ANTARCTICA VOYAGE FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 19, 2000                    

This 3-week cruise to the South Shetland Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Falkland Islands, was run by Marine Expeditions, a Canadian company specializing in cruises to the Arctic and Antarctic. Lanny Wexler and I chose this company because its prices include airfare from New York to Buenos Aires and from there to Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city, which is where our cruise started from. Our ship was the Akademik Ioffe, a converted Russian research vessel chartered by Marine Expeditions; it has a hull strengthened for navigating in pack ice, and carries 117 passengers and 53 crew. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken.

Day 1, Feb 26, 2000. We departed JFK Terminal 9 at 6:35 pm on an Aerolineas Argentinas A 340 Airbus. The A 340 holds nearly 300 passengers and is only exceeded in size by the Boeing 747.

 Both Ken and I had window seats. We took of on a cloudy, misty night as the lights of the airport and the City almost immediately disappeared as we rose through the low cloud deck.  We settled down for a 10.5 hour flight which featured dinner, two movies and breakfast. We were provided with a pillow, blanket, toothbrush and slippers by the flight attendant. As the plane headed south over Rockaway and out into the open Atlantic, a television screen came on in the center aisle with rotating maps of the Western Hemisphere, the east coast of the United States and our current position off Long Island and the New Jersey coasts. The maps showed our route to

Buenos Aires which would take us south, south east between Bermuda and the Carolinas, past Puerto Rico, the Caribbean Sea and Leeward Islands to Venezuela and crossing Brazil, including the Amazon Jungle in the early AM hours. Our final approach was over Paraguay and the Pampas of Argentina for a landing at Ezeiza International Airport at 7 AM, the next morning. Despite the long distance,  Buenos Aires is only two hours ahead of New York.

The display also showed New York time, Buenos Aires time, and the amount of time remaining to anticipated landing in Buenos Aires. The display showed the  cruising altitude which would reach 39,000 feet, the highest I’ve ever flown. The outside temperature was displayed which was a rather chilly – 67 degrees below zero.  That temperature even was that cold over the equator. Finally, the air speed was shown, which was 620 mph, the fastest aircraft I’ve been on.

The flight was relatively calm, with occasional light turbulence. It was a rather calm, peaceful flight though my with my excitement I was able to get very little sleep. Looking out the window at times I caught sight of the beautiful star constellations and at one point even caught a glimpse of a meteorite streaking across the Amazon Jungle.

Day 2, Feb 27, 2000. As the morning light broke over northern Argentina, our view of the ground was obscured by gray, puffy clouds. As we descended towards the airport we broke the cloud deck and saw green, flat plains with ranches (estancias) scattered about. The landscape resembled the plains of North Texas, near Dallas. We descended and touched down at the rather austere looking Ezeiza International Airport at 7:10 a.m.

Ezeiza International Airport is located some 20 miles west south west of Buenos Aires, a good distance from the city. We walked into the air conditioned terminal, collected our baggage and cleared customs rather quickly. We met the Marine Expeditions Staff who had an air conditioned bus waiting outside the terminal. The humidity, temperatures, vegetation  and even damp smells were reminiscent of South Florida. I’d say it was in the high 70s with a dreary overcast. We drove into Buenos Aires on the 25 de Mayo Autopista. The 25 de Mayo Autopista is a toll road that even features its own version of EZ Pass. We were being bussed to our hotel, the Hotel Presidente which was located on the 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world in the heart of Buenos Aires. On our way in to the city our tour guide gave us some facts about the country. 36 million people live in Argentina, with 15 million residing in the province of Buenos Aires and 5 million living in the city of Buenos Aires. There are 23 provinces in all of Argentina.

As we arrived at our hotel, it began to rain heavily. Fortunately, we and our baggage were all in doors in the air conditioned lobby of the hotel as we waited for our room assignments. On the ride into Buenos Aires we were warned by or tour guide about the mustard artist. The mustard artists prey on unwary tourists by coming up to them and appearing by accident to bump into them and squirt mustard on their clothing. While the mustard artist profusely apologizes and insists on cleaning up mustard off the clothing of the intended victim, the artist’s friend is quickly pick pocketing the unsuspecting tourist. Fortunately, we did not encounter any mustard artists during our stay in Buenos Aires.

    Having been in Buenos Aires in 1991, on a trip to Patagonia, I was most interested to see the changes since then. The major change, thank God, is that the crazy hyperinflation, with a dollar worth 9000 Australs, has been eliminated. The new currency, the peso, is pegged to the US dollar, and both currencies are used interchangeably, which greatly simplifies things for tourists. Unfortunately this has not helped the standard of living; prices are the same as in New York but salaries are much lower, ~ $1200/mo for a professional, before taxes, which are 36%/yr, and unemployment is running at 14%. The worst of it is that after World War II Argentina had the fourth highest standard of living in the world, higher than Canada. Since then, while things have improved for everyone else, they have gone downhill for Argentina.

