Sunday January 6, Lemaire Channel, Peterman Island, Pleaneau Bay and Port Lockroy:

This morning we had breakfast at the relatively civilized hour of 8am. After 3 cups of coffee, I was feeling human enough to head out on to the foredeck to enjoy our passage through the Lemaire Channel. Nick-named the "Kodak Canal," this was some of the most impressive scenery of the whole trip. The canyon walls are very high, and the channel is only a few football fields wide at some points. You can almost reach out and touch the jagged granite walls on each side. Glaciers cracked and popped, about to fall at any moment. Spectacular!



Then we "kitted up" for a visit to Petermann Island, which had gentoo colonies, and epic views of the Antarctic Peninsula, just a kilometer or two away.

Now we've had a tasty lamb stew for lunch, and we are getting ready for a Zodiac cruise of the "iceberg graveyard" at Pléneau Bay. (Back now.) Pretty awesome Zodiac cruise. Plenty of great icebergs in different states of erosion, plus perhaps a dozen seals, both leopard seals and crab-eater seals. I helped a friend shoot video off the bow on the way back to the ship, going FAST! Looking forward to watching that on YouTube.

Port_Lockroy: This port has been used for 100+ years, first by sealers, as a whaling station, and by the British Navy in WWII. Great anchorage. Weinke Island's mountains shield the port from the katabatic winds. Moving water currents keep ice off the water, & also keeps temperatures slightly more moderate.

Port Lockroy was restored as a working base and post office in 1996. To reinforce territorial claims, the British build post offices and sell stamps. OTOH, the Argentines build hotels and have babies. The postcards we mail here go first to Port Stanley (Falklands/Malvinas) by ship, and then to England, and then to it's destination.

Per Rick, the main guy behind Port Lockroy station: "This story isn't politically correct, but I will tell it anyway.... The dogs like penguins. To eat. They are self-maintaining. Before the treaty protected the penguins and banned all non-native species, whalers, explorers and expedition staff would tie their dog teams in parallel lines on either side of penguin paths. The penguins would have to run the gauntlet. The dogs were well fed."

I stayed at with the penguins till 10:30pm. Damn entertaining.

Saturday January 5, Old Patterns Resurface...

5:15 Wakeup??!! The expedition staff scheduled a long day for us today, to maximize our landings. That meant a very early wakeup call, and a 6am departure from the Shokalskiy. Alas, now that I have a single, there is no one here to wake me up if I fail to hear the wakeup call over the loudspeakers. I was sound asleep when they left the ship, and only woke up when they were announcing that someone had failed to turn their tags*. In a stupor, I ran topside, only to find that they were not going out, but coming back! I missed a landing at the gentoo penguin colony at Cuverville Island. Worse though, is that a pod of whales was also at Cuverville. The expedition staff nimbly changed plans and loaded up the Zodiacs to go whale watching. They had a nice Zodiac cruise, with whales almost touching the boats! Many folks said it was the highlight of the trip. (Mind you, we say that every day, but this did sound exceptional.) On the plus side: I am very well rested, having gotten a solid 9 hours of sleep.

* One of our constant tasks is "turning our tags": we each have a numbered plastic tag, which is hung on a peg board near the gangway. Each time we leave the ship, we turn our tags to black, and when we return, we turn them back to yellow. That way the expedition staff knows if someone is late or missing.

After breakfast, we visited Useful Island, on the Gerlache Straight. Strange name, maybe named for the weather/navigation station on top. It has a 200m tall mountain, which we got to climb. The way we are eating, any bit of exercise is valuable. We saw plenty of gentoo and chinstrap penguins, plus a few lazy Weddell seals.

After lunch, landing and cruise at Paradise Bay. We watched an albino penguin porpoise around and swim under our Zodiac. The all-white penguins have a tough time survival-wise: because they are easy to individually identify, the seals can track them continuously. Normally, individual penguins blend into the crowd, and the seals are easily confused.

We landed at Brown Station, another Argentinian base. We hiked up to the top of the peak, another 200-meter climb, but in thigh-deep snow. Not a bad workout. On the way down, we got to slide down the hill on our butts, bobsled style, which was great fun. I'm dying to snowboard down one of these glaciers, or to surf a wave generated by glacial calving. But lacking even improvised gear, this may have to wait for another trip.

