Anyway, Antarctica tour usually takes 3 types : classical, which usually takes 11 days to west side of Antarctica Peninsula, then second type which is a bit adventurous which go east to see emperor penguin and ice wall, and the third type which travels along the Antarctica coast across continent like S.America to Australia. I joined the classic one because of time limitation and also I like the ship of that tour. When I read the pic from other classic tour travellers, they pretty much travel to the same places.
View Antarctica in a larger map
Day 1 20061118 : Ushuaia
It's a bit tricky to take flight in Argentina, beware to take more buffer for flight delay. I was delayed 5 hrs to arrive Ushuaia, nearly miss the cruise, so make sure to make early arrival Ushuaia! The first day of the tour would probably this buffer, in the morning we are arranged to visit the national park in Ushuaia, then at about 15:00 it's the boarding time. Ushuaia is pretty nice in summer time..
Inside Ushuaia national seeing Chile
Bye Ushuaia!
We chose the Sarpik Ittuk by Quark, the ship was comfortable, staff were friendly, we are quite satisfied with Quark.
Food was nice!
Yeah! We the triple occupied the entire room, nice to travel in non-peak season!
Day 2 20061119: Drake Passage
From Ushuaia it took 2 days in the very rough Drake Passage. If you like shake-shake fries by McDonald, here you would become the fries! Laying on the bed could be shaked by whatever direction, like head to bedhead or so. It was also common that people may feel sick. If motion-sickness pills is needed, the doctor on board could prescript some. You wont be bored by these 2 days, there are a lot of lecture to attend, like bird watching, history, zodiac-to-know, I even needed to wake myself early as 0630 to attend lectures.
The 3-4 days 20061120: Antarctica Peninsula
Today we are 12 hrs ahead of schedule so we could embark tonight on some outlying islands. After dinner we were between 2 islands, and some moving black dots on it. They are the penguins! So ahead of us it's the North Aitcho Islands, which is the chinstrap penguin's population. It's very hard to keep the 5 meter distance with them as they are really huge in population!
There's about 17-20 penguin species in the world, this species is called chinstrap because as simple as the name tells, they have a strap under chin.
This is nature! Can never see in zoo!
Day5 20061122: Antarctica Peninsula
Early 0600, the PA announced that it was splendid outside so I rushed myself to the board. A very claim sea, silent, glacier, seal on floating ice.
This is the Neko Bay Island. After hiking at the peak, which is pretty hot because it's summer and sunny. After that we just slide along this steepy slope, and it was so fun!
After lunch it's the zodiac cruise. We visited the blue-cheese-like iceberg, it was so fantastic.
Resting a while after returning to the ship, it's the "true Antarctic" time - to jump into the Antarctica Ocean. About 1/4 of the travellers jumped, but to me it's definitely more fun to see they jump, hahaha.
This night I needed to prepare for postcard, since the other morning we would be going to a British research station and sent them there. The post would be delivered via Falkland Island then to UK, after that it would be sent worldwide.
Day 6 20061123: Antarctica Peninsula
This is the British research station, can buy souvenir here.
After lunch we got a big surprise - a king penguin on a floating ice burg! So happen I was on the deck, some people spot it, and after that the captain just sailed the ship towards it again. I could not actually recognise it by naked eyes, I can see it clearly by my 6x optical zoom camera only since then.
This is another zodiac cruise again.
Another lecture again for the globe's 4 poles - Geographic poles, inaccessibility poles, magnetic poles and geo-metric poles (??). It is said that the magnetic poles is actually moving >10km/h, in visible future it would be moving from Canada nowadays to Russia. That's very interesting.
Day 7 20061124: Antarctica Peninsula
Zodiac cruise in the morning and loading in the afternoon. This is an abandoned Argentina station and I spotted a macaroni here!
This is the penguin highway. They are smart enough!
Day 8 20061125: Antarctica Peninsula
This morning comes the Argentina station which still in operation. This is a big community, church, University, casino, helicopter runway and also a lot of adelie penguins.
Day 9-10 20061126-27: Drake Passage
Returning to the earth!
