15th February 2017 Antarctica - The Journey Begins

15^th February  2017 Farewell to Ushuaia, The Most Southerly Town on Earth.

Regrettably up bright and early today as the ship needed to collect our luggage to get it loaded despite the ship not sailing until 4.00pm.

When you are at the end of the earth, there are not many options for killing time so we went back into downtown Ushuaia, essentially one long street, to have a last look round before we had to board our ship, the Akademik Ioffe.  Made some last minute weather proof purchases, although here, there seems to be little else to buy than toy or model penguins and “end of the world” tee shirts.

We ended at the docks to see our ship and at the dock entrance, to get to it, you had to pass a hand painted sign saying   “El Amarre De Los Buques Pirates Ingleses”.  Our Spanish was not good but we think they were obviously congratulating the English on the success in the Falklands campaign….or something like that!

The end of the world

Finally, there was the Akademik Ioffee, Iooking very big, very blocky, very white and decidedly Russian. This was originally a Russian Antarctic survey ship and the company is still actively involved with Antarctic research. It runs about 18 trips a year to the Antarctic only, plus others to the Antarctic and other islands like South Georgia and the Falklands.

We were both unusually nervous, this was taking us outside our comfort zone.

Akademik Ioffe (right) - our temporary home for 10 days

Soon 4pm came round and we went to the check-in location where we met for the first time the other 94 passengers. Janette spent the time working out that there were definitely several people older and less agile than her!  We were then all checked in, our passports removed and taken by bus to the ship, some 300 yards only…well it’s a small town!  Whilst there were 94 passengers, there were over 70 crew.

When we got to the dockside gang-plank, we were full of excitement along with a distinct dose of fear and trepidation as we learnt that the trip that had just come back had gone through a severe storm on the Drakes Passage with 30ft waves demolishing the entire bar and bar glasses which was not what Janette wanted to hear.

Once on board we immediately went up to the top deck to watch us cast off and head down the Beagle Channel leaving Ushuaia behind us. Last land we’ll see for 1000km until we reach the Antarctic.  We left the last town on earth and now we were on our way to the least visited, hostile environment but the most spectacular place on earth.

Bye Bye World - Nice knowing you

Once underway we settled into our cosy little cabin (bathroom like a caravan where you can shower whilst sitting on the toilet) and unpacked (first time in 10 days). Just thinking about making some tea when a voice invaded our room. This was Canadian Boris on the tannoy, our expedition leader bringing us all down for a briefing.

Once they’d explained what we needed to know for the next few days, it was time for dinner.  The dining room is the only place all passengers can fit into and while it is a bit like school dinners, it’s a great way to get to know the other passengers and we made friends with many nationalities but in the end stuck with a couple from Australia.

Not many Brits, lots of Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. Our first dinner was spent talking to a polar marine mammals PHD scientist who is on board with 2 colleagues from Australia to track and biopsy whales. Just fascinating and there were many scientists.  We just hoped that we were not going to be asked to harpoon a tag to a whale.

It now seems as though the company we are travelling with, take a lot of scientists, explorers, mountaineers and specialists of one sort or another.

Later, and now at the start of the Drakes Passage, in what they were calling calm weather, we realised what the trip was going to be like as by 8.00pm and before we had ever got to the bar, we had probably collided with every wall and passenger on the ship and 94 people were all wobbling and holding onto the walls as the boat rocked from side to side and front to back.  We have no internet or no phone in this part of the world, weather forecasts are notoriously unreliable (irrelevant) so we decided to just go with the flow.

Testing the Foul Weather Gear...and sweating

A quick night cap then off to bed. The rock and roll of the ship was just bearable and after washing but trying hard not to fall into the toilet, we fell asleep being gently rocked although clearly many had already fallen victim to sea sickness and people were starting to sport patches behind their ears. We were warned however not to be lulled into a false sense of security as we now have over 2 full days at sea crossing the notoriously rough Drakes Passage