If you hadn’t already guessed from my riddle next week, we are visiting penguins on an Antarctic Expedition! And seals, and whales, but mostly the reason for going is to watch waddles of penguins. We were joined by my close friend and her husband who will henceforth be known as Mrs. and Mr. Penguin, as well as her parents. It was really lovely to get so much time to spend with them after not seeing them much for a year and experience such an amazing and otherworldly place. It wasn’t just all pretty views, I also enjoyed the learning from the expedition crew on the history, geology, and biology of this remote continent.
Day 1 & 2: Arrival in Buenos Aires
I did a little travel hacking magic with our flights from Panama City back home last fall, but that also included part of our itinerary to get to Buenos Aries. It saved a considerable amount so for us, it was worth it to have a few long travel days, knowing we planned an extra day just for sleep when we got there. In all we had 4 flights over three days, landing at 9am after a 10+ hour flight in Buenos Aires.
After collecting our bags, we made it to the hotel by 11am, and thanks to my status they let us check in right away and we could catch up on a little sleep from the overnight flight. The following morning after breakfast we took an Uber to the hotel booked by our cruise company where we could check in with them and, most importantly, meet up with our friends!
It was a very fancy hotel called Alvear Palace Hotel, and the room was like a suite with one and a half bathrooms and a full sitting room plus desk area.. We checked in and got all our stuff figured out for the flight the next day and enjoyed a small lunch with everyone provided by the cruise. It was a fun reunion, but Mrs. Penguin’s parents were tired after the long flight and decided to rest.
The Four of us wandered out to get some sunshine and see a few sights near the hotel, including this cool metal flower called Floralis Generica. I think they were undergoing restoration, because it usually sits in water. The area was dotted by these pretty flowering trees, it was nice to see so much green and blooming after leaving the chilly Minnesota winter.
None of us were ready for too much heat at once so we headed towards a cultural museum in the hopes it had some AC. It was a really unique place, there were all these different rooms with photos, paintings, or other artistic exhibits.
There were a few interactive exhibits, like one that used a computer to recognize your facial expression. It also was a place where locals came to hang out, have a quiet place to read or work, or play some table tennis with a friend. We had a snack and refreshing beverage at the little cafe before heading back to the hotel.
The boys went to rest in the AC while Mrs. Penguin and I decided to explore the pool a bit and it was fun catching up more. I did get to see her a few times over the holidays but I was really looking forward to spending more time together over the next few weeks! Before we left for dinner we had to set out our checked luggage, as the cruise company would take care of checking the bags.
That evening Mr. Penguin joined Mr. Wander and I for some authentic Argentinian steak! We actually think we went to the same restaurant Mr. Wander and his brother visited about 18 years ago. This time he learned from his mistake about just how big the steaks are, plus you receive so many little bowls of vegetables, sauces, and other sides. We decided to share two steaks between the 3 of us, one dry aged rib-eye for 400g and another style of rib-eye that was 600g. For those not familiar with metric system, 1000g, or 1 kg is about 2.2 pounds or 35 oz!
We did order a side of mashed potatoes but we probably didn’t need to with all of the extras. We didn’t know what everything was, he tried to explain in English but there was some Spanish thrown in so we missed a bit. The favorite little bowl was some sort of candied carrots with garlic. The cloves were whole and they did not taste sharp, like you’d expect biting into a garlic clove.
We finished with a little dessert and of course a lollipop! Finally we got an Uber back to the hotel and went to bed before the true adventure began!
Day 3: Fly to Ushuaia board the Seabourn Venture
We had our breakfast in the morning at the hotel, and then we got on our assigned busses to the domestic airport. It was nice that each couple got to enjoy an empty middle seat, I’ve heard it referred to as “poor man’s business class”, and they even sat all 6 of us together. The normal onboard drinks included alcohol and a light lunch, sponsored by Seabourn, which was an unexpected bonus.
When we arrived at our destination, for some reason they required us to find our bags from the carousel, and then we gave them right back to Seabourn as we entered the main airport lobby for them to load on the ship. We were all put on buses as we left the airport and then the driver gave us a little tour around the town. He was trying to waste some time to let the other buses unload onto the ship so we didn’t have to wait on the port as long.
