and saw snow and ice covered land, bergs drifting by the window and bright blue skies. I got dressed quickly and made my way to the bridge quicker than a kid at Christmas, to find a few others taking in the first sighting of Antarctica, we were here!

It was absolutely incredible, calm flat waters, bright sunshine, deep blue sky, and snow covered land meeting the ocean. What an amazing place! After an hour or so the call for breakfast came but I was reluctant to leave the bridge. There were bergs with seals on chilling out in the sun, multiple humpback whales in the middle-distance, a new selection of birds circling the ship (albatross and giant petrel don't venture this far south toward the continent, they're true sea birds) and an awe-inspiring landscape of ice and snow on jet black rock as we continued down the channel toward Danco Island. The dining area was full this morning, with a palpable buzz of people egar to get their teeth into the expedition and experience the world we'd come to see. After breakfast we dressed for our very first landing, and I felt very conscious of the need to be accurate with what I took. I couldn't be too hydrated because there was no opportunity to go to the loo on land (unless I took my own bottle), no food allowed but the fantastic kitchen staff had seen to that need anyway, it was sunny but cold, I had the opportunity to do a polar plunge so needed swim stuff, my camera kit, suncream, glasses, had, gloves, BA for the zodiac, room card to scan on and off the ship, lots of layers, the packing and logistics were a bit of a frantic shambles for this first event.

After scanning off the ship, everyone had to dip their muck boots in the disinfectant, then queue to disembark Plancius down the zodiac landing rig which gave access to the boats having been lowered by crane off the stern. Ten at a time, we set off for the island blasting along past chunks of ice and small bergs, and were reminded of the technique in how to disembark the zodiac by expedition crew already ashore, right beside a colony of gentoo penguins.

Penguins have no land predators, and as such have no fear out of the water. We were to keep 5m distance from them at all times, including when they approached us when possible. The gentoo penguins on the beach landing were in the middle of shedding their feathers, which means they were not currently waterproof, and as such couldn't swim, or get food. They have to stand very still to conserve energy for 3-4 weeks as they force their feathers out and replenish them with a new set, it looks dramatic and sad as they're dishevelled and stationary, but it was especially important not to do anything to disturb them because their energy was precious in these weeks whilst they were unable to eat. After a while of taking in the magic of watching them, and the few at different stages of their shedding or having finished, playing around in the water, we continued up the island with a route demarked by poles to ensure we didn't disrupt the 'penguin highways'.

Gentoo penguins are solitary birds and spend most of their time at sea, but come together to mate, shed feathers and raise chicks on land, and in doing so they create 'highways' to travel around, similar to how you'd see sheep or goat tracks on mountain sides. The difference here being that a sheep wouldn't care if you borrowed its track to traverse some bracken covered hillside, but in this environment, we needed to enure we had as small an impact as possible and so it was important to not use their routes and disturb their habitat. Gentoo are also the fastest penguin breed in water and can swim (but it looks like flying) at 22mph (36kph) which is mad, but because of how little time they spend on land, its quite an underdeveloped activity so they look comical waddling around, unsteady on their cold-circulating feet.

After an hour or so of taking in the 360° views from atop Danco Island in the gorgeous sun and de-robing to manage the temperature, we head back down to land our bags, boots and kit on a tarpaulin, stripped down to swim wear and dashed into the water for a polar plunge! The water temperture was about 1°C here, because of the salt content it wouldn't freeze until -1.9°C, but it was chilly. The sunshine and walk up the hill helped to develop some excess heat which needed to be dissipated, but within seconds my skin was bright pink and numb. I realised I hadn't asked anyone to get a photo of the moment (and of course, without a photo everyone would deny it happened) so I found an onlooker to hand my phone to and went back in for a round two, swimming beneath the surface, in the Southern Ocean, in Antarctica. Hard to comprehend!