 I blame this on Peron. He was a fascist dictator, and his economic policies consisted of nationalizing all the major industries and establishing a welfare state. Naturally the lower classes adored him and especially his second wife Evita, and the Peronist party is still a major political force. Peron was kicked out in 1955 after alienating both the military and the Church, but successive governments, both civilian and military, could not change Peron’s economic policies, resulting in huge debts and tremendous inflation. Peron came back in 1973 but died the next year; he was succeeded by his third wife Isabel, who was a total incompetent. With inflation > 400%/yr and terrorists throwing bombs everywhere, the military finally took over in 1976. They got rid of the terrorists all right, but the cure was worse than the disease. People were arrested in the middle of the night and never seen again; as many as 30,000 people were lost in this manner, and you can be sure that 90% of them had no connection with the terrorists. The military introduced a new currency, the Austral, but an unstable peso by any other name is still an unstable peso.

 By 1982 the military was fast losing popularity, but it knew what to do; it started a war. This is always a very effective means of improving the economy and rallying popular support, but it requires winning the war; Argentina lost. The war for the Falklands settled nothing; Argentina still claims the islands and Britain refuses to negotiate. The only good result was that it got rid of the military dictators. Carlos Saul Menem was elected president in 1989. He was a Peronist, but once in power he broke with Peronist policies and went for free markets and a reduced government role. This has put the country on the road to recovery, but progress has been slow, probably because corruption seems to be endemic.

 The El Presidente is a fine modern hotel; it even has computers in the lobby permanently connected to the Internet, so Lanny was able to E-Mail all his friends. It is located on Av 9 de Julio, which is named for Argentina’s Independence Day, July 9, 1816, when the junta in Tucuman province, under the urging of Jose de San Martin, proclaimed independence from Spain. San Martin is known in Argentina as the Liberator, and Argentines revere him like we revere George Washington; his portraits and statues are everywhere. Av 9 due Julio is 140 m wide, the widest street in the world, with 9 lanes of traffic in each direction; it puts Queens Blvd to shame. The median in the middle is a lovely park filled with flowering trees and statues, including The Obelisk, which looks like the Washington Monument. The street was constructed in 1936, part of an attempt to make Buenos Aires the Paris of South America. However this effect is somewhat spoiled by the heavy traffic, which is about like that in midtown Manhattan. Our guides warned us about the aggressive driving habits of the locals, who are called Portenos, but it was nothing for anyone used to dodging taxis in Manhattan. In fact there seem to be many more taxis here than in Manhattan.

 We were given an hour to freshen up, then there was an orientation meeting, after which we were free until 2 pm, when a walking tour was offered. Meals were on our own today, so Lanny and I crossed Av 9 de Julio to find a café where many of our group were eating, but service was so slow (waited an hour and no food was brought over) that we had to walk out to avoid missing the walking tour. We walked down Av de Cordoba (named after a major city in Argentina) to Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian mall, just as I remembered it from my 1991 visit. Since it was Sunday most stores were closed, but they are always open on this street. Calle Florida runs from Plaza de Mayo to Plaza de San Martin, a lovely park with many fine trees. Shot of Av 9 de Julio, of the flowering trees in San Martin Plaza and of the statue of San Martin there, and a shot of the English Tower. Argentina had very good relations with Britain, in fact better than with the US, up until the Falklands War, and the English Tower was a gift from Britain. From here it was a short walk up Av Santa Fe back to Av 9 de Julio and the hotel.

 One Argentine custom I dislike is the late dinner; having dinner at 9 pm would be considered exceptionally early here, and restaurants seldom open before 9 pm. Today this was especially annoying since I was tired from the long flight. So I had a snack at the hotel and then was in bed by 5:30 pm. Lanny had more energy than I; he took a walking tour of the fashionable Recoleta neighborhood, had dinner at the Bull Rich Galleria Mall, and then got on the Internet. Lanny reported seeing the tomb where Eva Peron is entombed, walking thru some of the affluent neighborhoods, observing entertainment in the parks where he saw musicians, magicians and a man walking on stilts. Lanny also visited the Fine Art Museum which has many European paintings from famous artists such as Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir and Van Gogh.

Day 3, Feb 28, 2000.  We awoke early and went to breakfast which featured eggs, cereal and an array of sweet pastries. The day was bright, sunny and cool  with a comfortable breeze. It was quite a difference from yesterday’s oppressive humidity. After breakfast we boarded our tour bus which took us to the north west of Buenos Aires to Estancia Santa Susana, which seems to be an Argentine version of a dude ranch. We drove north, north west through the affluent northern suburbs on a busy Autopista which quieted down as we left the city behind and headed out into the Argentine country side. On the way out we passed a Burger King and a Bank of Boston, in the same shopping center, nonetheless!

