Monthly Archives: November 2024

Is that a tuxedo you’re wearing?

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The story continues…..

Deception Island is an introduction to the ice, and on subsequent landings further south things, get icier. And snowier. The expedition team always go ashore first and set up safe walking tracks, away from crevasses, loose banks or other dangers, marking the route with flags. We’re also to keep five metres away from the wildlife, and are grateful for the restriction when we see how far a penguin can shoot its shit. Colonies of shit splattered penguins can be seen from space, and, I kid you not, there are scientific papers about penguin poop.

It’s fascinating to watch them swimming, presumably out to go fishing. You see a broad ripple in the water, then a battalion of black torpedoes skittering across the surface before an imperceptible message, and, as one, they all dive and disappear.

Getting off the zodiacs onto land is easy enough and the crew are always there to make sure everyone is safe and doesn’t take an unscheduled swim. The snow is heavy going and using a couple of walking poles helps.  This is what we’re here for.  Kilometres of snow and ice, towering mountains, thousands of penguins. Here, as long as I keep distance from people as well as penguins, it’s possible to ‘hear’ the silence, if only the penguins would stop shouting at each other.

If you are hoping for photos of polar bears, you’ll be disappointed. Wrong end of the world. The Antarctic is a frozen land surrounded by sea, populated by seals and penguins. It also holds about 70% of the world’s fresh water. Up north, the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land and therefore has lots of land mammals, such as polar bears and arctic foxes. The seals are different species, and there’s no penguins, but they do have puffins, which are really just as charming.

I am no David Attenborough, but the experts on board are many and various, so we learn a lot. Most of which we’ll forget. Enthusiastic and passionate about their specialist subjects their delivery ranges from funny and engaging – such as Magnus, an historian who has also worked in kids TV, so you get the picture – to detailed and sleep inducing – I’m looking at the geologist here. Universally, the crew from Captain to cleaner are fantastic.

The expedition crew schedule a final zodiac trip late on our last Antarctic evening. The schedule would have us depart the next day after another stop, but the Captain wants to head back across Drake Passage ahead of some foul weather that’s forecast, and we’re all in favour of that. It is snowing softly as we cruise past a lazy Weddell seal oblivious to the penguin foreplay around him. Up high, a colony of Chinstrap penguins range along the ridge, looking like an Apache war party in a B grade western. It could not be a more perfect goodbye.


So what was Antarctica like?

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It is commonly said that if you can describe Antartica you haven’t been there. I say, bullshit. I can describe it, but I can’t help you feel it, and none of us can really grasp it. A trip to the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth offers the perfect blend of adventure and discomfort. You know you are alive. 

Someone, possibly the Captain of our fabulous Fridtjof Nansen Arctic class exploration ship, has been very, very good, and the reward is perfect conditions for the 48 hour transit of the notoriously difficult Drake Passage from Cape Horn to the Antarctic Peninsula. So good, we can land and go ashore at Cape Horn, but more on that later. 

In the meantime we all swan about congratulating each other on the flat seas and almost zero wind, as if we had something to do with it. We hear the crew, stunned and disbelieving, muttering it’s never like this, and in five years I’ve never had conditions in the Drake this calm.  The Cassandras among us foresee doom ahead. 

There are three landings at different places on the ice and several other forays around the icebergs and shoreline in the zodiacs.  I LOVE going out in the zodiacs.  Obviously it’s cold, freezing point or thereabouts. So start with a thermal layer, then another medium weight merino top, a puffer jacket, wind and waterproof top layer with waterproof over trousers, good socks under rubber boots (provided), and add gloves, neck warmer, and hat as required. Hello Michelin wo/man.  Oh, and sunglasses – it’s bright down here. We soon become expert at climbing in and out of the zodiacs with kilos of clothes on, a skill that will be useless anywhere else.

The expedition crew allocate everyone to a group, and so landings and zodiac cruises are called to the boarding deck by name.  There are restrictions on how many people are allowed on land at one time, so the crew work is very well organised, and smoothly efficient.  Our group is the Gentoo penguins – which must be better than being elephant seals.

Cruising through chunks of ice and massive icebergs is beautiful. The water is so clear it’s possible to see the bergs extend below the water line. The colours are vibrant: white ice, with a bright teal below. Several times when we’re out on the zodiacs it’s snowing, so there’s a powdery layer of fresh snow cresting the ice, giving a subtly different shade and texture of white.  

