Antarctica Stories and Tips

Quote: Chapter One - Starting from the End of the WorldThe day after Christmas, we boarded the plane from Puenta Arenas to Ushuaia, awaiting our much anticipated New Year cruise to Antarctica. The flight over the Tierra del Fuego region was cloudy but beautiful with verdant…

Quote: The Antarctic continent belongs, in theory, to the entire Humankind and can not be exploited for commercial purposes, but the following seven countries have pretensions to it: Argentina, Chile, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and France. USA has the greatest scientific base in the…

Quote: We made two stops on the following day, Peterman Island and Pleneau Island. Both were home to large penguin colonies. The penguins were nesting and several chicks had recently hatched. The penguin rookeries stink of poop, though you get used to it after a while.…

Quote: In the passage between Antarctica proper and a chain of ice covered islands, lies the Gerlache Strait. Named for a Belgian Antarctic explorer, this body of water is an ice-clogged channel that offers spectacular views sure to make even the most self-assured person feel small.Your…

Quote: Our cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula departed from Ushuaia, Argentina. We only spent one day there. I wanted to make sure that we had enough time to make the ship's departure, even if there were flight delays. You can't catch up with ships headed south…

Quote: We awoke each morning to Dutch's (our Australian expedition leader) gentle prodding to get out of bed because there was something amazing to look at outside. This morning we threw on some clothes and went out on to the bow, where the crew was serving…

Quote: Neko Harbor was first discovered by Adrien de Gerlache’s Belgian expedition of 1897-99. The name of the harbor comes from a Norwegian floating whaling factory ship. The ship, Neko, operated in the harbor for many of the seasons between 1911 and 1924. Neko Harbor…

Quote: De Gerlache charted the island in the 1890s. The island was named after the expedition’s geophysicist, Émile Danco, who died in the Antarctic. In the 1950s, a hut named Base O was built by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, which later became the…

Quote: I awoke on Christmas morning to the beauty of Paradise Bay (officially Paradise Harbor). The water looked like a mirror reflecting the mountains and glaciers. Paradise Bay was the most naturally colorful place I saw in Antarctica. During my 2-hour Zodiac cruise,…

Quote: Esperanza was established in 1951. In 1977, the Argentine government began sending women and children to Antarctica. One of the women brought in was seven months pregnant. On January 7, 1978, Emilio Marcos de Palma was the first baby born in Antarctica.…