Culture & History: For hundreds of miles Buenos Aires is surrounded by flat grasslands called pampas. This and the presence of wild horses and cattle escaped from the Spanish produced a unique culture, the gaucho. The gauchos were mostly mestizos, of mixed Indian and Spanish descent, and were (and are) superb horsemen. They lived a nomadic life herding cattle and horses, often selling them illegally across the Brazilian frontier. As Argentina developed the pampas were divided into huge ranches called estancias, and the gauchos were tamed and forced to work for the big ranches. However their culture remains, and gauchos are admired in Argentina the same way cowboys are admired in the US. Unlike cowboys, gauchos did not carry guns; their weapons were the bola, a weighted slingshot used to trip the legs of cows or horses, and the lasso. They wear a flat, broad-brimmed hat, a poncho, baggy trousers tucked into high boots, and a wide belt filled with silver coins. They lived on a diet of beef and yerba mate, a kind of holly tea, which is still the national drink of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. On the bus ride out to the estancia, which is 50 km from Buenos Aires, our guide treated us to mate. It is made by putting leaves into a metal cup, adding hot water, and drinking through a metal straw. It is not something, which can be found in restaurants; drinking it is a social occasion, done among friends and at home. It has a slightly sour taste, not unpleasant, and contains a mild stimulant similar to caffeine.

 Upon arrival at the estancia, we were treated to a glass of wine and empanadas, a kind of meat pie, which I find delicious. Then we could tour the ranch house and could ride on a horse or a little two-wheeled cart. Photos of Lanny in a horse drawn cart and myself in a horsedrawn cart, of the type of saddle used by the gauchos, and of the grill on which our lunch was being made. The weather this day was perfect, sunny with a cool breeze, low humidity, and high ~ 80`F.

 Lunch was carne asado, the typical Argentine barbecue. The wood used for the barbecue is quebracho, a common hardwood that grows in the north of the country. They grilled beef (it came out more like London broil than steak and was delicious), chicken, and chorizo, a sweet sausage. After lunch we were treated to a dance exhibition, including samba and tango. Then we went outside and watched the gauchos demonstrating their skills, rounding up a herd of horses using dogs, and playing sortija (slides and photos of gaucho rounding up horses and of a gaucho playing sortija). In this game, the gaucho gallops at full speed under an arch, holding in front of him a lance the size of a pencil, and tries to spear a tiny ring hanging from a leather strap. It’s not easy, but the gauchos were able to spear the ring nearly every time, except for one 4-yr old kid, who however rode amazingly well.

 We got back in the bus at 4 pm and were back at our hotel at 5:15 pm, helped by the fact that we were going against the rush hour. Then Lanny and I took our own tour.  We walked down Av 9 de Julio to the Obelisk and took the subway. Buenos Aires has a complete public transportation system including many buses, five subway lines within the city proper, and three railroad stations taking people to the suburbs. However there is no long distance rail service equivalent to Amtrak. The subway fare is $0.60, paid by token (no Metrocard here). The subway cars were wooden, not air conditioned, and powered by electricity in overhead wires rather than a third rail. At rush hour the subway is at least as crowded as that in New York. However Lanny and I went only one stop, and that against traffic, to Plaza de Mayo. This park is named for May 25, 1810, when Buenos Aires declared its independence from Spain (6 yr earlier than the rest of Argentina). It is also the site of the original first settlement of 1580 and now the central point of government, where is located Casa Rosada (pink house), the Executive offices (unlike the US, the Argentine President does not live in the same building as his offices). Slides and photos of the Obelisk, of the Cabildo (original town hall), of Casa Rosada as seen from Plaza de Mayo, and of the monument in front of Casa Rosada. Guards in colorful, old-fashioned uniforms patrol the front of this building, which is colored pink only in front. We then walked north to Convento Santo Domingo, once a convent, now the oldest cathedral in the city. Slide and photo.. We went inside; there was an evening Mass going on, but the place looked nearly empty. Although Argentina is 96% Catholic, and the constitution requires the president to be Catholic, the population is about as religious as Israeli Jews. From here we turned left, and it was a short walk to Puerto Madero (slide and photo).

