Drone photo of about 70 passengers who had disembarked from the NG’s Explorer lodged in about four feet of ice in a cove off the Southern Ocean.
By Norm Zoller
SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. | Unless you have traveled to one of our planet’s poles, you can’t fully appreciate that Antarctica and its vistas are astonishingly majestic, superbly stark, stunning, and in fact, unique, in the dictionary meaning of that word. My wife’s and my journey this past Thanksgiving was the result of our conversations about such a possibility that began some ten years ago. The area is so far away yet not inexpensive.
Norm Zoller
It was about a year ago, however, we finally concluded that we would make this journey, and began searching web sites for possible carriers. One was National Geographic (NG) /Lindblad Expeditions with whom we had traveled previously (Alaska’s Inside Passage and Iceland).
As it turned out, that carrier was featuring a mid-November inaugural trip which combined ship travel via the Drake Passage (about two days). No worries: we had relatively calm seas, and not the 30 foot swells that might have challenged passengers and crew. The return from Antarctica’s King George Island was via air (two hours) to Chile, with takeoff from a gravel runway.
Our flight was from Atlanta to Buenos Aries (nine hours, overnight); then to Ushuaia, Argentina (about three hours). We finally boarded NG’s Explorer headed for King Georgia Island and other islands in the Southern Ocean and the chain of the South Shetland Islands.
On return, we disembarked the Explorer at the airfield on King George Island and flew to Puerto Natales, Chile (about three hours); then to Santiago, Chile; and a flight home (about nine hours) overnight to Atlanta.
Logistically, while aboard NG’s Explorer with its 148 guests and 81 cabins, with all meals served on the ship. In the mornings and afternoons, passengers were ferried to various shore destinations, often through towering sometimes multicolored icebergs, via 10-passenger zodiacs. We did this about 10 times.
Norm and Harriet Zoller
Shore excursions featured varieties of penguins, seals, birds (though regrettably, we never saw an albatross, soaring or otherwise), deserted scientific research stations, cabins from various nations, more nearby icebergs, and some moderate and some challenging walks.
Walking sticks were a must for us (ship supplied), and we never fell once (a potential concern since we’re in our 80s) since snow-covered paths (some six to eight inches deep) had recently been tamped down by previous walkers. This was good cardio exercise. The vistas and the vividly dazzling sunsets were glorious!
Including Thanksgiving Day turkey, our meals aboard ship were high quality, appealingly served, and delicious: A, if not A+. All the ship’s crew, likewise, deserved high marks.
One aspect of this trip that was heartwarming was the presence of 15-20 pairs of travelers. One group included a child (age 40-50 or so), and that person’s parent, who was 70-80. It was as though the parent had always wanted to make a trip like this, and now they were doing it with their adult son or daughter.
And did I say that the vistas in this deep, deep South were stunning, stark, majestic, and unique? Consider this rare travel opportunity in this lifetime. An enticing book with photographs is The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole, by Stuart D. Klipper.
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