Antarctica – Getting there is half the fun

Ushuaia, Argentina

Well, I have been a bit slow in updating my blog, which I blame on the holiday season. Of course, it’s really just me getting caught up in a lot of other things and not taking the time to continue my Antarctica story. So, my apologies and here is more of the adventure.

One of the real challenges in going to Antarctica is getting there. The directions are simple – head south until you run out of south, but it’s easier said than done.  It really is one of the more remote areas of the planet – this is not somewhere you can just fly to after booking a flight on Expedia. In fact, you pretty much can’t fly there at all. Some of the research stations have airfields, but they are most certainly NOT available to the general public. SO..how do you get there.

This is a problem that has vexed me for some time.  Some time  ago, I heard about a photographer I know, JP Caponigro, traveling to Antarctica. In 2009, I was invited to go on an expedition with him and a group of photographers. Unfortunately, health problems prevented me from going, then, but later that year I heard that he might be planning a trip with JUST photographers in 2011. Well, I signed up for the trip, which was being managed by Quark Expeditions.  Quark Expeditions specializes in polar trips to both the Arctic and Antarctic, moving between the regions as the season changes. This is a good thing because you do NOT want to go to Antarctica with just anyone.  You are a very long way from help if anything goes wrong and the skill of your team can really make the difference on a trip.

In case, it wasn’t clear form the above. The expedition is by ship because that is pretty well the only way to get there. In this case, leaving from Ushuaia, Argentina, which is the southernmost city in the world at the southern most tip of South America. (BTW, it’s pronounced u-shoe-a). This is not an ordinary ship, our ship was a 73M (or 239 feet) , 1D Ice class expeditionary vessel with a crew of 38 and 73 passengers.  This means it can push ice, but it cannot break through solid ice.  (Yes, the Ice rating is important – it’s ant-fricking-arctica). This is small boat for this region (most are in the 120+ passenger range now), but a very tough vessel.  I felt good about going on this boat.

My flight plan was to fly from Toronto to Santiago, Chile, then Buenos Aires where I would stay overnight and then fly south on Aerolíneas Argentinas to Ushuaia, where I would again overnight before leaving by boat for points south.

At this point (yes, I’ve not left the house yet), things start to get interesting. First, a volcano in Chile starts to interfere with flight operations in that area with many flights being delayed or cancelled. My flight is scheduled for 11:45PM on the 27th and I am worried about getting to the boat – that does not wait for anyone., Next my brand new luggage decides to destroy it’s zipper just as the car arrives to take me to the airport. After 20 minutes of frantic repacking into other luggage I am on my way.

Of course, the flight is delayed due to volcanic activity. After 45 minutes, they let us on the plane. The captain explains they are filing a new flight plan and we finally take off at 2:45am for points south. It’s a 12 hour flight to Santiago, where they make us get off the plane, before getting back on to fly to Buenos Aires.  For some strange reason, we have to go through security getting off the plane, including searches and luggage x-rays. I’m not sure what they expect we managed to acquire on the plane since going through the same security in Toronto, but they were looking for it. I had just enough time to find a Starbucks before getting back on the plane for the 3.5 hour flight to Buenos Aires.

I get to the my hotel around 6pm the following day, where I checked in and enjoyed a glorious (and overdue) shower. The hotel had a fantastic restaurant that specialized in steak.  I had an incredible meal that almost made me forget the joy of flying for 16 of the past 24 hours.

With that, I was up the next day and off for Ushuaia. On the 3 hour flight down, I discovered that many of the passengers were on Antarctica trips as well. Three of the people around me were on the same trip as me.  After arriving we checking into our hotel and decided to explore Ushuaia. Downtown Ushuaia is two streets, so it’s hard to get lost.

David Young, Cambell Gunn, Scot Sargent in front of our Ushuaia Hotel

Staying at the hotel in Ushuaia was an excellent chance for a bunch of complete strangers to introduce themselves.  Some of the people on this trip I have met before, but many I had only spoken to through email, so it was rather nice to meet them in person.  We had an excellent meal in beautiful downtown Ushuaia and we prepared to board our boat the next afternoon.

This also gave me a change to by a photography shoulder bag, as I decided to change my strategy to deal with zodiac landings while in Ushuaia.

A small bit of chaos occurred when we were checking out of the hotel and boarding buses for the boat. Unfortunately, they only brought one bus, which could only hold us all if many were standing. For some reason, the bus driver decided this was unsafe and we needed to wait for another bus.

While waiting, and bored, which is never good. I decided to test my new video camera by recording a video called “Send us a bus”.