 At Buenos Aires, Rio de la Plata is a gigantic wide river, very brown with mud and silt. It is  so wide that one cannot see the other side (Uruguay), but this does not itself make a good harbor. At one time a small river flowed into Rio de la Plata, and at its mouth was a swampy island. The mouth of this river was the first harbor; later the channel between the mainland the island was dredged to expand the harbor, and this is Puerto Madero. The ship seen in the slide and photo is an Argentine square rigger named after D. F. Sarmiento, President of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. He was a liberal at a time when Argentina was progressive and prosperous. The ship is now a museum. The present harbor, a container port, is farther upstream, at the far end of the original island. The old harbor is now a narrow canal with a fancy pedestrian mall and dozens of waterside cafes. Most of these were closed, since it was only 7:30 pm, but a TGI Friday was open, and here we had our evening meal. We then walked back to our hotel up Av de Cordoba, arriving at 10 pm.

 Day 4, Feb. 29, 2000:  We had to get up at 2:30 am today for a 5:30 am flight to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, where we would board the ship for our Antarctic cruise. In addition to the international airport, Ezeiza, Buenos Aires has a second airport, a much smaller one, Jorge Newberry, on the shore of Rio de la Plata just upstream of the modern harbor. This airport, equivalent to La Guardia Airport in New York, serves domestic flights. We took off into the clear dawn leaving the lights of Buenos Aires behind. The flight to Ushuaia took 3 hr and 30 min at 472 mph and was mostly over water.

 The approach into Ushuaia was just spectacular. Jagged snowcap mountains,  interspersed with straits of water (the Beagle Channel) surrounded this “city at the end of the world.” The touchdown was just thrilling as it looked like we were going to land in the water just when the runway pulled up. We exited the aircraft into the cool Fuegan air. Temps about 50 degrees. It felt rather fall like after leaving the summer heat of Buenos Aires behind.

 History and geography of Tierra del Fuego. Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the south end of South America. It consists of one large island, Isla Grande, and a number of smaller islands to the south and west. It was discovered in 1520 by Magellan, who named it for the fires he saw on shore. These fires were lit by the Yamani Indians, who hunted seals in dugout canoes. These Indians wore no clothes (they didn’t know how to sew), and kept warm by lighting fires. They needed to keep warm; the climate is rainy, windy, with a temperature never higher than 60`F. Since they had no matches, they had a difficult time lighting fires, so once they got one going they never let it go out, carrying it in their canoes (nice trick!). Magellan knew nothing of this since he never landed here; he decided he had gone too far south, turned around, and soon found the Straits of Magellan, which is the channel between the mainland and Isla Grande. The area was not explored until 1830, by a British ship named the Beagle, commanded by a Capt. Fitzroy, who had a naturalist on board named Charles Darwin. The channel at the south end of Isla Grande, separating it from Isla Navarino (Chilean territory), is the Beagle Channel; Ushuaia is on the north side of this channel.

On Isla Grande, the Andes Mountains turn east-west and end. North of the mountains is the Patagonian desert, once the home of guanaco (a wild relative of the llama) and now sheep farms; south of the mountains is the Beagle Channel. The mountains are not high; the highest peak is Mt. Olivia (a corruption of a Yamani word meaning “harpoon pointed toward the bay”), 4000 ft. However since timberline is < 2000 ft, the peaks are sharp-edged and always snow-covered. It had snowed last night, and there was fresh snow on the peaks. Thus the whole area looks much like southern Alaska. Unfortunately the forest is not nearly as rich as in Alaska; the only trees are three species of Magellenic beech. These beeches are in the same family as American and European beeches, and the same species are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere, indicating that they originated on Gondawonaland.

 The first settlers in Tierra del Fuego were Anglican missionaries to the Yamani Indians. They managed to produce a Yamani dictionary before the Yamani became extinct. Darwin himself thought the Yamani were the sorriest humans he had ever seen. However they were on their last legs by Darwin’s time since, although they had not come in contact with whites and their diseases, the seals on which they depended had been to hunted to extinction by US and British sealers. The land was soon claimed by Argentina and Chile, both expanding south. The border between the two countries was not clearly defined, and up until recently the two countries got along about as well as Israel and Syria, but somehow or other outright war was always avoided. Ushuaia was founded in 1880 as a penal colony to forestall Chilean settlement; at the same time Chile planted a naval base, Puerto Williams, on the other side of the Beagle Channel. At present Ushuaia has a population of ~ 20,000, having grown considerably since I was last here. However much of this growth is transients, which shows in the rather cruddy looking buildings. Since Ushuaia is a duty-free port, many electronics factories have moved here. People come down to work in the factories, buy a 4x4 at prices half those in Buenos Aires, work the required 5 yr, and then move back to Buenos Aires with their car. The corruption endemic in Argentina does not help; the last governor just ran off with $4 million. The growth of Antarctic tourism has helped (almost all ships to Antarctica leave from here), but this is a seasonal industry. A ski resort has been built, but it suffers from the fact that the day is only 6 hr long in winter (Ushuaia is at latitude S54`) and from the warm winter weather, which turns the snow to boiler plate.

