Antarctica - December 3

Saturday, December 2nd

To make the transit from Argentina to Antarctica one must first travel to Ushuaia, Argentina.  Ushuaia claims to be the southern most city in the world and whose slogan is ‘Fin del Mundo’, or ‘End of the World’.

Our day began at 4:00 AM when we rolled out of bed in order to get a transfer from the hotel to the airport.  Breakfast was included and consisted of not much more than rolls, fruit, and juice.  You could either eat at the hotel or take the breakfast with you.

Once breakfast was complete we boarded a bus for a short thirty minute ride to the airport.  The Argentine version of the TSA was fairly easy to navigate.  The agent running the scanner seemed confused as to what she was seeing.  This meant that I would need to open my carry on bag for another agent to confirm I had no dangerous materials.  Upon opening the bag he wanted to see most of what I had packed.  The item that had confused them was my Sonic Care toothbrush.  Once it was located the agent looked at me confused.  I pantomimed brushing my teeth.  He nodded, turned, and went away.  I guessed the inspection was over, repacked my bag, and went on my merry way.  Maybe the first agent had never seen a toothbrush.

Now it’s about 6:00 AM.  Our charter flight was to be around 7:45.  The flight was listed, but no gate had been assigned.  We were all told to simply hang out and wait.  We gabbed with some of the other passengers while waiting.  At 7:40 one of the Viking cruise representatives announced that we now had a gate, although it had still not been listed on the departure board.  We made our way through the gate, onto a bus, and were shuttled to the now waiting Boeing 737 aircraft from Argentine Air.

The flight was fairly trouble free.  We were served a breakfast of a croissant, a small cup of fruit, some dried cereal, some ‘red fruit’ yogurt, and either juice or water.  The meal was decent and the service on board was good.  The one negative on the three hour flight was the line for the restroom.  We were seated in row 28, the next to the last row on the aircraft.  The line began about an hour into the flight and continued until we were making the final descent.  Apparently nobody knew that there was also a restroom at the front of the plane as well as the two aft.

We arrived at Ushuaia about 11:00 AM.  We had to pick up our luggage and have all of it scanned for fruits and vegetables prior to being allowed to continue on our journey.  Since the line was incredibly long the one guy running the scanner simply waived everyone through except for the occasional one unlucky person.  We then deposited our luggage with Viking, who was to load ALL of the luggage onto a truck and send it to the ship.

Once at the port we left the bus and checked aboard.  Check in was simple.  We showed our passports and answered three questions.  Have you tested positive for Covid within the past three days, do you have a temperature, and are you feeling sick today.  If all three answers were ‘no’ then you had successfully checked in as Robin had completed the rest of the check in process on line prior to leaving KC.  We located our cabin and went exploring on the ship what there was and where it would be located.  The ship is the Viking Polaris.  There are less than 380 guests on board making this a relatively small ship.

There have been several briefings.  If you wanted to ride the kayaks or their submersible you had to do ONE squat and weigh in.  You needed to weigh less than 125 kilograms to do either of these activities.  Luckily I was able to limbo under the weight limit.  The other briefing was to fulfill the maritime requirement to let us know of emergency procedures.

We heard rumors that you could get a passport stamp from Ushuaia.  We made our way into town to visit the tourism center where we were indeed able to get a ‘Fin del Mundo’ passport stamp.

Once underway there was another briefing on what to expect over the next day and a half while we navigated the Drake Passage, which is the body of water between South America and Antarctica.  The seas through the Drake Passage are known to be unpredictable.  On some days this passage is smooth and similar to sailing on a small lake.  On other days the waves can be fifteen to twenty feet, making even the most robust sailor believe they made a mistake.  Dramamine was highly recommended.  As luck would have it the seas for us to make the initial transit were only two or three or feet in height.  The wind, combined with the sea swells, did attribute to a certain amount of pitching and rolling, but certainly not enough to cause either of us any issue.  We still took our Dramamine as a preventative measure.

Sunday:

Our next briefing was an IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) requirement.  The IAATO requirement simply states what you can and cannot do on Antarctica.  It was basic stuff.  Don’t bring food, plants, or animals to the continent.  Don’t take anything back with you from the continent.  It outlines what the different tour operators must do to keep from bringing any unwanted guests or materials to the otherwise pristine area of Antarctica.

As part of the IAATO you must also have your outer clothing inspected for foreign materials.  This is done by taking all of the outer garments to the appropriate personnel for inspection.  They would be looking for foreign materials such as seeds, leaves, or dirt.

Having passed all the inspections and having attended all the briefings we are now ready to actually go to Antarctica.

Today we are transiting the Drake passage.  So far it has been uneventful.  The Drake passage has a reputation for very unpredictable seas.  They can be smooth one day and a raging tempest the next.  Today began with fairly mild seas with swells of about two to four feet.  As the day progressed the seas grew, but not too much.  By the end of the day the swells were only six to eight feet.

Sunday, December 3rd

Our next briefing was an IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) requirement.  The IAATO requirement simply states what you can and cannot do on Antarctica.  It was basic stuff.  Don’t bring food, plants, or animals to the continent.  Don’t take anything back with you from the continent.  It outlines what the different tour operators must do to keep from bringing any unwanted guests or materials to the otherwise pristine area of Antarctica.

As part of the IAATO you must also have your outer clothing inspected for foreign materials.  This is done by taking all of the outer garments to the appropriate personnel for inspection.  They would be looking for foreign materials such as seeds, leaves, or dirt.

Having passed all the inspections and having attended all the briefings we are now ready to actually go to Antarctica.

Today we are transiting the Drake passage.  So far it has been uneventful.  The Drake passage has a reputation for very unpredictable seas.  They can be smooth one day and a raging tempest the next.  Today began with fairly mild seas with swells of about two to four feet.  As the day progressed the seas grew, but not too much.  By the end of the day the swells were only six to eight feet.

We had a few activities today.  A basic navigation class was held today to show us the different navigational markers as well as how to determine which ship might have the right of way.

Later in the evening there was a talk about mariner’s superstitions and how they came about.  It was humorous but did not really talk about too much detail.

Both were interesting.  And of course the most important activity was dinner at six, which was lobster and scallops for Robin and pork belly for me.  Desert was also good.  Robin had ice cream while I had some Norwegian rice pudding.  Very  good.