Antarctica Part 1: Pre Trip

Antarctica Part 1: Pre Trip-

This series of entries will be a variation from what I normally like to do. It reads more like a journal instead of my preferred method of just picking interesting or comical topics to talk about. I began composing my Antarctica thougths and realized I had WAY too much content for 1 post so I starting doing part 1 and part 2. By the time I’m finished organizing all my notes it looks like I will have SEVEN parts!… This is the first:

In my last post I eluded to having to rush through the Patagonian Torres del Paine trek, but in efforts to not ruin the surprise I intentionally left out why. If I’m practicing living in the Now, then so are you. The reason was this (if you haven’t already figured out); After 10 days of waiting around in Ushuaia, the continents southern most city and where the majority of the Antarctica trips depart from, I found a last minute deal for Antarctica just outside my maximum targeted budget, which of course translates to close enough. I had a 9 day window to travel to Chile, do the trek and return to Ushuaia just in time for the departure. The night I got back there was a pre trip meet-and-greet with the others who booked the last minute package through Freestyle Travel Agency. I was first introduced to Freestyle by one of my last years travel companions, The Dolpin, who also used their services. They were, as he suggested, very helpful and attentive to follow up, which is always a welcomed change to the usual cavalier GFY attitude commonly displayed abroad. I found, however, that they were by no means exclusive to offing these last minute packages. I came across a listing of companies in Ushuaia, composed an email and copy and pasted it to about 20 email addresses. 8 or 9 responded to whose mailings lists I was added. Whenever the deal became public my inbox was flooded from every company offering the exact same package on the exact same dates for the exact same price. One email after the other like it was a company wide out of office reply. Because I was in contact with Freestyle first I went with them and disregarded the rest.

I was, at one point, determined to cut out the middle man and attempted going to directly to the ships source. Commonly referred to as walking the docks, this is really nothing more than trying to hitchhike onto a boat. I spent 2 days on the Ushuaia docks and was prepared to offer money directly to the captain, cruise director, expedition leader, really anybody that would talk to me, if there was a berth available in any cabin. The problem I encountered is that the ships for Antarctica don’t arrive to the port until early morning the same day of departure. On my first day walking the docks I ended up eventually getting to a guard supervisor and spoke to him at length. He gave me high hopes by saying that he’s seen people do it before and if there was a berth available he’d see no reason for them to refuse my money. He says “come see me tomorrow, I get in at 6am and the boat is scheduled to arrive at 7am, when they get here I’ll call the captain directly for you.” The next day I arrived at 6:45 and my guy was nowhere to be found. I waited patiently and was bounced around for about 5 hours to several different guards and 2 different dock managers until finally being asked to leave, tail between my legs. After that idea was squashed, Anna, the amazing director of my Ushuaia Spanish school, makes a call on my behalf to a friend of hers that works as kitchen crew supervisor on one of the regular ships. She asked me if I had a problem working in a kitchen, waking up early and peeling potatoes, to which I replied “Hell no. I don’t have a problem peeling potatoes for a free trip to Antarctica, as long as they could guarantee me seeing a few penguins and stepping foot on land I’m in”. That would have been a hell of a story and, undoubtably, make for an interesting blog entry, but it, also, was to no avail. I was forced to go the regular last minute pricing route. Walked over to the Freestyle office with credit card in hand and shortly after walked out with confirmation to planet Earth’s greatest wilderness and final frontier, The White Continent, Antarctica! (In hindsight I’m so immensely glad I wasn’t stuck below decks peeling potatoes the whole trip).

There were about 15 people at our pre trip reception that included some great people. A trio of young couples from San Diego, Ireland and Australia, all traveling through South America separately, but sharing the same indefinite return date. An older retired couple from Seattle who have been sailing southbound, full time, at the very casual pace of 5 years and a middle aged couple from Sydney who I talked favorite neighborhoods and restaurant recommendations with. Also along for the trip were Sarah, who owns and operates Freestyle Travel, her 6th trip, and her father who flew in from North Carolina, his first trip. The small contingency of solo traveling free birds eventually flocked together which included myself, an easy on the eyes blonde girl named Lindsay from Reno, making her the only person from my home state that I have ever met in 18 months abroad, and a girl from Germany named Judith, an intrepid adventurer who shares an incredible amount of travel destinations, stories and philosophies identical to my own. The 3 of us became attached at the hip that night and would remain inseparable throughout the entire trip, forming the initial core of our Wolf Pack.

When we boarded the ship it was apparent that this wasn’t to necessarily be a hardened expedition, but rather a luxury cruise. Warm smiles, friendly greetings, butlers and housekeepers. I enter my cabin and met the 2 guys who would be my roommates over the next 10 days at sea and thereby honorary and immediate inductees into The Wolf Pack. They were Mike, a 32 year old, scruffy haired and dark eyed Englishmen, with the standard English whit, and Kazu from Japan, who was non assuming and soft spoken, with the typical Japanese politeness. A 29 year old that could get by paying the child price, without an argument, when buying a movie ticket. Our Wolf Pack would eventually be rounded out by a few other solo travelers, namely, Tom from the UK and Kiki from Germany, in addition to a rotation of others we would size up and conduct mock interviews with to deem their worthiness. Throughout the trip I would do my best to speak with and get to know everyone I came across, but I have to admit that the Wolf Pack was definitely guilty of becoming a tight knit, and nearly impenetrable, separatist clique. I christen the cabin and celebrate the impending voyage with Mike and Kazu by opening up my backpack to unveil the fruits of my day of departure shopping spree; 2 bottles of scotch, 2 bottles of red wine, and a bottle of champagne, which, specifically, was to be saved until the moment we reach land.

As soon as all passengers were on board we were called to the meeting lounge for a briefing. We were supposed to set sails at 5pm, but the expedition leader announced that the weather report came back for the Drake Passage showing gale force winds and oceanic currents in the “purple” category, waves were expected to be in the 13-15 meter range (40-45 feet). The Drake Passage is the span of ocean separating mainland South America and Antarctica, it boasts the “world’s roughest waters” and purple, as it were, indicates the most intense level of ocean currents there are. We would have to cruise around the Beagle Channel at a snails pace until weather subsided. [fun fact: continental drift opened the Drake Passage 30 million years ago isolating the flow of the cold ocean waters around the Antarctica continent, as opposed to around the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, thereby significantly warming the entire earth and giving us the habitable climate we now know]. This was the primary announcement and the rest of the briefing touched mostly on safety concerns. Where to find and how to put on life jackets, what to do in case of emergency, how to act on land, the reasons for staying to the marked routes so nobody falls into a crevasse, you know the menial things. At about 7pm we weighed anchor and set sails for Antarctica.

Bob