 This information I got from a lecture on the ship while we were steaming to Buenos Aires from the Falklands, three days at sea. It was explained that the top 200 m of Mt Olivia is rotten rock at a 50` angle, and nine men have died trying to climb it. In fact the climb is best done in winter when all this rock is sheathed in ice, making it a simple ice climb.

 We landed at the new airport, which has runways long enough for a Concorde. Since it was only 9 am and our ship did not leave until 6 pm, we were given a bus tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park. There are two places to go here: Ensenada, where the beech forest comes down to the shore (4 slides and photos of the crowd exploring the shoreline here and of the views #1-4), and Lapataia Bay, which is the southern end of the Pan American Highway (the north end is Barrow, AK some 12, 000 miles way!) The road here is good quality dirt, but the highway is paved outside the Park. It really does look like the end of the world (5 slides of me at the monument here and of the views, looking out on Beagle Channel #5-10).  After a lunch (paid for) of roast lamb at a place which raises sled dogs (slide #11), we were driven back to Ushuaia where we had 2 hr free before boarding our ship. On the way to Ushuaia we stopped at a viewpoint (3 slides #12-14) where we could look out over the wide valley we were in and the snow-capped peaks surrounding it. We passed one cross-country ski resort; it has a lighted trail to compensate for the lack of daylight in winter at these latitudes (54` south). The weather was quite variable, brief showers and also brief intervals of warm sunshine, generally cloudy and windy, ~ 55`F.

 Ushuaia has a population of ~ 45,000. It is built along two main streets, one alongside the harbor and the other parallel to the harbor but on the hill above. Slide (#15) of the post office, with murals of the Yamani Indians and of the convict founding fathers, and a slide (#16) looking down to the harbor from the upper street.  The white ship in the harbor is ours. It is the Akademik Ioffe, a Russian ship built in Kaliningrad (once known as Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia) in 1989 as a research vessel and/or spy ship, as was typical of the Soviet system. Its last research assignment was in Antarctica in 1992, in cooperation with Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Univ. Oregon. Since then it has been carrying tourists in the Arctic and Antarctic. In the Marine Expeditions catalog it is listed as the Marine Adventurer, but this name is seen nowhere on the ship. It has six decks, including the bridge, a length of 117 m and a beam of 18.5 m. It carries 117 passengers (compared to up to 2000 in a real cruise ship) and has a crew of 43, all Russian. One enters the ship on the third deck, which includes the lowest class cabins (bunk beds and bathroom down the hall) and the large dining hall, which could accommodate all passengers in one sitting; it also doubled as a lecture hall. The fourth and fifth decks included higher class cabins (six classes overall). My cabin was on the fourth deck, A class (135 sq ft, one bed, a sofa which doubled as a second bed, and private bath). Lanny had a B class cabin on fifth deck with his bed right next to the porthole (same as A but only 100 sq ft and bathroom shared with the adjoining cabin). Lanny shared his cabin with Sanjay, a retired math teacher from Ottawa, Canada. Sanjay was originally from India. I also roomed with  a retiree named Haney. The fifth deck also had a library and a sauna. There was a small swimming pool, but it was rarely even filled since the water in the Southern Ocean is way too cold for swimming. The sixth deck consisted of the bridge in front and luxury cabins in back. Atop the sixth deck was a flat roof which gave excellent viewing. The ship is not an icebreaker but has an ice-strengthened hull so it is not bothered by small amounts of pack ice.

 We boarded the ship about 4 pm and settled in, our baggage having already been delivered to our cabins. We were under way at 6 pm, had a get to know you wine and cheese party at 7 pm where we met our Antarctica Expedition Leader, Brad Rheese. Then at 8 pm a  lifeboat drill was held, it was the only lifeboat drill of the cruise. The ship has two enclosed, self-righting lifeboats, each holding 66. Each lifeboat is equipped with a diesel engine just strong enough to keep it headed into the wing. Dinner was served right after the lifeboat drill, but I skipped dinner because I was exhausted after having been up since 2:30 am. Lanny took some Dramamine in anticipation of the rough seas ahead after we leave the sheltered waters of the Beagle Channel about midnight. After dinner, Lanny went out on the open deck to see a stargazing lecture from an amateur Canadian astronomer. Despite chattering teeth brought on by the evening chill, the group of stargazers marveled at the heavens above which included unfamiliar constellations, galaxies and stars. They were able to spot the star constellations that cannot be viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. These included the Southern Cross, the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds and Alpha and Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighboring star, at only 4. 4.3 light years distant. The evening departure meant that we did not get to see Cape Horn, the southern point of Tierra del Fuego; we passed Cape Horn about midnight.

