Antarctica: On Our Way

Friday morning we had to bring bags to the hotel lobby, where Quark staff would pick them up to transfer them to the ship. Then, after breakfast, we boarded buses for a tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have enjoyed this tour a lot more, but I was really chomping at the bit to start the “real” portion of the trip. They needed the day, however, to clean the ship and get everything set for our arrival, since they only arrived back from their previous voyage that morning! (The crew gets a whole four hours of free time in Ushuaia between sailings!)

I don't remember a lot about the park tour, but here are a few random pictures from it.

The sign in the last photo illustrates the farthest point south that you can drive on the Trans-America Highway, which begins in Alaska.

The one thing I do remember from the tour concerns, of all things, the Canadian beaver. At one point in history, somebody introduced 25 breeding pairs of beavers into the park—today there are more than 100,000! And even though they're an ecological pest, they've also become somewhat of a tourist symbol for the area, which explains this encounter I had had while shopping in Ushuaia:

After the tour, we went for a typical Argentinian asada or barbecue. The most popular fare is the lamb, although they also served steak and chicken. It was at the lunch that I really realized how small our group was. There were only 46 of us going on the trip (the ship can take 48 passengers, but there were a couple of last-minute cancellations). So we all fit on two long table setups.

After lunch, we were taken back to Ushuaia's main street for any last-minute purchases, and at 4:00 we reboarded the bus to take us to the ship, our home for the next ten days.

Our ship was the Akademik Shokalskiy, originally a Russian research vessel. It had five decks—Julie's and my cabin was on the third.

There we found our expedition parkas (with a removable fleece layer inside), which we would be keeping after the trip, and our gumboots, which were being lent to us for the duration (making it a lot easier to pack, I must say!).

Almost immediately, we were called down to the lecture room to be introduced to some of the staff and be briefed on the mandatory lifeboat drill that would be happening shortly.

My guess is that until a couple of months ago, passengers didn't take the drill too seriously, but after the Explorer sank, they paid a lot more attention to it! (Funny side note: When that ship hit an iceberg, I told people I thought it was a good sign for my trip, because the odds of it happening twice in one season had to be infinitesimal. Turns out, though, that another ship did collide with some ice while we were down there. They only sustained minor damage, and I hadn't even heard about it until I got home, but still... weird.

The drill went totally smoothly. It was really cramped inside our enclosed lifeboat, but I figured that had to be better than what the Explorer survivors had gone through in their open boats, so I wasn't complaining!

Once the drill was over, we all headed to the bar for a welcome reception as the ship prepared to leave dock. At long last, we were ready to start our exciting voyage to the frozen continent. Yay!

Next installment: The dreaded Drake.