Once we arrived to the ship, a few of the expedition crew started our check-in process and soon we were boarding the ship and receiving our boarding passes that doubled as our room keys. These would be scanned each time we got on and off the ship as we took zodiac tours or did shore landings. When we arrived at our room, one of our attendants greeted us with mimosas and canape, and gave us a tour. We had a full walk in closet with drawers, plus another little closet with its own towel heater and drip tray for our outer layer of gear that might be wet after the adventures.
One nice thing about this cruise is every cabin has it’s own veranda which came in really handy for random sealife viewings! Our first order of business was to watch the mandatory safety video on our in room television. Next we tried on our new parkas, hats and checked out the water bottles and bags the company gave us to keep. We ordered for our size ahead so they’d be ready for us, and everything worked so we didn’t need to do any exchanging. Then we joined our friends for a bit of a self tour around the ship, until it was time for the all-guest mandatory briefings in their discovery center, which is the auditorium.
The expedition leader, Juan, introduced us to the IAATO International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators which works with the Antarctic Treaty members to help preserve, track and advocate for the continent’s inhabitants and trying to maintain a pristine environment. This includes regulating a maximum of 100 people on shore at a given time, but our ship held about 250 guests, not including expedition crew that are there for safety or to answer wildlife or other questions. To make things easier, we had all been divided up into one of 6 color groups, according to stickers on our boarding passes and the order we were in would change each day.
The IAATO regulations also affected where we went each day as each Antarctic Expedition company must schedule what locations they intend to visit months in advance. However, due to weather and ice conditions, this often changes daily or even hourly that our captain and Juan must move to plans B, C, or D. This is why we never got much of an itinerary before the cruise. Each evening Juan would give an update on the next days plans, and usually that included where we’d do landings or zodiacs and what were the timings for the color groups.
At last we were released to find dinner. We went to the casual dining area that hosts the buffet at breakfast and lunch. Each dinner and lunch there would be a different theme, mostly of different cuisines such as Thai, Italian, English, French, Filipino, Seafood Market, and once there was even a comfort food night. This first night the theme was American, I suppose keeping it simple.
By the time we finished dinner, the ship had left port and had started its way down the Beagle channel. The channel is named after Charles Darwin’s ship as he had passed through here on his way to Ecuador, where he was inspired to write “An Origin of Species”. We decided to all go up to the 9th floor to watch as we slowly made our way through the channel. The sunset was beautiful this evening and we were even able to spot Puerto Williams, Chile, on the south side of the channel, which is one of the spots we’ll visit in a month or so.
When we returned to the room, we cracked open the champagne and caught even more colors from our balcony. We retired for bed, curious about what things would be like in the Drake Channel the following morning.
Days 4 & 5: Crossing the Drake passage
We were woken up to less than gentle rocking as we finally left the sheltered waters near Cape Horn. The Captain had planned to move slowly through the channel as he was waiting for a low pressure system to move on before beginning the Drake Passage. It takes two full days to make the crossing and so far neither of us felt any seasickness. We took the advice of our room attendants to have breakfast delivered to our room. The server who delivered our breakfast said the rolling felt average, but about 2 weeks ago it was very bad, we really lucked out!
I joined some of the group in the discovery center for the first session, given by the expedition photographer. He was giving tips on taking good photos on your phones or basic settings on a dedicated camera, and trying to sell his photography group that has access to the editing room, tips from him, plus more time in zodiacs & landings to get the good wildlife photos. He focused on the iPhone but I was able to find similar settings on my Pixel and actually found some cool shortcuts.
We got some teas from the little coffee shop and came back for the first history lesson. In the next session, the historian talked about four different Antarctic Expeditions with their own challenges or successes but was saving the talk about the most famous, Ernest Shackleton, until later in our voyage. For lunch we enjoyed the “Wok” theme and then all went to the bow lounge to check out some of the monitors. They are copies of some of the bridge monitors showing our heading, marking any other ships in the area, or you can even locate the zodiacs later when we did landings or tours.
My favorite of their informative sheets is the “how to identify a bird” page. You could go out onto the bow from here, if it was open, and I got a decent picture giving you some idea how much the boat was rocking. As if on cue, it was at about this time I started to feel the some oncoming seasickness so we decided to head back to the room to take some Dramamine, drink ginger ale, and lay down. I ended up sleeping through the next session all about marine mammals. Mr. Wander told me how the presenter had compared the amount of krill eaten by the various whales per year to the equivalent weight of space shuttles!