 Day 5, March 1, 2000. Today we awoke to a  gray overcast and a rocking ship. Yes, we had finally hit “the Drake” and the ship was rolling back and forth and to and fro in occasional 20 foot swells but despite the movement, the motion was in the tolerable range. Nevertheless, while lying in bed you could feel the ship being lifted up and then just as quickly the ship would sink with the bow making a resounding boom as occasional large waves occasionally broke over the bow of the ship. Walking in the hallways and going up and downstairs was a challenge as we always held on to the railings while we were pushed pulled lifted or sank to and fro. We were told to always leave free “a hand for the ship”. I t was not uncommon to make a “grand entrance into the dining hall as the ship’s motion just literally pushed you through the doors. Some of the chairs in the dining hall were chained down and some were not. Occasionally, a plate would fall to the floor and shatter which was immediately cleaned up by the crew.

 Over the next two days we would have to adjust to this continuous motion as we crossed the infamous Drake Passage. Some people became seasick which was evidenced by the  empty seats during meal times in the dining hall. Fortunately Lanny and I were relatively unaffected by the motion of the ship.

 Lanny and many other passengers on aboard were afflicted by an outbreak of diarrhea. This could probably be blamed on the water which was taken on in Ushuaia. Lanny quickly sought out the ship’s doctor who was an elderly Russian woman who spoke not a word of English. Somehow Lanny was able to communicate his condition and she gave him some pills. Later on that day she found Lanny and had him drink a milky white fluid out to be rice water. Before long, the doctor was dispensing this rice water in large bowls for the passengers to take with their meals.

 The Drake Passage  is some 620 miles wide separating Antarctica from Argentina was named after Sir Francis Drake. In 1577 he was commissioned  by Queen Elizabeth to raid Spanish colonies on the west coasts of North and South America. After passing through the Straits of Magellan a fierce storm blew him south and east into Drake Passage, which stretches 200 miles from Cape Horn to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. At this point one could sail all the way around the world and never encounter land. Thus the prevailing west winds can raise tremendous waves, and this area has a reputation for some of the worst weather in the world. Actually the crossing is quite variable, ranging from calm as a lake to 100 ft waves, which are so strong that even a modern ship like ours has to turn and sail into the wind to avoid capsizing. On this day we hit 20 ft waves, not high enough to be dangerous but enough to make some people (not me) seasick and make it difficult to walk around the ship.

 On days like this, when we were at sea with no landings, the routine was always the same. Breakfast was at 8 am, lunch at 12:30 pm, tea at 4:30 pm, and dinner at 8 pm, with lectures in the morning and afternoon. The shop, which had a very small selection (but did have slide film, which I needed) was sometimes open, and we were offered tours of the ship. The Marine Expeditions staff of 13, from everywhere in the world, included three lecturers, one on seals, whales, and dolphins, one on birds, and one on Antarctic history. At night after dinner we saw the six part PBS series, Life in the Freezer by David Attenborough. Later in the cruise we some of the passengers developed a version of Antarctic Jeopardy which featured categories such as Frosty Firsts, Dead Men on Ice, Sealed With A Kiss and Who Wants to be a Krillionaire? The team with the most questions right won a Marine Expeditions patch. Of course Lanny was on the winning team.

 There were also featured movie videos in the recreation room. We were really a self contained ship in this watery wilderness at the bottom of the world, thousands of miles from civilization.

 History and Geography of Antarctica. From earliest times there was a belief that there was a continent in the south; it was called Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land). In 1772 Captain Cook undertook an expedition for England to find this continent. He sailed all the way around Antarctica, at one point getting south of the Antarctic Circle; he saw a number of islands, a lot of ice, but never sighted Antarctica. However his explorations did convince him that if such a continent existed it was nothing but a frozen wasteland. This is indeed the case; the interior of the continent is nothing but ice. Since temperatures are so low that the vapor pressure of water is essentially zero, precipitation is very low. However a wind constantly blows from the frozen interior to the coast, and along the coastal mountains, where glaciers come down from the frozen interior plateau, these winds can reach hurricane force. However the Antarctic Peninsula stretches as far north as latitude 60` south, and the climate can be quite mild along the coast, with summer temperatures as high as 40`F and winter temperatures seldom below 0`F (but of course this neglects the wind chill). There is precipitation here, sometimes rain but more often snow.

