Author: Jane

November 21

Today was our last day in Antarctica. We started our day at Deception Island. Deception Island is actually an active volcano. It last erupted in the 1970s. At that time, it had scientists living on the island. Before that, it was a whaling station until the 1930s. There are still a few buildings on land, but the cool thing about this island is that the water in some places is very warm. Hot tub warm. Shockingly warm. It’s not entirely clear to me why we didn’t polar plunge in this area instead.  Here, you can actually see the steam coming off the water:

We had some light hiking on the island that Michael joined me for. 

Also on Deception Island, we were able to see some krill that had washed up on shore. Krill is the main food source for penguins in Antarctica and some seals and whales. It is basically the bottom of the food chain that keeps everything moving. Note: a new trendy vitamin to take is krill oil (like taking fish oil pills) – which is contributing to a decline in the krill population in Antarctica and declining population of some penguin species. Global warming is also contributing, but that is a whole other conversation and after hearing a lecture on it on the ship, more complicated than anything I’m posting about here. So for now, krill:

The notable thing we saw on the zodiac cruise was a fur seal. I had previously seen a crab eater and a lot of weddell seals. So I was pumped to grab another type of seal. Totally can’t make a picture of this happen. 

We were supposed to head over to another spot in the afternoon for some zodiac cruises and skiing, but we found whales! There were two humpback whales that were spotted, so the Captain took our ship over in their direction to see if they wanted to play with us. 

It ended up being a mommy whale and a second year baby whale which was really fun to watch. The mom whale was teaching her baby how to dive and swim, so she would dive, showing off her fin and the baby would dive with their fin flopping to the left or right. We spent about an hour and a half watching the whales swim all over. 

By the time we finished with the whales, we had missed our window to go on shore the last time. Totally worth it. With it being our last night in Antarctica, we had a champagne toast and sushi on the back deck. With just a little time left before dinner, there was another whale sighting – Fin Whales! This is the third type of whales that I’ve seen (remember those orcas from a few days ago). From a few miles out, we could see six or seven whales blowing. These whales didn’t give us as good of a show as the humpbacks from earlier today, but it was still cool to see them. 

November 20 – Happy Bday J-Ro

Round two on this entry – definitely just accidentally deleted it. Whomp.

Today we went out to visit Danco Island. Michael cross country skied again today and had a lot of fun. Per Michael “it was a lot of fun”. The rest of us started our morning with a Zodiac ride around the island. The water was really rough which makes the ride less comfortable and wet. We saw this girl:

Dave, the photographer, was our driver and he was great – super informative and willing to go the extra mile to make the ride special. Dave pushed through some pretty thick ice to get into an area that was protected from the wind which gave us water that was as still as glass. It was breathtaking. 

While on the zodiac, we also had a great view of penguins coming back from the ocean. Some of the penguins struggled to get back on land which gave us a ton of entertainment. 

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Once on land, we had the chance to do a short hike up to a great vantage point. It looked deceptively easy, but after just a few steps, Mom B and Dad B opted out of the hike. The snow was very deep, so for half of the hike every step I took ended up with my boot going into knee deep powder. I was pumped to bump into our buddies, Zach and Dale, at the beginning of the hike. As we headed up the hill, Dale had many of the same struggles that I had walking. Zach, however, was like Jesus on the Galilean Sea. He just walked regularly on top of the snow and kept advising us to “just walk lightly”. He must have said it fifty times. Just walk lightly. Just. Walk. Lightly. I have no clue what that means or how to do it. Just walk lightly. So the hike was tough, but the view was well worth it. 

As we hiked, we had to cross the penguin highway a few times. This is the path that the penguins take from the ocean up to their nests. It was basically rush hour when we were there, and as we attempted to minimize our interactions and impact on the penguins, we spent quit a bit of time waiting for the penguins to pass us before we crossed the highway. 

​​(This is where you should see a really cute video of penguins, but my wifi isn’t strong enough to make that happen. Just imagine super cute penguins waddling around and say “awwwww”)
After our morning excursion and lunch, there was a second opportunity to go out on a zodiac cruise. Dad B and Michael stayed back to nap, but Mom B and I took advantage of another chance to get out on the water. 
It was lame. Our driver was not very informative and we didn’t see anything knew. With so little time here, there are few times where I have regretted going outside. This was an exception. 

Later that evening was the polar plunge. Michael and I had no interest in doing this going into this week. But peer pressure and fomo is incredibly powerful. So we grabbed our swim suits and fluffy bath robes and headed to the gangway. 107 out of 199 passengers did the polar plunge. We did it. It was a terrible 10 seconds of my life and then it was over. A few people LOVED doing it and a few people did it multiple times. I’m glad I did it, but mostly I’m just glad it’s over. 

