More Antarctica
It is easy to fail to grasp the size of Antarctica. If you were to overlay it on the US, you would have California hanging off there on the west coast, while Florida and New England are touching the East. There’s also a part that goes up that would come close to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
Oh, and if you want to go to the South Pole – you’re roughly walking from Seattle to Kansas City (more or less, based on my extremely scientific calculation done while sitting at one of the bars on board the ship).
The islands are where we are at, since it is the closest thing to South America. Schollaert Channel goes long these islands so once we crossed the Drake Passage we entered this and made a left to go along the string of islands. Our goal was “Paradise Bay”, which is basically a big cul-de-sac. We got to the end, saw some amazing scenery and then turned around and came back into the Channel.
Celia, the Naturalist, said that the weather we experienced there on Friday was absolutely the best weather she’s ever seen in the years she has been on the ship. Mind you, the day started with low clouds and fog and progressed through mist, rain, sparkling sunshine without a cloud to interfere and finally ended up with huge fluffy snowflakes about dinner time. Oh, and the entire time there were significant winds that had the potential to knock a person over. It was truly an amazing sight, though. We ended the day seeing a group of penguins floating by on an iceberg and, being unable to top that for the day, we headed off to bed.
Friday night was every bit as rough as Drake’s passage had been earlier. It wasn’t alarming, but it was enough to wake you up from a sound sleep and make you think, “Hmm. We are really rockin’ here tonight”.
Oh, and if you want to go to the South Pole – you’re roughly walking from Seattle to Kansas City (more or less, based on my extremely scientific calculation done while sitting at one of the bars on board the ship).
The islands are where we are at, since it is the closest thing to South America. Schollaert Channel goes long these islands so once we crossed the Drake Passage we entered this and made a left to go along the string of islands. Our goal was “Paradise Bay”, which is basically a big cul-de-sac. We got to the end, saw some amazing scenery and then turned around and came back into the Channel.
Celia, the Naturalist, said that the weather we experienced there on Friday was absolutely the best weather she’s ever seen in the years she has been on the ship. Mind you, the day started with low clouds and fog and progressed through mist, rain, sparkling sunshine without a cloud to interfere and finally ended up with huge fluffy snowflakes about dinner time. Oh, and the entire time there were significant winds that had the potential to knock a person over. It was truly an amazing sight, though. We ended the day seeing a group of penguins floating by on an iceberg and, being unable to top that for the day, we headed off to bed.
Friday night was every bit as rough as Drake’s passage had been earlier. It wasn’t alarming, but it was enough to wake you up from a sound sleep and make you think, “Hmm. We are really rockin’ here tonight”.
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