There were some remarkable old, dense, crystal-clear bergs in the bay. We cruised around in the zodiacs for a while, until dinner. About 20 folks managed to sign up to camp on the ice tonight. Wish there was more room on that trip. Like fuel surcharges, no one on the boat likes to be left out of an activity. It takes away a bit from the otherwise amazing vibe on the expedition.

Friday January 4, Sailing into a Live Volcano:

Morning landing at Deception Island: we entered through a tiny break in the crater rim Neptune's Bellows, avoiding an infamous submerged "can-opener" rock in the middle of the opening. Over breakfast, we crossed the 7-mile crater to set anchor at Telefon Bay. After breakfast, we hiked all the way up to the rim of a recent ash cone. This area is still very active, with eruptions as recent as 1999. We had sun the whole time, which the expedition staff had never before seen.



Telefon Bay is directly next to Pendulum Cove's famous hot springs, which really are more luke-warm.

Afternoon: We sited a pod of humpback whales in the Bransfield Straight, where they were feeding on a reddish-brown cloud of krill. One whale rolled over to check out the Shokalskiy, and some of us were lucky enough to see its gaping mouth full of krill. The pod seemed to be a group of about 3 whales, who surfaced repeatedly for maybe half an hour, as our ship circled at idle.

After dinner: we did a Zodiac raft cruise through the iceberg fields at Cierva Cove, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Because we wouldn't be landing on shore, it sounded like it wouldn't be that fun, but wow was it! We saw glaciers calving, which sent a shock wave through the whole bay. There were Weddell and leopard seals, which we got very close to. Penguins were porpoising about in between the bergs, which had amazing texture and variety. I even got to test the Quark-issued parkas under a waterfall of glacial melt. (They are indeed very waterproof, thankfully.) Oddly, no one else on my Zodiac thought it would be fun to join me for a polar shower!

Overall, every day we find ourselves saying "this was the best outing yet." It is starting to be embarrassing!

We just got word by satellite news feed that Obama won the Democratic caucus in Iowa. I feel strangely detached from all the election hubbub in the USA. Thankfully, by the time I get home, the primaries should be mostly decided. Though we'll still have a good chunk of the year of campaigning between the two finalists.

This trip is really breaking my normal routines. I almost never fail to read the news daily, and I am (at minimum) diligent at checking my email. Here, I am lucky to get a bit of news every day or two. And I am cut off, cold turkey, from sending and receiving email. An interesting experiment. So far, I do miss that connection with home, but I've yet to feel compelled to set up a satellite email account. I'll catch up on email, and post all these blog entries, in a big batch when I return to Ushuaia.

Tonight, we sail out of Cierva, and into the Gerlache Straight. That reminds me of the town of Gerlach, Nevada, and Burning Man, and home. I'm having a great time here, but it will be good to get back to California.

Good God, just when I thought I could rest for the day, we got surrounded by a large group of humpback whales, at least four pairs. They were doing "bubble feeding" all around us, constantly surfacing. I couldn't count the number of flukes we saw in the air. Now I'm back in my cabin, with a hot chocolate and whiskey, editing photos before hitting the sack.

Mind you, it is approaching midnight, and it looks like it will be an epic sunset tonight....

Thursday January 3: The Antarctic Peninsula Approaches:

"Here be dragons" is what ancient cartographers wrote on this area of their maps. I dunno about dragons, but there sure are plenty of penguins.



This morning we went ashore at Paulet Island, home of a huge rookery of Adélie penguins, and plenty of Weddell seals. What a fine way to spend a morning. IAATO rules state that you must never go closer than 5 meters to any wildlife. However, if you get somewhat near a group of penguins, and sit or lie down, they will often approach you, to check you out. I had many different Adelies within 2 feet of me, and one actually ran into me while jumping out of the water! God, they are silly creatures. Few things in life are funnier to watch then penguins in a hurry, doing a form of speed-waddling.

After a nice lunch of pizza, salad and soup, we had a couple of hours of free time. Now we are preparing to anchor off of Bahia de la Esperanza (Hope Bay), where the Argentinians maintain a year-around scientific staff. We'll get to tour the base, learn a bit about the science projects, and perhaps send some mail home.

