Travelin' Geezers (TM): Antarctica, Here I Come!

I flew into Ushuaia on the morning of Oct 31, arriving in the morning. They let me check into my room early, so I didn't have to worry about my bags, but I still wasn't getting my parka until boarding the cruise, and it was feeling a bit chilly, at around 50 degrees F with a significant wind and a little bit of periodic sprinkling rain. So, I decided to stay in mostly – until I started running low on water. The hostel owner explained that they really only have one public bus line in town, and although they have some different letters and pretend they are different, all busses take the same route and go the same direction. To take the bus from my hostel to the city center, I would have to ride almost all the way to the national park before doubling back and returning to town. That would take about 30-45 minutes, and most people can walk it in 25-30. I would also need a bus card, which turns out to be the same Sube card I got in Buenos Aires. So, I put on one of my new thermal shirts, emptied almost everything out of my camera bag, and headed to town. My cruise group was planning to get together for dinner, so I decided I'd catch the bus from the center of town after getting some water. Google Maps doesn't recognize public transportation in Ushuaia (or maybe Ushuaia doesn't recognize Google Maps), so while waiting in my room, I downloaded the Moovit app, and found the routes. It was a nice, but uneventful walk into town, which didn't take long at all. I left my camera in the hostel. The plan is to tour around Ushuaia when I returned from Antarctica. Besides, my SD card was clean, and I didn't want to worry about saving Ushuaia pictures while in Antarctica! So, while walking, I just scoped out where various things were, maybe thinking about the angles to shoot them, etc. After I got to town, I stopped in a cafe and had a hot chocolate, then walked down to the bus stop. The app said I needed to take bus G or C to get where I was going. Based on what the hostel owner had told me, I decided to step onto the first bus that came by, bus A, and ask. The driver looked at the stop I pointed out on the app, said he went there, and set my fare on the Sube machine. It was one of the shortest and most expensive bus rides I had had yet! Still cheaper than a taxi, and Uber doesn't operate in Ushuaia. It was still only 40-ish pesos, so at the blue exchange, about 15 cents.

I got to the restaurant early, but they let me in. Neill was already there, and I finally got to meet him in person along with the rest of the group. We've had a WhatsApp group for a couple of months and had a Zoom meeting earlier. We have about 20 people in our group, and we all tend to get along quite well. We ate family style, with the restaurant just bringing out various selections and us passing them around. Finally, Neill pointed out why he chose this restaurant. He said it only works for the first group of the season, which is us. On the horizon, clearing customs to leave Chile, was our ship, the Ocean Victory. We all ran to the window to get pix of it. At that moment, I wished I had brought my camera. But I have some crappy pictures taken from my phone of my first in-person sighting of the Ocean Victory.

We all got to know each other, asked a lot of questions about what to expect on the ship, learned what the process was for dropping off luggage and boarding the ship, and just had a wonderful time. It was a nice party. Finally, we started to disperse. It was late enough that the busses were either not running or running a reduced, slower schedule, so we all started calling cabs. Most people were staying close to the city center, but my hostel was close to the airport. I figured I would just have my own cab, but low and behold, another girl from the group was also staying at the same hostel. She cab fare got cut in half. Once we got to the hostel, it turns out, she was in the room beside mine! So we got into our rooms and had a good sleep for the night. One more sleep until boarding the ship!

When the big day arrived, I was up early. My new friend and I had already decided to share a cab to the drop off point, so after grabbing some continental breakfast offerings, we headed to the office where we were supposed to drop our luggage. We were the first luggage droppers of the season! But that left me with several hours to kill before time to board the bus to the boat. Keep in mind that not only do I have no coat, but my camera bag is packed to the hilt, and it is HEAVY in that state! So, I decided to take a city tour on the prisoner train! So much for not taking pix of Ushuaia until I got back from Antarctica! There was lots of beautiful scenery, and I learned quite a bit about the penal history of the island of Tierra del Fuego province. We did stop for a few photo ops, and I had fun talking with other passengers. My Spanglish is getting pretty good!

When the tour was over, I ducked into the same cafe as yesterday and had a strawberry juice and an order of french fries until time to head to the bus.