 Captain Cook reported a lot of seals around the Antarctic Peninsula. Having already killed all the seals in the Arctic, sealers from around the world, especially the US, were very interested. The Antarctic Peninsula is sometimes called the Palmer Peninsula, after Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer who was one of the first down here. However sealers were not explorers; if they found a beach with lots of seals, they would keep it a secret. Since there are not many beaches down here where seals can breed, it took only three years for the sealers to put themselves out of work. Luckily they left a few seals, and in the subsequent 150 years seal numbers have recovered quite nicely. The next explorer was Charles Wilkes, a US Navy captain. In 1839 he was ordered to Antarctica; among his missions was to ascertain the truth of a theory by a guy named Symmes. This theory claims that the Earth is hollow, and that the lands in the inside can be reached through holes at the North and South Poles. Needless to say Wilkes found no hole. However theories like this can never be disproven by the facts. I understand many Nazi bigwigs were much enamored of this theory. Figures, nuts believe in nutty theories. There is a huge area of Antarctica, on the east coast, named after Wilkes.

This evening we crossed the Antarctic Convergence. This is not a line but a region where the cold (50`F) waters of the South Atlantic and South Pacific give way to the frigid (28`F) waters around Antarctica. It can be recognized by a decrease in salinity, due to all the melting icebergs. There is also an increase in sea birds, albatross and petrels. Cold water is rich in nutrients and oxygen. In the waters around Antarctica this fosters tremendous growth of  krill, 90 species of shrimp-like crustaceans 8-70 mm in length. These eat diatoms and are themselves eaten by everything else down here – penguins, petrels, albatross, seals, and whales. Compared to a coral reef in the tropics, there are many fewer species down here but more total biomass.

 Day 6, March 2, 2000 Today we sited the South Shetland Islands, a chain of islands just 75 miles off the Antarctic Peninsula. Our first landing site at Hanna Point on Livingston Island was aborted due to high winds so we continued on into the lee of Livingston Island for a landing at Half Moon Island which was made about made about 5 pm. In the morning we were lectured on the procedure for landing. Landings are made in zodiacs, which are rubber rafts invented by Jacques Cousteau. They are powered by an outboard motor and seat ten, on the inflated sides of the raft. To go ashore I dressed like I was going skiing, but on my feet I wore 12 in. high insulated rubber boots. My outer layer was Gore-Tex rain gear, including zippered rain pants that could be tightened around the outside of the boots to provide a tight seal. This kept me warm and dry. Most of the beaches where we landed were penguin colonies, so everything is covered in penguin guano. For this reason a large room in the ship which opened directly onto the deck was used to keep all our boots in and to get dressed in; I also kept my rain pants here. This room was called the mud room, even though it was too cold for mud. After dressing in the mud room, we lined up and descended the gang plank to the waiting zodiac. At the bottom of the gang plank a crewman gripped our wrists and we stepped onto the inflated side of the zodiac, then onto its wooden floor, sat down, and slid to the back. On the beach we would sit on the side of the zodiac, spin around with our feet pointing toward the motor, and put our feet on the bottom. The ship carried four zodiacs, which were constantly shuttling people back and forth between the ship and the landing site.

 To the northwest of the Antarctic Peninsula are the South Shetland Islands. This was where we made our landing, on Half Moon Island, which is a small island at latitude 62.35` south in a sheltered bay east of Livingston Island, which is heavily glaciated. The shelter kept the landing site dead calm even though the weather was foul – clouds, fog, 34`F, and 30 knot winds. The landing site was a steeply sloping pebble beach leading up to a flat plateau of hard-packed dirt below some hills. The whole area was a chinstrap penguin rookery, with its attendant sheathbills, skuas, and Antarctic terns. Sheathbills are small white birds that feed on penguin guano; they must be having a feast; they are the only land birds in Antarctica. Skuas are large birds, resembling seagulls, that have become predators. They are not large enough to eat a full-grown penguin, but they can and do eat penguin chicks and eggs. However by this time of year, late autumn, the penguin chicks are full grown; the penguins are on the beach only because they are molting, growing a new set of feathers for the winter. Once molting is complete, the penguins will enter the water and spend the entire winter at sea, moving north to stay at the edge of the pack ice. Within a month all the water around here will be frozen. The chinstrap is distinguished from other penguin species by having a white chin with a black line across it. There were also a few fur seals, which were also molting. The molting seals spend most of their time sleeping, and are very resentful when our presence wakes them up. We were told to keep 15 ft from all the animals; this was very easy to do with the seals, but not with the penguins, who are packed as close as on a subway at rush hour and are as curious about us as we are about them. We also saw seals and penguins in the water. Penguins of course are flightless; their wings have become flippers which make them incredibly fast and agile in the water. They swim by porpoising, swimming underwater, then coming up in a graceful arc to breathe, similar to the way porpoises swim. Slide of the penguins and of a seal on this beach, #17-18.

