Bound for Ushuaia, Argentina

A map of our journey created by the resident artist Yvonne Ankerman which was raffled off to raise money for Planeterra.

The stairs from our deck 2 to deck 4.

And deck 3 looking down to deck 2.

Heading into the Beagle Channel.

The eroded face of a moraine left by glaciation from the last ice age.

Jonathan Green, our Expedition leader saying his goodbyes.

Our captain saying his too.

The 'hotel' manager Gabor thanking us and giving his reflections.

And last but not least John Kernan wraps it up.

The view of Ushuaia as we come into port.

Bruce, John and I sharing a last bottle of red at 'our' table for the last meal.

Blaise's final concert accompanied by another passenger.

The Ushuaia skyline at night.

Monday, November 11^th.

Today was a long sailing day across the Drake Passage. This in notoriously known as one of the roughest seas in the world and has sunk many ships. They have a t-shirt for sale on board that says ‘I survived the Drake Shake’, but it was very calm for us. The crew now referred to it as the ‘Drake Lake’.

We spent the morning packing, relaxing, reflecting and preparing for the end of the trip. At 11 there was a short moment of silence and some reflection from Jonathan.

In the afternoon the Expedition team presented an hour long ‘Variety Hour’ on four different topics:

Hella Martens about Orca.

There are many different types of Orca and scientists today are trying figure out if they are different species. From the photos they look to be quite different in size, markings and colour. Here is who she described them:

The southern Orca:

Large Type A: large, 10 metres long. Prey on minke whales.

Large Type B: little smaller and prey on Weddell seals with coordinated wave attacks on seals resting on ice floes. They train their young in this technique.

Smaller Type A preys on penguins and seals.

Smaller Type B smallest type at 6 metres and eat toothfish. Very little known about them.

It is very hard to do research down here studying any of the different types because of the remoteness, potential weather conditions and expense.

There are very different types in the North Atlantic.

Type 1 Prey of herring around Norway.

Type 2 Orcas and humpbacks hunt together in Norway fjords. They have film of this behaviour from helicopters with the Orca schooling the fish and the humpbacks taking the lions share.

They are different again in the North Pacific.

Northern resident feeds on salmon – chinook predominantly.

Southern resident pods are failing because of lack of salmon.

Marine eating type are more transients – preying on seals and dolphins. In order to do that they hunt in small groups silently, no clicks as dolphins use the same type of communication and this would alert them.

Another type has learned to beach themselves to catch fur seal and elephant seal pups on Arctic islands, but apparently only a few know how to do this as it is inherently dangerous as they can get stranded and die.

Orcas are very intelligent, using learned behaviour, living in matriarchal units, and they share food together.

Mario Placidi Spring gave a personal speech about his experiences called Arctic Moments.

Gave a personal speech about his experiences in the arctic on the island Longyearbyen in the Svalbard Archipelago/Spitzbergen of Norway. He talked about hiking, skiing, mountain climbing in the winter and all of the animal life including polar bears.

Keith Mountain was up next with:

Arctic/Antarctica Polar Contrasts

Antarctic defined as it is the limit of the sea ice, and therefore grows and shrinks year by year and season by season.

It includes all land south of 60 degrees of latitude and is surrounded by the Antarctic Convergence. Unlike the Arctic it is land surrounded by sea. It is the highest of all continents in altitude if you average out its whole area. The South pole is over 9000 ft, or 2743 m above sea level. Icebergs brake off glaciers that flow out to the sea and are often tabular and huge!

There are no resident mammals. There are only two types of plants and one small resident insect. Temperatures are extreme and often reach -50 with raging storms. Antarctica has more ice to melt and if it did it would radically change sea levels and salinity. If it all melted there would only be a series of islands left at the south pole. The whole continent has been set aside for peaceful cooperation and scientific research.

The Arctic is not so easy to define and often delineated as the northern limit of the tree line. It is ocean surrounded by land. The North pole about 1 m above sea level. Icebergs are irregular and smaller. There are many different spieces of year-round mammals and lots of flowering plants. The average temperature is about -18. Ice melting would not change sea levels or salinity because the ice already displaces itself, except for the glaciers on Greenland. Many nations make territorial claims to the arctic including Canada, Norway, Russia and others. As the Northwest Passage continues to open, other countries will be interested in the route and the oil and resources of the north.

So what do the Arctic and Antarctic share?

Extensive ecology. They share all conditions of rock type and geology. Both formed from plate tectonics. They have a similar history of whaling and resource exploration and exploration for minerals. They have both been explored for national prestige. Both are major controllers of the global climate system and both are experiencing the impacts of climate, although the Arctic more so, so far.

Bismarck Sommerfelt gave a presentation about Beagle Channel.

This is the channel between the continent and islans at the southern end of South America. It was originally called Onashaga by the Yaganes natives. They were a tribe of short stocky people who lived naked.

The explorer Robert Fitz Roy (1805-1865) was the first to sail through it on the Beagle, hence the name. Charles Darwin was on that voyage. It is 280 km long and quite protected from bad weather.

Last up was a repeat concert by Blaise of the songs he did at the church at Gritvykin.

We arrived at Ushuaia about 7 pm, just as we were having the Captain’s Farewell Address. We were introduced to all the staff and employees behind the scenes. Speeches were made, Jonathan and John had many nice things to say about us as a group and the trip and the weather. John actually said ‘If you want better weather, don’t come back!’

For dinner I had chateau-briande, after which Blaise played his final show and did a rendition of Novocaine for the Soul, by the Eels for me. We had a good time hanging out with our new friends and then just before heading off to bed on the top bunk for the last time, I headed up on the top deck (7) to take a few photos of the city at night. Nice and mild, beautiful weather. Really sad to see it come to an end. It was everything I could have hoped for and more.