Something I learned during our daily recap:

A lot of the icebergs and glaciers that we’ve seen have a beautiful blue hue. Sometimes the blue is slight and sometimes it is a stunning deep, dark blue. When ice forms, it has air bubbles in it. As pressure is applied to the ice, like when more snow falls on top of the ice, the air bubbles get pushed out. Those air bubbles act as lenses which reflects UV rays or white light. With fewer air bubbles, or lenses, in the ice, only blue UV rays get reflected. Ice thicker than 2 meters thick without air bubbles appears blue. 

Ice that is fewer than 2 meters thick that does not have air bubbles appears to be translucent. 

November 19

Jumped on another zodiac this morning to head to Paradise Harbour.

Today was a beautiful day! Lots of sun and really calm waters. This was also the day that we made it onto the mainland! 

A reminder that all of our landings so far have been on islands. Some people don’t even consider those island landings to be touching Antarctica. So this was a big deal for everyone. We got a bunch of pictures at Base Brown and hiked a decent amount to get a better vantage point. 

At the end of the hike, Michael and I hung out for awhile and our buddies, Leigh and Keith, joined us up top to enjoy the view. 

Back on the boat, we had lunch and pulled together a few people for a small mass. Tom was gracious enough to say mass for our small group and a few friends. It was really nice to spend some time reflecting on this trip. It was great, until… about halfway through when Shane came over the loud speaker alerting us to whales!! We had that moment of panic. We still had another 20 or so minutes to finish the mass, but whales!!! I hadn’t had a good sighting yet, and Michael hadn’t seen any! Everyone looked around, but we decided to finish the mass. It was a great decision. We finished mass and headed to the bow in time to spend maybe 30 minutes watching 8+ orcas swimming very close to the boat. They were beautiful! 

That evening, we reached the Lemaire Channel. This channel is 11 km long by 1.6 km wide and separates Booth Island from the continent. The views were just incredible and the night was so beautiful that it was great being out on the bow enjoying the show. When we got through the channel, we saw solid ice. Our ship was not getting through! So we sat at the end of the ice and enjoyed an outside dinner before turning around and heading back the way we came. 


One thing that is incredible is how flexible the ship, the captain and the crew have to be in this environment. There have been several times throughout the trip when plans have had to be altered or changed completely because of ice and animals. They work a few extra days into the 10 days to ensure that they can be flexible without sacrificing any of the amazing things that we’re seeing. 

Shout out to the incredible expedition team, led by Shane who’s famous (to a few of us at least) for ending his announcements with an energetic “see you about the ship!” 

November 18

Enterprise Island:

One of the cool things we saw was a wrecked whaling factory ship. In January of 1915, she had about 5050 cubed meters of whale oil in her tanks when it caught fire. To try to stop the blaze, the crews actually shot harpoon grenades into the hull to try to partially sink her and put out the fire. It didn’t work. The entire cargo was lost, but no people died, amazingly. 

Our zodiac cruise around Enterprise Island was led by Cam – the ice guy. There could not have been a better guide for this trip. I am consistently impressed by the majority of the staff how smart, patient and consistently energetic they are. It has been a real pleasure spending time and learning from them. 

Crystal clear water:

Cuverville Island: 

Cuverville Island is home to the largest gentoo penguin colony in the region. Like this guy:

And these too:

Also home to this Weddell Seal: 

Lots of cool pictures from the day, but none cooler than eating ice cream in Antarctica after our barbecue out on the deck! It was a crazy beautiful day with perfect weather!

November 17

On the afternoon of November 17th, we reached the South Shetland Islands. This would be our first step on Antarctica. Michael joined Pete’s ski group and headed out early with them to cross country ski on Half Moon Island. Half Moon Island is about 2km long and is crescent-shaped (making the name that much more obvious). Michael’s group saw a bunch of Gentoo penguins and ice burgs. They skied between the cliffs and the ocean, behind Half Moon’s peak. Four hours of tough skiing later, Michael had a new respect for how hard cross country skiing is on Antarctica and walked away with a few new friends. From below, I was able to grab a few pictures of the group. Please note our new buddy Keith is the person who is face planted on the snow:

While Michael skied, I jumped at an opportunity to see more of the island by snowshoe. This was my first time, so I was a little nervous, but also very excited to really get moving after a few days stuck on the boat. I met a new friend, Jackie, in the mud room as we got ready to go and buddied up with her for the excursion. We had a great trek – saw some Weddell seals and a crab eater seal along with some Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins. 

Later on the zodiac ride we also got the opportunity to see a mother Weddell seal with her pup. Usually by this time of the year, the pups have already left their mothers, so apparently this was a real treat. They were swimming aroun, but the mother always had her eye on us. 