I started to feel better and was more awake for the expedition briefing and the next session. The briefing was mostly about our progress, the weather, and our likely arrival time to the islands. The next session was all about the three brush tailed penguins we’d be seeing on our excursions: Adiele, Chinstrap, and Gentoo penguins. Emperor penguins are not common on the peninsula where we’d spend most of our time because they nest on the ice instead of rocks and generally travel long distances to get to the ocean for fishing.
That evening we had been invited to join one of the expedition crew for dinner, and tonight it was Victoria, the historian talking all about the expeditions that morning. It was in the fancy restaurant and it was several courses and we just had to choose the main dish. It was a very enjoyable evening talking about her expedition talk that morning, her experience working so many years on expedition ships, and learning about where she lives in England. After dinner we ventured back to the bow lounge to check on progress.
Our second sea day we had to get breakfast early as our color (Blue) was the first group for boot distribution. These were boots for us to use on zodiacs and especially on land that are very waterproof and easy to wash and disinfect to prevent transporting environmental contaminants. The day was filled with mandatory briefings about IAATO, for those doing the optional kayak or submersible excursions, and biosecurity checks to make sure any items used before wouldn’t bring other bio materials to Antarctica to disrupt the ecosystem.
There was also an interesting talk about Krill and its importance in the Antarctica ecosystem. All of the whales, penguins and seals eat krill as part of their diet, but the population is dependent on the Algae that grows on the bottom layer of the sea ice that comes and goes with the seasons. In the winter the continent grows nearly double due to sea water freezing, creating sea ice, and filling in several of the bays.
That evening our expedition leader shared an interesting graph showing the water temperature as we were travelling through the passage. It is interesting to see the temperature drop drastically after leaving the channel and into the passage, and again as we neared the 60 degree South latitude line, meaning we were officially entering Antarctic waters!
We ordered supper to the room complete with a brownie sundae and banana split and turned in early as we were going to arrive to Antarctica by 7am that morning!
Day 6: A Warm Weddell Sea Welcome
We had finally arrived! After breakfast in our room we went out to the bow to view the A80a tabular iceberg. This iceberg measures eight miles long by a little over six miles in width (13 by 10 km) and had broken off from an ice shelf in the Weddell sea. These icebergs are identified by the first letter as to where on the continent it came from, the number is the order in which it had calved off, and the last letter changes for each large piece as they calve off. You may have heard about A23a, which is about the size of Rhode Island and is currently heading towards South Georgia Island.
While viewing the iceberg on the bow, they had hot chocolate at the ready when we needed to warm up as well as several expedition crew available to answer questions. Eventually the ship moved on from the iceberg to get closer to an icefield here in the Weddell sea. The expedition leaders checked out the area and the first three colors were released to their zodiac tour.
Meanwhile we watched for whales out our balcony and watched one of the many documentaries on our TV’s library. While we were relaxing, they told us that on an iceberg near the ship, zodiacs found Emperor penguin chicks! We could get a few pictures from our room since we were on the port side of the ship near the front where this iceberg was. It was an unexpected delight!
Finally it was time for our turn in the zodiacs. We got in with one of the whale experts, Mike, and almost immediately we find a humpback whale swimming around and diving. Suddenly, the whale started doing pectoral fin slaps on the water. This is often used to communicate to other whales because the sound can travel long distances. Next thing we know another whale began responding to the message by breaching fully out of the water! This behavior is much more common in breeding waters off Australia, Hawaii, or Ecuador, so it is definitely a rare treat.
Our next few spots were quite unexpected, the driver ran the front of the zodiac up on an iceberg and the cruise director and a few others were passing out glasses of champagne to us on the boat. We cheers’d each other and enjoyed the treat and passed the glasses back to them.
Our next stop he once again put the front on the iceberg but we got to get out of the boat and walk around! It’s not everywhere you can find icebergs stable enough for us to walk on safely, icebergs require plenty of respect. You never know when one will flip over because of the center of gravity changed due to melting.
The rest of the zodiac tour we weaved between icebergs, and saw a few adiele penguins, some on icebergs and others porpoising through the water. They jump as they swim because they need to breathe and they can also move much faster through the air than the water.