At times there’s a slash of intense blue in densely packed ice where air bubbles are squeezed out. We also see this in the glaciers carving their way down, creating future valleys. The compacted ice absorbs longer wavelengths of colours, allowing shorter wavelengths, like green and blue, to reflect the light. Science eh?

We approach massive icebergs, keeping a respectful distance as they can roll or break without notice. It’s difficult to estimate the height of a huge berg when you’re sitting in a little boat, but the largest one we approach is roughly 10 stories high. Half way back to base, I look from the iceberg to our exploration ship, and the berg dwarfs the ship. 

It is very serene, especially when you ask the zodiac skipper to shut down the engine and just sit. The icebergs crackle at times, they’re always melting both underwater and above, so it feels like they’re alive. In the same way glaciers calve, hunks of iceberg fall into the water. But without man made noise it seems silent – at least until some muppet can’t resist the urge to say how quiet it is. 

Our first landing is on Deception Island, the caldera of an active volcano – yes, I too wonder at this wisdom of this.  Visions of Whakari White Island are fresh in the New Zealanders’ minds.  However those visions are pushed aside by the excitement of landing on the ice.  There’s a welcoming committee of a couple of penguins, but they are mainly there to laugh at those who take up the challenge of a polar plunge. Yes, some fools disrobe and tempt hypothermia by briefly, very briefly, immersing themselves in the literally freezing water. My baby brother was one such fool, leaving his lovely wife wondering why she ever married him. We did warn her. 

Subsequent landings involve a lot more penguins, but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment- this is getting a bit long.

Bet you’re not so jealous now

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Fourteen beautiful, in fact unbelievable, calm cruising days and we are heading back to Ushuaia, the southernmost town/port in Argentina. Currently we’re out of the protected waters of the Antartic peninsula and into a heaving swell with 80 kph winds, we sleepily waken to an urgent announcement from the Captain: “Code Bravo, Code Bravo, all crew to stations”. 

The internet crashes as passengers start googling. What the hell is Code Bravo? It can’t be good. Rather slightly more serious than a code brown at the local swimming pool. Code Bravo is to alert the crew to a FIRE or serious hazardous incident – without alarming the passengers. Hello! Have you heard of the internet?

Before total panic sets in, the Captain is back: all crew stand down except those directly involved. In this case where there’s smoke there’s no fire, but it’s still serious. 

Long story short: we have over 700 kms to cross Drake passage (which is far from the millpond we had on the way to Antartica) and our starboard engine is out. Kaput. Dead. Off its perch. There’s been an electrical short in the propulsion system and a split hose means there’s coolant all through the unit. This is not getting fixed any time soon. 

An engineer from the manufacturer will fly down from Norway to Ushuaia. The on board engineers do the diagnostics. But none of that helps us now, wallowing in the churning seas. Heads will roll somewhere, as just prior to our trip the ship had its first five year full refit in Panama. This is three weeks when everything is checked and replaced as necessary. 

So, the adventure many people wish for begins. One engine, 6-8 metres swells smashing the ship and 70-80 mph winds. Our speed is reduced to 9 knots because a) one engine, and b) sea conditions. 

I fully understand if your envy of our trip is now schadenfreude.

So the contingency plans begin. Initially the word is we will be 24 hours late into Ushuaia. An update a day later, as the weather improves and we can go a little faster, puts our arrival at about 12 hours late. 

This still has implications for the charter flights booked to take the 300 odd passengers to Buenos Aires, many with connecting flights to home or other parts of the world. Charter aircraft have other bookings, Buenos Aires has tight landing slots, the wharf at Ushuaia is very busy, and, as we miss our booked slot, negotiations commence. Oh, and we can’t unload the luggage as only Argentinian stevedores can do that, so they must be found and booked. What an excellent union they must have.

On the bright side, while we’ll be a day late to Buenos Aires, we get an extra night on board and can drink more Aperol Sours. And go ashore and experience the thrills of Ushuaia. 

In my last blog I said we had a rare chance to land at Cape Horn. We did, so major bragging rights. However the upload capabilities on the ship mean some of you have problems with the photos. So I’ll post another blog with photos when we, finally, get back on term firma. I may kiss the ground. 

Heading South – and we may be gone some time

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We’re on board the Fridtjof Nansen, an exploration ship heading for the Antarctic peninsula*.
We embark around 6:00 pm and leave Valparaiso at 11:00pm. We have an 18 day expedition ahead.