Esperanza is actually on the Antarctic Peninsula. So for the purists out there, this is the day on which I officially arrived on my own personal Continent #6.

We got to meet the Colonel who was in charge of the base, and he gave us a personal tour of his command. They have a full little city there. Even though they have less than 100 residents, they have a carpentry shop, auto shop, church, and pizza place. (Argentinian military tradition requires that Saturday be pizza and beer night, at all of their bases worldwide.) I got to chat with the guys at the cabinet shop, plus the chef, and a couple of the younger students. None of them said that it was difficult or boring, though the girls did miss the presence of boys for dating.

The center of the base was a soccer field. I asked the Colonel about it, and he said "We *are* Argentinians, after all!" Mind you, when I was there, the penguins were using the field for their own waddling version of wind-sprints. (Photo credit: www.matthewfocht.com )

Wednesday January 2: Drake's Passage is past; first landing: South Shetlands (Half Moon Island)

Sleeping better now, only needed one sleeping pill. Seem to have lost my patch somewhere, so will try going au naturale for a bit, and see how my stomach reacts.

Today we hope to send landing parties to the Shetland Islands, specifically Half Moon Island. Dinner may be delayed so we can have as much time on shore as possible. Most of the passengers are below decks now, preparing their wet weather gear for the landing. As I look out my porthole, I see land very close by, off to port. Perhaps it is one of the early Shetlands.

Just before lunch today, the first icebergs were sighted. Pretty amazing. This brings home the concept that we really are in Antarctica.



We are now pulling into one of the Shetland Islands, to let off a passenger who has a family emergency back home. I'm heading topside to test the adequacy of my gear, and to watch the process of exchanging personnel.

Kudos to Shane, our expedition leader. He and my roommie Mariano took the departing passenger to shore at Half Moon Island, and transferred her to an Argentina-bound ship there. By doing it that way, she was able to set foot on an Antarctic island, and see penguins from a few feet away. Very thoughtful way to handle her early departure.

That departure led to a reshuffling of crew quarters. By dumb luck, I now have a single!

At the debriefing talk this evening, they said that we'd reach the Antarctic peninsula by 4am tomorrow. The very long days with little sleep start tomorrow. And tomorrow will be my day to officially reach my personal "Continent Number Six!"

Note the photos: one of my cabin, one of my desk (the to-read pile is already growing unreasonably), and one of the necessary gear for a day trip, laid out on my bunk.

Note #2: Now that we have sailed out of the area, I can point out that today we were almost exactly where the MS Explorer sank a couple of months ago. In the Bransfield Strait, right between the Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. So far, we seem to have done fine. But it is all a bit spooky to think about.

Tuesday January 1, New Year's Day on the Drake's Passage:

The ship has started to roll substantially, now that we are in Drake's passage. My seasickness patches seem to be doing a fine job. But it was very, very difficult to get to sleep last night. I tossed and turned till after 40m. Perhaps I will get better accustomed to the sea and have better luck sleeping in the next few days.

Grabbed a chocolate croissant and coffee in the galley, since I slept thru breakfast. Will need to be on an early schedule in Antarctica, so trying to catch up on sleep before we get there.

NYE was fun, but really mellow. The ship provided free Champagne for everyone. Shane our expedition leader gave a few toasts in the bar galley. I was actually up on the top deck, outside, watching our exit from the Beagle Channel, and our entry into the Drakes Passage and the Southern Ocean. Absolutely amazing.

Monday December 31, New Year's Eve on a ship in the Southern Ocean!

NYE Morning report: Doh! I apparently was very sleep deprived still. I set the alarm for 8, and it went off, but I woke up at 11am. No time to shower, just a quick coffee and onto the phones. Damn cool of Javier at the Martin Fierro B&B to let me tie up his phone all morning.

