My husband says to me, “do you still want to go to Antarctica”? “Of course,” was my response, “but, how would we get there”? After a long pause, he answers, “drive.” After informing him that Antarctica was a long way from any other land he tells me that we could drive through South America, in our …

As a bit of light streams through the window, we awake in the Drake Passage, later endeared as the “Drake Shake.” The sea is very strong and makes our Sarpik Ittuk feel like a rubber ducky being thrown around. It is kind of fun (at first.) I quickly decide that the idea of walking to the shower is useless, in fact, …

Note to self – don’t repeat yesterday’s crawling episode. In fact, don’t repeat much of yesterday. Where are we? Are we out of the Drake Shake yet? No, but somehow I do feel better. Kristen is also looking a bit more lively today. Mike – he was never affected by the rolling seas, which I later heard were gale …

Note to self – don’t repeat yesterday’s crawling episode. In fact, don’t repeat much of yesterday. Where are we? Are we out of the Drake Shake yet? No, but somehow I do feel better. Kristen is also looking a bit more lively today. Mike – he was never affected by the rolling seas, which I later heard were gale …

The entire day is spent at Deception Island, located in the South Shetland Island, and is actually the rim of an extinct volcano with a 500 meter section of the rim blown out of it. That would normally make for a 460+ meter opening through which to bring the ship, but if you subtract the fact that there is a large rock submerged in the middle of …

An early wake-up, 6 a.m., is rewarded with magnificent views of enormous Tabular Icebergs in the Antarctic Sound, the size of . . . I don’t even know how big. They appear as big as skyscrapers laid on their sides. Upon a closer look you can see the blue and white stripe appearance, as though it were ribbon candy. Absolutely stunning. …

The news this morning is that we cannot reach Snow Hill Island, as we were scheduled to, due to the large amount of ice between our current position and the island. The Sarpik Ittuk has been transformed into an ice breaker vessel. We are leaving a trail of broken ice chunks as we make path through the frozen sea.

It is just too risky to push …

The Antarctic weather throws another curve in today’s planned itinerary. The landing at Gourdin Island will not happen today due to excessive winds of 40-45 knots. Gourdin is at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Bransfield Strait. With this landing thwarted, this means that we will now be leaving the Peninsula area and …

Barrientos Island is the location of our morning zodiac landing. If I understand right this island is part of the Aitcho Islands which were named by a hydrographic scientist, so they are really named “H.O.” Islands. Before reaching the island we pass another one of those anomalies: an island with a glacier coming down its side and …