After about half of the landing party had frozen their exposed bits in the polar seas, we head back to Plancius, scanned back aboard, disinfected our boots scrubbing them clean and went in to warm up and get some lunch. Meanwhile, the expedition crew re-loaded the zodiacs, packed up everything from the shore landing, and readied the ship to head for our afternoon landing spot at Orne Island. The turnaround time was fairly tight each day, we'd gotten back to the boat for just after 12:00, lunch call was for 12:30, and the first zodiacs left for the second landing spot by 14:00, with everyone re-clothed for the cold and prepped for a few hours ashore again. There were two colonies on this island, predominantely of gentoo penguins again but we also spotted a few chinstrap penguins for the first time too. Its a strange evolutionary trait, that every chinstrap penguin looks like its wearing a WWI helmet, with a thin black line tucking under its chin from the black battle bowler. We also saw a couple of fur seals on this island which were basking in the sun. They're a type of sea-lion, and are distingued by having external ear flaps, as well as being able to tuck their rear flippers underneath themselves to walk on. They were heavily hunted during the sealing periods in the 1900s, and almost brought to extinction for their fur skins as fashion material (but are back in abundance now). Where the penguins commmand a 5m exclusion from humans, fur seals require a healthier 15m, and its everyone's repsonsibility to ensure that's maintained when they move. They don't typically go for people but can be agitated as much as the next guy.

The sunshine continued to give the perfect weather for the day and in the far distance I saw a humpback fully breach for the first time whilst chatting to someone, noticing it over their shoulder. It was a long way off, and rare for humpbacks to do that as much in Antarctica as they are primarily in these waters to feed before going back up to the equatorial waters off Equador/Columbia to give birth, but its not fully understood why they breach in the first place anyway - what a sight. Anna, Vaila, Colum and I were on the last zodiac off the island, keen to absorb as much of the environment and landscape as we could, watching the playful and clumsy actions of the gentoo waddling around, squarking and the chicks making demanding moves toward their mums & dads returning from the waters seamingly famished yet still regurgitating their food for their young - parenting looks tough in every species.

Once everyone was aboard again and getting ready for the evening, we set off to Damoy point for the first camping spot, as a pod of 25 orca apppeared ahead of us. Elizabeth was able to identify some of the mother/calf pairs, aging some of them to be first time mothers with 7-9 month old calfs, as well as a bull Orca which was apparnetly around 70 years old and had a dorsal fin over 2m long. They started off in the distance but came very close to the ship which slowed and navigated the area to give us maximum opportinuty to take the encounter in - what an incredible sight to have on our first day. After 30 mins or so of enjoying the moment with everyone else aboard, we continued on. The evening debrief from Adam recapped the day, gave us an agenda for the morning and discussed the logistics of the camping party due to land after dinner.

Colum and I prepped ourselves after post grub, to spend the night on the continent. Damoy Point is a British Antarctic Survey station which was used as a waiting room for weather windows to permit skid planes to land on the ice, and transport people and goods deeper into the continent from the ships able to moor in the natural bay, protected from some of the more extreme weather of Antarctica. The plan was for 60 of us to land in zodiac's with our camping kits, find a sheltered spot to dig a snow pit, set our sleeping system up and sleep beneath the stars. As we got to land, a few zodiac's had delivered guests before us and Brian, the wilderness expedition leader had decreed the snow was too hard to dig through, from a day of sunshine and cold night which had caused the surface to melt and refreeze. As such the best option was to take shelter behind some of the rocky outcrops at the landing point, but with limited space 10 people were sent back to Plancius with hope they'd be able to rearrange for another day.

Colum and I persevered with snow shovels until we'd blunt forced ourway into the snow and dug two shallow (20cm deep) graves, set our sleeping systems up and waited for Plancius to reposition itself around the headland to give us the impression of more solitude, as the Milky Way begun to reveal itself. We stayed up until midnight ish, with the cold penetrating every millimetere of uncovered skin, in awe of where we were, and not wanting to waste the moment by sleeping. The night was not without its drama - between one thing and another Colum had spent the majorty of the night very cold, and was made worse for him with the need to get up and use the porter loo set up for the campers in the middle of the night, and I'd made the critical error of not changing socks before sleep so the small amount of damp wicked away all the heat from my feet all night. In a bivy you are very much a human catapillar in form, and accessing your feet is basically impossible from the restricted space. I'd brought my own camping mat ashore so I was well protected from the ground, but pressed up against the topside of the bivy reduced the loft of the sleeping bag and made whichever side I had upmost, cold, as well as my feet. I got a few hours sleep but it wasn't the most restful, so when Brian and Valaria came round at 04:00 to give the wakeup call and start us prepping to be collected at 05:00, I wasn't surprised to see many of those who had been camping were already up, packed and waiting by the landing spot - it had been a cold night for many, but what a privilege - sleeping on Antarctica!