Amazingly the Antarctica tourism office says there is still a berth available on the cozy Sholkalskiy. They give me the contact number for the local agent. I end up emailing and phoning my contacts in the Quark marketing department, back in the USA and in Toronto. My main contact is out of the office, but the rest of the staff gamely figures out the situation, and by 2:30pm I am approved to be on the boat. Problem: Boarding is at 4pm, and I need a doctor's note, a travelers insurance policy, to pack, to buy supplies, and to be at the port in 90 minutes. I shift into "git 'er done" mode, and make it to the gangplank mere minutes before the scheduled departure. Yeah baby!



After dropping my bags, I spend some time on deck watching USH fade away. From the deck, we spot a rainbow over Ushuaia. An auspicious sign, I suspect!

Welcome / safety talk: Wash hands, one hand for the ship, see Doctor at first sign of problem, take sea sickness medicine way early. We depart around 5pm, and should make the scary Drake Passage by midnight, on New Years Eve!

Apparently my late arrival, while not my fault, held up the ship from clearing customs and departing. They almost left without me. How sad would that have been! They were announcing my name over the loud-speaker a lot, so now I have some sort of odd fame on the ship. Must be sure not to be late to anything for the rest of the voyage....

Good dinner, overseen by Austrian hospitality manager Angela, who used to cook at African game lodges. I tried to eat light, since I don't yet know how my stomach will do in the "Drake Shakes."

Fellow passengers are very friendly. Quite a few Americans of all ages, and Aussies, with Italians, South Africans and Brits mixed in. I'm taking a bit of grief for making the boat late, and it is suggested that I could make it up to the ship by buying a round of drinks. Sheesh, that's 100 people, pax and crew included. Will have to find a more creative way to make things right.

Given my weird status here as both passenger and consultant for Quark, I get a lot of questions. Also some benefits. For instance, I am bunking with Mariano from Buenos Aires, the ship historian. He brought a portable sound system on board, and I brought my iPod, full of music. We are clearly the party cabin. Thanks for the music, Katie!

The ship is starting to roll ever so slightly, we must be getting nearer the Drake Passage. The bow-to-stern pitch is supposed to be very obvious once we get there. Forecast calls for moderate, 25 knot winds, with swells from 3-5 meters. That is considered an easy crossing, though I wouldn't yet dare surf waves that big. The expedition leader Shane has seen 20 meter waves here, that is twice as long as the 30 foot boats I grew up sailing. Yikes!

10:30pm -- finishing blogging for the night, shifting to the bar for a little NYE cheer. Yeah baby! Myself and one other adventurer scaled the flying bridge, to toast the Antarctic sunset and the New Year at the same time. Not a bad way to do it, though ships' ladders can be challenging when you have a flute of Champagne in one hand.

Sunday December 30: Wheelin' and Dealin' in Ushuaia:

When my hostel owner heard that I do consulting in marketing and PR for travel companies, he suggested we do a barter deal. He has a beautiful little inn with a great vibe, so I'll be happy to help him promote it. And since I have lots of free time while waiting for my ship to come in, it makes economic sense as well. Yay free lodging!

Restaurant food here is pretty expensive, almost San Francisco prices in the main tourist areas. I've been exploring Ushuaia on foot each day, so

I thought that vegetables might actually be non-existent here, but it turns out there is a vegetarian restaurant in USH. As excited about Argentinian parrilla (BBQ) as I am, I'm already sensing a need for a little dietary balance, so will probably check out the veggie place in the next few days.

Took a walk around town today, starting to get to know it. I had lunch at the Corner Cafe, or some such. $15US for breaded beef cutlet, fries, a smoothie and a coffee. Not brutally expensive, but not good value. OTOH, they had WiFi, which I needed. Later I explored more. Found the supermarket, and stocked up on fruit, juice, and toys for Javier's cute German shepherd puppy, Diana. She knows no tricks, I will see if I can teach her to fetch. (Yes, I miss my kitty! )

On the way back to Javier's place, I stopped at the Freestyle Backpackers Hostel. They are just up the hill from the Martin Fierro, and have crazy panoramic windows looking out from one of their big common rooms out onto the Beagle Channel. One of the coolest hostels I have ever visited. Great vibe, good common areas, friendly fellow travelers shared wine and even cooked me dinner. I stayed there chatting from 4pm to 1am!

I met a guy named No-Neck there. He's a bit of an eccentric Bohemian 30-something from Brooklyn. And true to his nickname, he appears to have no neck. He is here on a mission, which is explained at his blog: http://luckofseven.com .