November 15-16

The first two days on boat were travel days through the Drake Passage, notorious for sea-sicky rough waters. Packed with an inappropriate amount of Dramamine to combat the sea sickness, we felt ready to go. On the ship, people started getting to know new people and get familiar with the ship. This was also time for a ton of information from the crew along with the parka party and boot bash – where we get our huge yellow jackets (to keep) and waterproof boots (to borrow) for the trip. A lot of the shore excursions will require us to get off the zodiac boats in some water, so the boots are crucial. We also starting having informational sessions about the wildlife on the Drake Passage and in Antarctica. Sleeping that first night was tough – supposedly it wasn’t that bad, but I slept terrible and felt gross. I took some more Dramamine the next morning and consequently slept through a handful of lectures. After about 24 hours on the boat, I had pulled it together and got a bit accustomed to the moving ship. Smooth sailing from here… at least until we’re heading back on the Drake in a few days. 

November 14-15

Ushuaia is an incredibly beautiful town. I’m going to have to start coming up with better adjectives for this trip. “Incredible” “beautiful” “amazing”…. how can I communicate that something is special if I use the same words for everything? Hopefully my pictures help to explain.

Ushuaia looks like a Swiss mountain town with a cutesy downtown area, souvineer shops and restaurants. Mountains surround all sides of the town, making it quite picturesque. We checked into our AirBNB upon arrival and after dropping our stuff we walked into town to have dinner. Michael’s parents were long overdue for some legitimate sleep in a real bed, so we were going to take a quick meal and then straight to bed. 

While walking in town, trying to find something to eat, we came across a travel agent shop that had a sign on the door advertising discounted prices for a cruise leaving on the 15th. It was in our price range and in our time range, so we popped in to get more details. The travel agency closed at 9pm and we entered a few minutes before that. Despite the fact they were closed, they stayed open with us for nearly an hour as we tried to work out the details. Ultimately, they were able to get reservations for 3 of us. Michael’s reservation would not go through and as the ship’s office was closed, we had to wait until morning to fight through the details. I had always said it would be fine if we didn’t end up on a ship – that was the risk we were taking by not reserving in advance. But truthfully, I was bummed. I was bummed and Michael was not being optimistic. The travel agent also let us know that she didn’t see any other ships with openings for another week and by that time we may not be able to make it work with Mom B and Dad B’s flight back home. 

(Above: there is a very interesting history with the Falkland Islands aka Malvinas… Argentina still claims the islands even though it is considered a British overseas territory. Argentina occupied the islands for a few months in 1982. Most residents want to remain a UK territory. With just 2,841 residents, only 3 of them voted “no” in a 2013 referendum to remain a UK territory. But Argentina still insists the land is theirs. 

Below: some street art that I came across. Michael and I have been reading a handful of books that speak to some indigenous people in South America who have a strong mythology surrounding the mountains. My best guess is that the below is depicting something of that nature.) 

The next morning, we arrived at the travel agent’s office a little after 9am and finally got some more information: there were 2 rooms (triples) that were open. We had one reserved. The other one was being saved for a different group who had a medical emergency last week and had to miss the last ship. They were trying to make this boat, but were not sure if they would be able. We were told the other group had until 1pm to make a decision. So we went back to the waiting game… but with a few local beers this time to help with some of the anxiety. 
We got a message a few minutes before 1pm that Michael was good to go! We went back to the travel agent, filled out all our documents and rushed back to the Airbnb to collect our stuff. We had to meet the boat at 3:30. Not much time for error!

The above is not our boat. But with those awesome cats… I wish it was. 

We ended up on the Ocean Endeavor (run by Quark Expeditions) – a boat with 199 passengers and another 140 or so crew members. It’s the perfect size for us – big enough that the boat should be a little more steady in the Drake Passage, but small enough that you have flexibility to do a lot of activities and recognize some new friends that you’ve met. Taking this ship also meant that we got to meet up with an old friend – Fr. Tom, a friend of one of my closest family friends. Tom and I had met only a handful of times before – possibly 2, possibly 3 times – but it is still so much fun to reconnect in Antarctica! It didn’t take us long to meet up (1 point Tom – but remember I get 3 points for getting on the ship in the first place). Definitely looking forward to spending some more time together over the next 10 days.

The room situation ended up great – we had a triple and then Michael was in a separate triple with two random dudes. But when we got into our room, there were 4 beds! So we collected Michael and now we’re rooming pretty tight with all four of us breathing the same air… which is great. We’re only in the room to sleep, so it’s nice to have a central meeting point. 

We’re still trying to get orientated, but we’re starting to look into additional excursions and trips for the week. But let me tell you – I’m completely pumped!!!! 

