What's next after Antarctica? Scuba Diving!

Learning to scuba dive is one of those things that many of us may put on our "bucket list" and I am no different. A few times in the past I have thought about signing up for a course at the local YMCA or university but never got around to it. However, after my aunt invited me to join family for a vacation in Key West this year, I decided that it was time to take the plunge, literally! My good friend Amy and her husband Sean also were interested and we signed up for the beginner open water class beginning in August. I'll spend the next few blogs discussing the process of learning to be one with the fishes. It was certainly not as easy as I thought!

Happy Feet Penguins!

Hanging out with the penguins was definitely one of the coolest part of the trip (no pun intended). Every so often a penguin or group of them would start running around and it looked like they were dancing. It may have had something to do with the molting process and trying to get that old fur off as fast as possible. Whatever the reason, it sure was funny!

What was the course like? Watch this.

I have been asked numerous times what it was like in Antarctica and to run a race there. One of the runners, Chad Leathers, ran the course with a helmet camera and captured wonderful footage, as well as his very honest opinions of the course along the way (note--this is a PG-13 commentary). I share this video with many thanks to Chad for having enough strength to film this and complete the marathon. If you are inspired by the video and this experience, please take a look at the NF Team Extreme website: http://ctf.org/NFETblog/about/. Chad and eleven other runners traveled to Antarctica as part of a concerted effort to find a cure for a pretty frustrating disorder called neurofibromatosis (NF), which causes tumors to grow anywhere in the body. NF occurs in 1 in every 3,000 births.

Video is at: http://vimeo.com/10281755

Home again!

It literally takes days to get to and from Antarctica. In addition to the mileage that must be covered by boat and plane, there are those factors which we can't control such as weather and airplane delays. All together it took four and a half days to travel from Antarctica to Washington, DC, and that is with minimal airline delays. By the last flight (the last of four flights), I felt a bit like I was one with the plane...me and the seat were a single entity. Is this was being zen is all about? :)

I will be adding pictures and video to this blog over the next few weeks as time permits. I hope you enjoyed the blog!

Delayed by the Drake Shake

Yesterday afternoon we hit rough seas with waves up to 7 meters high (21feet). The waves have caused the boat to list almost 40 degrees to each side. No one was able to sleep last night as we literally were sliding from one end of our bed to the other. The waves were crashing into the ship and reaching as high as our port holes that are about 20 feet above sea level. The closest experience I can compare this to is the pirate boat ride at the amusement park. Perhaps you have seen it or even ridden on it--the one where you sit on a bench and the ship swings back and forth like a pendulum until it eventually swings all the way around. Because of the extreme rocking back and forth, the captain made a decision to adjust our course to reduce the rolling of the ship. Apparently if we roll more than 40 degrees to each side, people are seriously injured and often have to be medically evacuated (there is a helicopter landing pad on the ship). We have just been informed that despite the ship going as fast as we safely can go, we will arrive in Ushuaia approximately 4 hours later than expected on Saturday. That is very bad news for half of the group because they will miss their 9:30am flight to Buenos Aries. The next available flight is 10pm, which means they will miss their Buenos Aries connection to the United States. The Marathon tours staff are trying to rebook flights as best they can but it is time consuming as each flight must be changed over the phone. I do not think I will be affected by the delay as I am with the other half of the tour group scheduled to take the 2:30pm flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aries. This is a good example of why to buy travel insurance for extreme voyages like this.

How to amuse yourself for 60 hours on a ship

The key to surviving the Drake Passage is taking some kind of motion sickness medicine. With it, you can then function somewhat normally, despite the rolling of the ship. I am a huge fan now of the motion sickness patch that you place behind your ear and leave in place for 3 days. I am certain I would be sick without it. The ship has been rocking from side to side constantly. We are required to always have “one hand for the ship” when we walk anywhere. That one hand is for grabbing handrails, seat backs,or even another person as we try to move about. This morning I had a chance to visit the ship’s bridge and see the navigational equipment. The ship was built in Yugoslavia in the 70‘s. It looked very dated. There was a wide metal panel that covered the length of the bridge and built into it were a few grey boxes with knobs and levers marked with Russian writing. The ship was updated recently with a new sonar device and we could see onthe screen several icebergs ahead. The most interesting device to me was an indicator gauge that showed just how much the ship is listing from side to side. While we were up there, the indicator said we were rolling 10 degrees to each side. When we had the storm on the way down, we listed up to 30 degrees on each side. The worst that it can get is 45 degrees. The ship officer who led the tour said that we were experiencing fairly calm seas for the Drake Passage. I am thankful for that! The crew get weather updates every 6 hours and adjust course as necessary to avoid rough seas and highwinds.