Not only is No-Neck on a mission too, he is on the SAME mission as I am: to make it to Antarctica for free or cheap. He has been trying the standby thing for 2 weeks now, and not found anything less than $4500 or $5000 per person. I think that prices went up this year. And with tight supply caused by the sinking of the Explorer ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7108835.stm ) and the damage and time to repair another, berths on exploration vessels are in short supply this year. Lovely.

No-Neck is trying to trade chef skills and videographer skills for his passage, on any kind of ship. I wish him well, and think he might actually pull this off. His odds are probably best if he keeps making the rounds of the 14 to 20-meter steel yachts that take small groups of pax out to Antarctica under sail. What an adventure that would be!

When I got back from the Freestyle, I stayed up till 4am tonight, researching ships. I need to lock in a trip tomorrow, so I can make my plans for January. The Akademik Shokalskiy ( http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/our-fleet/akademik-shokalskiy ) is my first choice, with less than 50 pax, it will offer the most personal experience. And much shorter loading times, we should all fit in 4 or 5 Zodiak-style inflateable rafts. The going rate is about $8200/pp for a twin bunk, shared bath. Wow! But it is also run by Quark Expeditions, a company with whom I have been discussing a marketing consulting gig since early 2007. Sailing with them will be a good way to learn their product. And if a spot is open on a standby basis, they may even let me take that berth as part of our consulting arrangement. Will call first thing in the morning to lock down a trip on the Shokalskiy, the Ioffe, or the cheapest option, the Andrea at $4150.

Saturday December 29: Trust But Verify (that they are really trying to find your luggage):

I've made 30 calls to airport to find my luggage, but had zero luck getting the bastards to answer the damn phone. Finally, I had to take a little bicycle trip to the airport, so I could, ehem, get their attention. They freaked out a bit that I had come to pay them a visit. Which was good, since I was really ready for a change of clothes. Yep, turns out my luggage had been found, and sent to USH, where it was laying on the top of a mountain of lost luggage, each piece labeled "RUSH." Wonder when I would have gotten it if I had just waited around.

Friday December 28: Hola, Argentina!

I arrived successfully in Buenos Aires, Argentina (BA), sleeping like a baby over the whole flight. I needed that! Here in BA it is pleasantly warm out, high 70s or so. Excellent. I did some investigating, and decide to shuttle over to the domestic airport, to try to get a standby space to USH. On the third and last flight of the day, I got the very last seat on the plane. That's a sign of things to come, I hope.

From the BA airport, I sent 2 emails to recommended hostels in USH. Upon arrival in USH, and while waiting for them to find my bags, I checked email. Awesome, one of my top choices has a room. I'll stay at the Martin Fierro B&B, in the exact room that my guidebook's author uses when he is in town. (Thanks for the recommendation, Wayne B!)

Eventually, it is clear that Aerolineas Argentinas has absolutely no idea where my bags are, even though they are tagged with bar codes. And they wonder why I generally refuse to check luggage! We filled out forms, and the airport manager promised my bags would be delivered to my hotel by noon the next day. We'll see. Meanwhile, it is almost midnight now, time to go find my bed.

The Martin Fierro is run by Javier, a somewhat eccentric lawyer, builder, and modern-day gaucho. He built the entire inn himself, by hand, using natural and even reclaimed historic building materials. Awesome spot, I will stay here a few more days after my expedition to Antarctica.

Once Javier heard that I am a writer, he insisted that I take the "writer's room." It has a little bay window with a desk that looks out over the port of Ushuaia:



Apparently this is the exact desk from which Moon Handbooks author Wayne Bernhardson does his Ushuaia updates.

On the way to the Martin Fierro, I stopped to buy toothpaste and a toothbrush. The same place also had a small 24 hour restaurant, for the taxi drivers. I'll be back to check that out at some point.

Thursday December 27, D-DAY !!!

I stayed up all night packing and prepping, and got maybe 1 hour sleep, by accident. I was lucky to wake up, but that rogue nap cost me a $60 cab fare to the airport, to make up for lost time. I only made my plane by 5 minutes, but I did indeed make it.