Overview of the trip

The orientation talks start the next day. The briefing on putting on the polar suit is hilarious: our model stuffs himself into a bright orange fashion crime that is somehow floppy but all encasing. By the end, he’s fully suited up and looking like an astronaut who took a wrong turn on their way to space. It’s also unnerving, as if we ever have to do it ourselves things will have gone seriously pear shaped. 

Polar suited

The two day off shore cruise down Chile’s coast gets the better of some, and the queue at the on board Medical Centre is long, queasy and slightly green.  Not us though, hardened by many white knuckle crossings of New Zealand’s Cook Strait: we scoff at four metre swells and 80kph winds.  Then peace – we enter the northernmost part of the Chilean fjords, heading to Castro, the main town on Chiloé Island. Population about 40,000. I know, it surprises me too. We glide past a tapestry of misty cliffs and emerald hills, intrepid adventurers with all inclusive meals and drinks within arm’s reach. 

Somewhere between the rolling waves and Aperol Sours, the island of Chiloé emerges, a land of legends, ghost ships, and rainbow-hued houses that seem ready to tumble into the sea at any second. In Castro, it’s all about the palafitos – brightly painted houses on stilts, reminding you of a riot of rainbow parrots. The ship’s tenders ferry us ashore to explore the town, which stretches up a steep hill from the small port. It’s much like any other town, but it still feels like we are stepping into a quirky postcard. On the fringe of the main square, the Plaza des Armas, sits a church, Iglesia San Francisco, a simple wooden building painted a cheerful yellow, like a sunbeam from Jesus. The interior is as plain as the exterior, all beautiful wood and with a ceiling reminiscent of a boat hull. Not surprising when you understand boat builders, not stone masons, were the builders.  Not just physically, but also aesthetically, very distant from cold stone churches of Europe with their excess of tiny stained-glass windows. Those ones perfect for creating just enough light to squint through and wonder if that figure is a saint or if you’re on a bad LSD trip.

Inglesia San Francisco

Along the shore we meet a man with many, many sacks of potatoes – he tells us there are 274 types of native potato and we manage to stop him before he starts naming them or extolling their individual virtues. There’s a strip of local markets where “authentic” souvenirs abound. Here, you’ll find everything from fridge magnets and wooden llama keychains, that saw more factory than forest, and soft toy penguins and whales, so synthetic you can almost see the static electricity arc from the Made in China label. But it’s not all factory-fresh. There are lovely hefty, hand-knit sweaters and scarves, ready to shield you from the Andes winds, or in our case Antarctic chill. 

We spend another week wriggling through narrow channels in Chile’s Patagonian fjords. It’s like a cross between our New Zealand Marlborough Sounds and the Southern Alps, not at all steep as our Fiordland. But it has zillions of islands and passages are sometimes very tight. At times we have to wait for slack tide as the current runs like a river and the ship has to progress at snail pace to navigate the twists and turns.  The crew launch the safety boat to go ahead and sit in the channel measuring the speed of the tide, and we progress at the change, or slack, tide.

Waiting to pass through the English Narrows

Our viewing of the Amalia Glacier is more exciting when the Captain announces we have enough time to launch the zodiacs and take a closer look. I feel a touch of the James Bond vibe as we zip through the mini ice bergs, the skipper avoiding any ice that might damage the propeller. As with glaciers worldwide, Amalia is retreating, irrespective of climate denier opinions.  It’s an ill wind and all that, so we get to see great chunks of ice calving off the glacial face, revealing the intense blue ice within. 

The ship in this pic is a smaller cruise out from Puerto Natales

I wonder where the days go. There workshops about reading charts, photography, getting the best from your binoculars, among other things. The lectures and talks vary greatly: some are so dry the presentation slides yawn – others are funny and engaging. While the dedication and enthusiasm of the on board specialists is remarkable, their presentation styles are not uniformly winning. Marcus, the Norwegian historian has the ability to charm and inform simultaneously, while Jean the French geologist, could gold medal in the too much detail Olympics. His descriptions of the formation of the Andes were so…….I can’t remember, I must’ve fallen asleep.

On the seventh day we arrive at Puerto Natales. We have another two days at least until we get to the end of the fjords. The Captain tells us conditions look good for a landing at Cape Horn, but nothing is certain. As he says, Cape Horn is Cape Horn, and anything can happen. Can’t argue with that.

 * You can do a walk through on the website MS Fridtjof Nansen | HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.