Also not our boat but a super cool ship in the harbor: 

I want to send a very special shout out to our nieces and nephews (and our buddy Hudson) who are tracking our travels from Ann Arbor, Eureka, St. Louis and Chicago! We miss you all so much and we hope you keep following along! After two weeks of cities, trees and waterfalls, hopefully we’ll have some pictures of cool animals soon! Spoiler: they’re coming really, really soon!

 

Currency!! Get ready for a post about how hard money is! We came to South America with credit cards and debit cards and checks (a ridiculous just in case) and paypal and venmo and cold hard cash. We had read online that having hundred dollar bills (US Dollars) could solve a lot of problems, so we brought some and that theory has been proven correct. A few anecdotes so far:

-Sometimes it’s hard to use ATMs. While in Iguazu, there was no cambio (money changer) in the airport and the ATMs would not give us money. Just us. Everyone else had no issues withdrawing. Since this was our first stop in Argentina, we had zero pesos and had to figure out how to pay for a bus ride into town to get to our AirBNB. In comes our trusty USD – no problem. They take 20’s. We ended up at a cambio in town the next morning to get ourselves settled. Super easy – no reason to fret. 

-Sometimes it’s hard to keep your currencies straight. On our stop into the farmers market in Montevideo, we were hoping to buy some fruit. We had money. We knew we had money. We just couldn’t get the money out of my purse/Michael’s pocket. Everything we pulled out was wrong. Finally I thrust some cash at Michael who handed it off to the man to be laughed at. We tried to pay for Uruguayan fruit with Paraguayan money. He was patient and nice and we were embarrassed. It took us another 2-3 minutes to make the exchange happen.

-Sometimes it’s hard to not get scammed by money changers if you haven’t done your research. Upon entering Paraguay, 12 hours of our trip that we did not do enough research on, we were told by money changers a few things: the Jesuit Missions don’t take credit card (false) and the rate they were giving was reasonable (false). It took us about 2 minutes after making the deal to realize we got taken for a ride, but it was a good reminder that we should be much better prepared when changing money. Hopefully that is a mistake we won’t make again. 

-Sometimes it’s hard to get the courage to deal with a shady money changer on the street. In Buenos Aires, there are money changers who give substantially better rates than banks provided you come to the table with crisp hundred dollar bills. We approached a guy on the street in BA, he took us to the back room of a clothing shop and gave us a rate that was slightly better than banks. Perhaps we could have negotiated for even better but we took it and walked away. What was interesting is that we changed the rest of our hundreds and then we had some 20s that we also wanted to exchange. The rate for the hundreds: 17.5. The rate for the twenties: 17.2. We have no clue why – but needless to say we exchanged our 100s and walked away with all of our 20s. 

-Sometimes it’s hard to remember the exchange rate when you’re buying things. This is not one moment. This is all the time. Phone calculators have been pulled out a few times and a lot of rough mental math has occurred. Often the cash is just handed over and we assume it’s reasonable. 

-Sometimes it’s hard to understand what numbers they are saying. Michael has become our expert number guy. He consistently better understands what numbers people are saying. I have become an expert at looking at their screen or saying “puedes escribir, por favor?” 

No major issues yet – although just by typing this I’m probably jinxing us 😁. Maybe this will be the last of our “money stories”, but I doubt it. 

Our final day in Buenos Aires, we packed up our trusty backpacks again and headed to the national airport. Michael’s parents (Mom B and Dad B) flew overnight from Michigan to meet up with us for the next leg of our journey. They arrived in the international airport this morning and grabbed a ride with our favorite Argentinian driver, Oscar, to meet up with us at the Aeroparque. The meetup was seamless and after checking some luggage we were ready to settle in to our travel. We’re on the flight now, and when we land we’ll take a cab to the AirBNB we’ve reserved. Then my guess is that Mom B and Dad B will be ready to sleep after 35ish hours of travel and Michael and I will start scouting out the scene. Tomorrow is a big day for us. We are going to spend the day trying to get on a boat!

oops – didn’t I mention? We don’t have a cruise lined up yet. Michael and I read online that a person can get really great deals on cruises to Antarctica from Ushuaia if you take the risk and fly down there without arrangements. The idea is that the boats want every cabin filled and with a few boats leaving each week, once down in Ushuaia, we should be able to get competing bids from different ships that can be discounted 50-75%. These trips are no small expense, so the discount is great if you are will to be flexible and have the stomach for uncertainty. Mom B and Dad B worked 20 days into this trip which helps us with flexibility if we have to wait a few days to get on a boat. As we wait, we also have the good fortune of having Tierra del Fuego very close to Ushuaia for day trips into the Chilean archipelago where Magellan arrived about 500 years ago. We are very excited for this leg of our trip – please send good vibes and prayers that we get on a boat!!