That afternoon, Mrs. Penguin and I enjoyed the hot tub at the back of the ship as they started to move the ship to the next expedition area. A waiter asked if we wanted anything and they delivered a few drinks right to the tub! We met a group of people from Canada, one of them saying she really wanted to see an orca.
Not long after I got back to the room and showered we heard an announcement telling us to look off the port side for orcas! It was as if that Canadian we met willed the orcas to come to the ship. We were able to see them from our balcony so Mr. Wander enjoyed taking pictures.
There were two different groups, the second was a little easier to see from our point of view, and they even turned the ship a bit to get closer and slowed down, delaying the afternoon’s educational talk a bit so we could all see them and take pictures. Soon after we spotted the orcas, a few humpback whales started to come near the orcas and appeared to be escorting them through the ice field. One of the icebergs had a few penguins on it as well, but they were all laying down, almost as if they were trying to hide from the orcas.
We learned at that night’s briefing that humpback whales have been known to protect prey from orcas, such as penguins or seals. It’s thought that as calves, humpbacks are also hunted by orcas so when they get older, they are sympathetic to other animals. Orcas do need to eat, however they have been known to just eat the tongue and liver and waste the rest, and they can eat krill or fish as well. If you are unfamiliar with orcas, they are more commonly known as killer whales, yet they are actually in the dolphin family.
We went down to the talk about ice where we learned about the big icebergs, ice shelves, sea ice, and glaciers and other types in the arctic and antarctic. This was how we learned all about how that iceberg this morning was named! After the ice talk, we were able to take a tour of the submersibles, which was an excursion we opted not to take, but was curious to see the craft. It seats 6 guests and the pilot, who operates it with something that looks like an Xbox controller.
They use a crane to pick it up, which moves along a track until it’s held by the giant door, hovering over the water. It’s then gently lowered and has a platform they keep above the water while they position it into the right spot. They bring out the groups on zodiacs to the submersible and are able to do 2-3 groups each time we have zodiac tours or landings.
At the expedition briefing that evening, the Crew tells us this was a very special day, first time they’ve been in Weddell sea this season due to sea ice, some of expedition crew only see emperor penguins once every 20 years or so, and between the two Seabourn ships they see them 2-3 times per season. Orcas are almost as rare as emperor penguins. I think they wanted to let us know that not every day will be that spectacular, so our expectations wouldn’t grow too big. That evening we enjoyed some drinks and sushi in one of the bars on the top lounge. They had several sake themed cocktails which were pretty good.
Day 7: Deception Island Volcano
The following morning we had breakfast in our room while we watched Victoria’s talk on Ernest Shackleton, probably the most well known explorer of Antarctica because despite the loss of the ship, all of the men survived except for one unrelated heart condition. After the talk we had the normal evening briefing, since we’d have the landing in the later afternoon.
We arrived at Deception Island at 11am to view a colony of chinstrap penguins. We passed it on the starboard side so we all went to the bow to get a good look. The first thing we noticed once we got outside, is the smell! It’s affectionately called guano, but it is just penguin poop. That is one thing about penguin colonies, you smell them before you see them! We could also see a few elephant seals on the shore thanks to binoculars and zoom lenses.
Then the ship went past the Neptune’s bellows, entering into the caldera of Deception Island as we ate our lunch. It is technically an active volcano, last erupting in the 1960s. Later that afternoon, we were able to do our first landing, which was mostly just a loop hike with plenty of up but rewarding with great views! It was very windy at the top though, and a little precarious picking our way down. The four of us had fun chatting and taking pictures, but this was my favorite view, it was so peaceful!
Much thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Penguin for some of the above pictures! We made our way back to the ship and on one of the last zodiacs to get ready for dinner where we enjoyed some Thai.
Next Time
Fresh off a few days of amazing wildlife putting on a show and a lovely hike, we were excited to see what else the continent had to offer. The crew still had a few more special experiences up their sleeves for us, but I was most excited for the Kayak! We visited several more islands, got up and close with a leopard seal, and even got to step foot on the peninsula itself!
It might be an extra week before this one comes out, we will be backpacking for several days and I don’t think I will finish it before we go, but I am so excited to show you so many adorable penguins, seals and plenty of whales! Until next time.
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