Circle Ahead: Very Far South

Two nautical charts are spread out on the nautical table. They showed these waters have yet to be surveyed. Undaunted, the captain uses depth soundings to maintain a safe course. He is a veteran of Antarctic travel, but he’s never been in this channel.

First it turns to dusk, then a heavy snow starts to fall; it is difficult to see. The icebergs that impeded the channel are harder to see as the huge snowflakes stick to the bridge windows. The ship’s radar clearly illustrates each floating barrier.The monitor fills with orange blotches. The monitor shows the channel nearly blocked by one gigantic orange blob. Three kilometers separate the ship from the mass. You need to visit this site to learn about antarctica travel guide.

The captain whispers his command at one kilometer. No one else speaks. With quick response, the helmsman alters the course of the ship. We glimpse a tabular iceberg through the shroud of fog and snow. This is a unique form of iceberg that can only be seen in the southern ocean. These bergs resemble the American plains; they have very flat, wide tops and the sides are straight. They can be over one hundred feet tall.

Not for the first time, has the sheer magnitude of Antarctica stopped me in my tracks. We’d boarded the polar class cruise vessel with the intention of reaching the Antarctic Circle.We will pass the planet’s harshest, least lived-upon areas as we go. It took 79 years after Antarctica was found for someone to winter on the continent. Very soon after that first winter, explorers searched for the South Pole in a deadly quest, scientists followed them.You used to have to be rich to travel to Antarctica. Now, because the price of travel has fallen so much, you can cruise there for about the same amount of money as you could travel in the Caribbean.

You can imagine that Antarctica looks like a manta ray with a curved tail. Five hundred miles of ocean sit between South America and the very end of that curved tail. Rough seas fill this space, which is known as the Drake Passage. You may have also heard it referred to as ‘The Slobbering Jaws of Hell’. Travel through here is a high price to pay to see Antarctica. One nice woman reminds us to stow all of our gear and make sure our cabin portholes are well latched before we retire for the night. Learn about adventure antarctica tours.

After sailing from Ushuaia, in Argentina, we sailed through the Beagle Channel and reached the open ocean. We continued on for two days in very turbulent waters. Gusting winds blew the whole time, and reached near gale force. Like bullets, ocean spray shot past my fourth deck window as numerous waves crashed over the ship’s bow.Depending on how ill one was with seasickness, you could see swells from fifteen to forty feet in size.

Two days of travel brought us to the Southern Ocean. A coastal archipelago was my first view the next morning. The land seemed to have a calming affect on the rough waters. Mile-high mountain summits were draped in clouds. Looking like chocolate spikes through the glacier’s frosting, angular ridges poked up. The ice from the continent cascaded into the waters in a choppy, fissure-filled, dirty slab. Looking like the mountains suddenly jumped from the ocean, they seem tall enough to be home to Mt. Everest or the like.

A passenger thought that traveling to Antarctica reminder her of labor during childbirth. Like a naughty kid, Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest and driest of all the earth’s continents. Holding 70 percent of earth?s fresh water, the polar plateau gets the same amount of precipitation as Death Valley does. This land is not owned, has no indigenous human groups, or animals that stay year round on it.

In this rough environment, shore landings, as well as sailing routes, all depend on the weather. Though we’ve been counseled by the guides to remain flexible, our original shore landing becomes reality. Those groups to which we’ve been assigned meet on deck. My name is called and I climb into the inflatable boat with 9 others. We finally reach the continent after crossing one more quarter mile of sea.Then, with one small step, I am one of the few who have physically touched Antarctica.