More Antarctica

Antarctica Photos Finally 1-26-09

The post doesn't match the photos. I felt I had to comment though! We are on the Mariner headed to St. Bart's. All are well. Smooth seas. It is late. Wanted to share some photos. If Antarctica was put to music, it would be played by a symphony, if it was a dance, it would be a long waltz, if it was an animal, a penguin ( you'll see why ), as a place on a map, it should have a big circle around it as a place everyone should be fortunate enough to visit once in their lifetime. Some things in life really do take your breath away. I hope our photos will make you feel the same way. More to come for sure. We have thousands of photos to sort!

Jan. 26th Made it to Ft. Lauderdale

LONG day for sure. We are now on our Ring of Fire world cruise and I am going to try to post some Antarctica pictures!

Sunday, Jan. 25th, 2009 LONG DAY!

We got up in Ushuaia at 6:00a.m. and caught a charter flight to Buenos Aires. It was a little over 3 hours flying time. We were shuttled to a hoel to WAIT for our next flight which is at 10:30p.m. tonight. We will leave this hotel in about 15 minutes. Wanted to post a note that we are finished with our first fantastic adventure and are about to set sail on the really big ttrip. We arrive in Miami at 4:25a.m. and we will be shuttled to Coral Gables to The Biltmore hotel where we will shower and then meet our next shuttle at 11:00a.m. to Ft. Lauderdale! My sweet friend Kim is meeting us at the port with packages from Birmingham and some storage bins for under our beds! Nice to have old college friends from Auburn that live in Ft. Lauderdale!! We are all doing great and are not really that tired...yet! Tomorrow at some point, pictures from Antarctica will be posted and you will all be amazed!

Friday Jan. 23rd 2009 Sailing the Drake!!!

When we went to bed last night the ship had already started to toss about. We had to secure everything in our rooms for our 2 day passage of the Drake. As we were getting things squared away, we noticed that the snow storm outside had started to create a winter wonderland on the deck outside our window. Nicky and I put on parkas over our pajamas and pushed open the exterior door at the end of our hall. That view into the night was awesome for sure in a scary way. The swells in the ocean were proabably 20 feet and the rush of sideways snow was like something in a movie. We were able to snap a couple of shots before the wind and cold was unbearable and we called it a night. Kathleen is green a bit as is Charles. Nicky and I will be going to lectures today sans them. We are hoping the sea will settle down. The trip back was not supposed to be this rough! We have all of our photos resized to upload but we still are not having much luck.

Thursday Jan. 22, 2009 Deception Island

We arrived early and our group was the first to go out on zodiacs. This stop was for a swim! The pictures I feel sure will speak for themselves. We wallowed in geothermal mud and had fun. Some thought we were crazy but it was really nice once you dug far enough into the mud!! This is a spot that was been abandoned by all as it was a very active volcano area and it's last erruption in 1970 pretty much wiped everything out.
This afternoon will be our last excurion, it will be at Halfmoom Bay. I will try to post pictures when we get out into the dreaded drake!! That starts again tonight!

Jan. 21, 2009 Neko Bay, Antarctica!!

We arrived at this beautiful bay early this morning to the brighest sunlight I have ever seen. It bounced off the glaciers and was like a light show sent from God. We loaded up in our gear and went by zodiacs over to "LAND". This is the real deal. The real Antarctic continent, not just an island! The ice glaciers are higher than the mountains in Aspen! Amazing really. We were fortunate enough to be able to "hike" up the glacier near where we off loaded and what a hike it was. It took about 20-25 minutes to get to the top of the first level of the glacier and that is as far as the guides would let us go. Almost a mile up. Wearing all the gear, we were all steaming hot by the time we reached our summit! We peeled off some layers and started snapping shots of what could be the most breathtaking views of a lifetime. The sheer impact of nothing but water and ice, a few hundred penguins, a couple of seals and the most amzing thing happened. A glacier across the bay from us gave way and went crashing down into the water. The sound it made was like a bass drum orchestra all sounding off together and then silence. Beautiful. We took many a photo and I hope to show them to you. We wore some Auburn gear (of course) and I had my picture made with a fellow alumnus on top of that glacier! War Eagle!!
Kathleen and Nicky had snowball fights at the top and Kathleen tasted the snow! If she gets the Antarctica shuffle, we will know why! I can say that sno at the top of that glacier was not pink, green and yellow. It was pure driven snow. Beautiful. We will get to go on zodiacs this afternoon at 3:00p.m. for another nature tour, looking for whales, seals, penguins and hopefully some more melting glaciers. That was fantastic!