The ship's navigation table holds two nautical charts. The charts both show these waters have not been surveyed. The captain relies on a heading of depth soundings. This channel is new to him, though he's sailed the Antarctic many, many times.
Snow falls heavy on the ship and dusk sets in about us. Our visibility is greatly reduced. The falling flakes quickly accumulate on the bridge windows. We can barely see the icebergs that fill the channel ahead. Each obstruction is clearly illuminated by the ship's radar. The screen shows the icebergs in frigid orange. The monitor is suddenly dominated by a large orange obstruction. The ice is only three kilometers from us.
Waiting until the one kilometer mark, the captain whispers his order. The ship changes direction with the adept handling of the helmsman. A tabular iceberg, which can only be seen in this region, looms like a ghost through the fog and snow. The top is flat and extremely wide, and the sides can rise straight up over one hundred feet.
Antarctica has amazed me again. We are heading to the Antarctic Circle in our polar class cruise vessel. We'll pass some of the most desolate and inhospitable areas in this world as we travel. It took an additional 79 years for someone to winter over on Antarctica after it was found in 1820. Explorers searching for the southern pole struggled and scientists were the next to approach Antarctica. It used to be that only very rich individuals could come to Antarctica, that's changed. You could experience Antarctica for about the same cost as visiting a Caribbean island.
A manta ray with a curved tail is a little bit like what Antarctica looks like. The manta ray's tail extends to within 500 miles of South America. The area is known for its perpetually bad seas and is called Drakes Passage. Reaching Antarctica by passing through this area, which has also been called the 'Slobbering Jaws of Hell', is difficult, but worthwhile. The matronly passenger told us to make sure our gear was well-stowed and our cabin portholes were securely latched before retiring to bed.
Having left Ushuaia, the Argentine city on Tierra del Fuego we came through the smooth Beagle Channel and found open ocean. For two days we saw no land. We were tossed mightily by rough seas that whole time. Strong, nearly gale-force winds blew at us for those two days. As waves crashed over the ship's bow, spray bulleted past my fourth deck window. A passenger's seasickness greatly affected the height of the swells he or she saw. Some reported swells between fifteen and forty feet.
Two days out from South America brought us into the Southern Ocean. A coastal sanctuary was my first view the next morning. Though still not smooth, the waters seemed to be a bit sedated by the land mass. Clouds dressed mile-high mountain peaks. The smooth, white glaciers showed stark contrast from the dark, angular mountains that stuck through them. The ice found its way to the sea in cracked and frozen slabs. The mountains, which looked they could house Everest, appeared to jump straight up from the sea.
One passenger thought that childbirth's labor was similar to our efforts to reach Antarctica. Compared to all the other seven continents, Antarctica is the windiest, coldest, driest and highest. Antarctica's polar plateau gets the same amount of precipitation as Death Valley, but the continent holds 70 percent of all the freshwater we have on earth. This land is owned by no person, and has no human population, nor do animals live year round here.
Sailing routes are determined by the weather, as are shore landings. We are able to stick to our initial schedule, even though we've been warned to be very flexible in our expectations. We've been assigned groups and told to meet on deck. An inflatable boat hauls my group of ten across the water. Land is a mere quarter mile from the ship. And then, with one simple step, I am in the small group of humans who has ever touched Antarctic ice.
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