So we’ve made it, and set foot on the world’s coldest, driest, and windiest 5th largest continent. It’s just as impressive as I imagined. The part we’re visiting – the Antarctic Peninsula – is packed high with mountains stacked with snow, and all around massive glaciers reach down into the sea. That’s what we look at from our boat at a safe enough distance to allow for glaciers falling and not onto our heads!
Apparently, behind the mountains are more mountains. And more ice. It feels a little odd only because we are so used to arriving somewhere and really getting a good look around. Here there are barriers at every turn, first the floating ice, now the mountains of ice. There are definitely no shopping opportunities (excepting at a few of the Antarctic bases), and scant opportunity to stay overnight. This place is impenetrable not like any other country or continent I have visited before.
But we do get ashore and slowly we start to get a feel for what Antarctic is like. I’ll never forget the sight of penguins zipping in to shore like torpedoes. First you see a lump on the water hurtling towards you then a rushing sound and the penguins comes flying out of the water, now they’re waddling up the hill with maximum intent. It’s a bit like watching penguins materialise already running into thin air. The light is surreal, we shoot a time lapse of icebergs moving around a bay.
Occasionally, when us humans can bear it, you get to experience the incredible silence you’ve only dreamed about – punctuated by sharp noises, distant whale calls, and loud booms as huge chunks of ice fall off into the sea.
We’ve now left our big boat – The Akademic Ioffe – carrying 100 passengers and downsized to a yacht – The Spirit of Sydney – carrying 6. As we get smaller Antarctica feels even bigger. More to come…
Tags: Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica, ice, penguins, whales