Upon boarding, I went to my cabin, staked out my bed (closest to the balcony) and waited to meet my roommate. Now, I had upgraded to a balcony cabin after getting back from Alaska, and Neill said that Albatross had booked the other half of my room instead of him, so my roommate wouldn't be part of our group. So I waited, and when the mandatory evacuation drill came along (which can only be done after all passengers are boarded), I asked my stateroom attendant if he could find out if there was anybody else coming to my stateroom. By the time we finished the drill and I got back to my room, he confirmed that there was no one else expected in my double balcony stateroom! I got the whole thing to myself! No need to pull those pajama bottoms out after all! There is nobody in this room to be upset because I leave the curtains open whenever I'm in the stateroom, even overnight. There is nobody to be woken up if the mask of my BiPAP breaks its seal and makes that god-awful racket that may be worse than snoring. There is nobody in the room to get upset when I fart in my sleep. And there is nobody in my room to be concerned about when my nightgown decides to ride up!

For those that are interested, the double balcony staterooms are plus-sized friendly. I have not been cramped at all in the bathroom or shower. Beds are a large twin, and there are plenty of drawers and closet space.

Once the drills were complete we though we would leave. That, however, was not meant to be. The wind had kicked up, and we had to wait for it to die down some before pulling out, which finally did happen in the middle of dinner. Dinner was pretty good. I had French onion soup as a starter, prime rib, potato, and brussel sprouts for my entree, and a cookie/cake type thing for dessert.

After dinner, we had a parka party, where we got our parkas for the expedition. These are ours to keep. They're really nice jackets, too! After getting my jacket, I was able to mostly finish unpacking, take a nice shower, and settle in for a nice sleep - until about 2:00. We have now entered the Drake Passage. I don't know exactly when we entered it. All I know is the ship was rocking and rolling, and there were huge waves outside my balcony. My door – on Deck 6, no less – was wet, and there was a small rivulet of water draining off my balcony. I don't think the waves crashed up that high, but that water came from somewhere! I had put on a scopalamine patch the night before, so I don't know if I would have gotten seasick from it, but the patch seemed to be working. I checked the ship map on the TV. Yup. We were in the Drake, and it definitely wasn't the “Drake Lake”. I was interested in whether the crew would considerate this the “Drake Shake”. But, they were probably still asleep, so I went back to dreamland, too. The ship's movement woke me about every hour until I finally got up around 4.

I stumbled around the ship, going up the see what was on upper decks. I finally ended up on the back of my deck, where the birds were having a wonderful time. Surrounding me was a group of birders. A bird watching group called the Rock Jumpers was also on this cruise. So as I took my pictures, I actually new what I was shooting, and they would point out the differences to me. My favorites were the little petrels, especially the Cape petrel. I took lots of pictures. One of their leaders told me to put it on burst and auto focus continuous and hope for a couple of good shots out of many. Now we can see if I retained anything I learned that morning so long ago!

This one is a giant petrel.

This is the grey-headed albatross

This is the grey-headed albatross on the top (backdrop=sky) with the giant petrel on the bottom (backdrop=water)

This is another grey-headed albatross

This is a black-browed albatross

And this is a rainbow from the spray the wind was blowing off the waves!

Finally, I went back inside and up for breakfast, where I learned that many of our group were sick and would not be joining us for many of the days activities. Today's mandatory lectures were on IAATO (the group that controls tourism in Antarctica) preservation rules and guidelines for visitors of Antarctica and zodiac safety. The zodiacs are the boats that will take us from the ship to the land or that will ferry us around to look at the marine life, icebergs, and glaciers that are in the water instead of land. Discretionary lectures were about the birds of the Drake Passage and beginning photography. I learned a lot. Around lunchtime, I mentioned to Neill that I had never been able to take a picture of a bird in flight, so he took my camera, made some settings changes, and told me to try that. And there they will stay – potentially for the rest of my natural life! As the trip progressed, I learned the ideal settings for birds in flight are shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second, which is just where Niell set them.

During our daily trip briefing, we were informed that we were heading into a storm. This storm would make our planned landings on the South Shetland Islands (basically the barrier islands for the Antarctic peninsula) unsafe, so the captain and expedition crew developed a new plan. Instead of having our first potential for landing tomorrow afternoon, we will continue cruising past the barrier islands and go into the protected coves. This will potentially give us the opportunity to see sea ice and potentially some penguins who tend to be more on the interior of the continent, like the emperor penguin! Some of us (me! me!) were stoked about that. We don't consider that a “booby prize” at all!

As we continued cruising past our planned stop, I kept taking pictures of birds. I think I finally got the hang of getting the clear shots of bird in flight!

The black-browed albatross