After the bridge tour I decided to get some exercise in the ship’s fitness room. The fitness room is a 10 x 8 space containing two exercise bikes from 1980 and one elliptical machine that may have been the first one ever invented. The machines are facing two windows that open to the outsidew alkway around the ship. [Side note--there is a contained walk-way around the ship that allows us to move around without getting wet or blown away. We also line up in this walk-way as we await our turn to go down the gangway and onto the zodiaks.] I opted for the exercise bike. It was quite odd to feel like I was riding up and down hills and yet sitting still on a stationary bike. That was because of the rolling of the ship. I managed to ride for about 30 minutes without falling off. I think I may have burned enough calories to make up for the fabulous dessert we had last night at dinner (vanilla ice cream in a warm cherry sauce).

The rest of the afternoon has been spent reading, napping, watching moviessuch as “March of the Penguins,” and listening to the expedition company’s historian discuss his experience during the Faulkland Island War. At the time, he was a scientist working at the British research station in the Shetland Islands. The scientists were in a bit of a bind because it was not clear whether the British or Argentinians would comply with the Geneva Convention provisions relating to noncombatants.

The ship is definitely listing from side to side more than it was earlier this morning. It is hilarious to watch people try and walk normally through the lounge area. It is just not possible. It will be very weird to walk on land again. I wonder if I will still have to use a motion sickness patch after all this time at sea?

It just gets better and better...

I sit here at my computer wondering how I can possibly describe what we saw yesterday. Our day began with a wake-up announcement over the ship’s loudspeakers that we were about to enter the Lemaire Channel. I could see out our porthole that the sun was just coming up and a few rays were piercing through the snowclouds and painting the icebergs with a rosy glow. I grabbed my pocket camera, slid on my crocs and ran out onto the deck. We have not seen the sun very much since our crossing the Drake Passage so it was a treat to get this nice sunrise. After snapping a few pictures, I went back down to my cabin to see if my SLR camera was working again. It was! Yeah! The camera-in-the-bag-of-rice-trick really worked! We spent the next 3 hours cruising through the Lemaire Channel, a 7 mile long passage that runs between Booth Island and the Antarctic continent. It is 1 mile wide at its broadest point and a half mile at its narrowest point. There were lots of small icebergs in the water which the ship captain had to either navigate around or push aside as we made our way through the channel. Both sides of the channel were flanked with towering peaks nearly 1000 feet high that just seem to explode from the water up to the sky. Some of the tops we were not able to see due to fog that settled along the peaks. These rocks were covered with glaciers that were nearly at least 100 feet thick. We could see how the ice had compressed over thousands of years and had layer upon layer of sediment mixed with the ice. Some of the glaciers seem to glow an eerie blue as the light made its way through water carved channels and caves that twist through the glacier ice. The temperature was about 34 degrees with a windchill about 10 degrees cooler. Even with all my winter layers on I had to go inside every 20 minutes or so to warm my fingers and toes.


After lunch we reached one of the United States' Antarctica research stations, Palmer Station. The station is home to about 38 scientists and support staff during the austral summer and about 10 staff during the winter. Some of the scientists came on board our ship and gave an overview of their research. The main research done at Palmer is monitoring how the marine ecosystem is responding to changes in sea-ice cover. The glacier is retreating about 10 feet a year, leading to warmer temperatures and less icepack in the water. This is also affecting where the penguins migrate. After their briefing, we made our way onto land via the zodiaks. We were thrilled to see the clouds clearing and a beautiful blue sky emerge. Palmer is nestled at the foot of a huge glacier on a rocky outcrop that looked much like the coast of Maine. Only about 6 ships a year are invited to come and visit the station. The reason for that is that it really takes the entire station staff to support the 100+ visitors. Staff led tours, manned the souvenir shop (which took credit cards or US dollars), and met with us in their dining hall and offered us home-made brownies (which were yummy). After leaving Palmer, we cruised around the bay in the zodiaks. We made our way through pack ice, circled the huge iceberg in the middle of the bay, and observed an Adelie penguin colony on a nearby island. It was so awesome to see the tops of the mountains which for most of this trip have been covered by fog or not visible due to the driving snow. This was a wonderful last stop before undertaking the 60 hour trip back across the Drake Passage.

We are now heading home and will spend the next 2 days on ship. We will pass the time with lectures on history and wildlife, tours of the ship’s bridge, movies, and of course, eating. Our email accounts will be cut off at 8pm tonight (which is about 6pm EST) so after that, there will be no more blog updates until I reach Argentina on Saturday morning.