 Day 7, March 3, 2000. During the night we motored across Bransfield Strait, pitching and rolling all the way, and in the morning anchored in Gerlache Strait, just northwest of Arctowski Peninsula on the mainland of the Antarctic Peninsula (Arctowski was a Polish Antarctic explorer), landing on Cuverville Island, latitude 64.4` south. The weather was calm, ~ 0`C, with mixed sun and clouds and occasional snow flurries. Arctowski Peninsula is spectacular, with high mountains and glaciers coming right down to the sea, and the bay in front of our landing site was choked with icebergs, many of them grounded in the shallow water. The landing site was a huge gentoo penguin rookery. The gentoos are a little larger than the chinstraps, have orange beaks, a long stiff tail, and a white band that runs across the head from eye to eye. Chinstraps are the most numerous penguins (13 million world population), but we saw more gentoos than chinstraps. This is because chinstraps breed earlier than gentoos; they climb cliffs to find open, windy spots free of snow, whereas the gentoos, which breed on the beach, are forced to wait until the snow melts. Global warming is causing trouble for the gentoos because as these beaches warm up there is more precipitation, i.e. more snow in spring and fall. This was one of the most beautiful landing sites on our trip. On the way back to the ships we cruised by ice floes with leopard seals basking in the sun and waiting dor their next meal of penguin. Leopard seals which are one of the penguins chief predators will when catching a penguin throw the hapless bird up several times in the air and start slowly ripping it to pieces for the pleasure of it.

 Lunch today was also spectacular, a delicious barbecue, outdoors on the rear deck! The lack of wind (rare down here) made it quite comfortable to eat outside, at least until a snow squall came up.  As if Cuverville wasn’t so nice, the afternoon landing site, at Neko Harbor on the Antarctic mainland of Arctowski Peninsula (our one landing on the Antarctic mainland) was even better. It was a sandy beach covered with large icebergs, through which we had to thread our way to reach the open land above, where there was an unmanned Argentine rescue station. Argentina, Chile, and the U.K. all claim the Antarctic Peninsula and the offshore islands, and the rescue stations are all over these landing sites, but their real purpose is not to help stranded sailors but to stake a territorial claim. As long as the Antarctic treaty holds, these claims are held in abeyance. There were also many huge whale bones here. Antarctica was the last refuge of the great whales, and until quite recently many whaling ships were active here. To one side of our landing beach was a narrow bay with an active glacier across it, and this glacier was constantly dropping icebergs. The sight put Lago Argentino on my 1991 Patagonia trips to shame. Many people, including Lanny but not me, climbed a hill behind the beach; there were many nesting skuas, and their behavior in defense of their chicks puts Icelandic terns to shame. Lanny nearly got skewered by the skuas coming down this hill as he accidentally walked in to their nesting area. Needless to say it was quite a fright for Lanny as he fought these birds off by waving his arms above his head and praying he didn’t get ripped by their sharp claws.The leopard seal is the largest of the four species of true Antarctic seals. True seals are distinguished from sea lions by their lack of external ears and undeveloped front flippers, which makes them incapable of rearing up out of the water. The leopard seal is so called because it has spots and because it is a ferocious carnivore; it eats penguins and crabeater seals. The crabeater seal does not eat crabs, only krill.

 In the evening, as the setting sun cast soft pastel colors on the snow, we steamed through beautiful Neumayer Channel, which separates the Antarctic mainland from Anvers Island (3 slides, #33-35).

 Day 8, March 4, 2000.  In the early morning we steamed through Lemaire Channel, otherwise known as “Kodak gap”. It is very narrow, with high mountains on both sides. The channel has a bend in it, which makes the trip spectacular, as it looks like the ship will be steaming right into a glacier. However the view was obscured by snow squalls (4 slides, #36-39). Then we landed on Petermann Island, at a place known as Circumcision Point, so called because it was first reached on Jan. 6, the day Jesus was circumcised. This was our southernmost point on the trip, latitude 65.1` south, only 90 miles as the crow flies north of the Antarctic Circle. This was a dry landing, which I don’t like; there is no beach and one steps from the zodiac onto bare granite rock, often slippery from green algae, seaweed, and penguin guano. There was another “rescue” station here, this one British. The weather at this point was mostly sunny and about, ~ 32`F. The walk from our landing site to the rescue station was over snow, discolored due to red algae and penguin guano. Walking on the snow was tricky; the surface varied from icy to very soft. There were the usual gentoo penguins plus a few Adelie penguins, which differ from gentoos in having black beaks and black heads. Lanny climbed a rocky high point on the island which had some tricky footing. From the top he enjoyed spectacular views and remarked that one of the mountain peaks looked like a miniature Mt. McKinley in Alaska. Many ice bergs and floes were seen floating on the surface of the water. There was also some scattered mosses and even grasses growing on the warmer northern exposures. Just before going back to the Zodiac Lanny observed a penguin on a life preserver. What to do at this point, we were not suppose approach within 15 feet of the wildlife but at the same time were required to wear our life preserver. Expedition Leader Brad Reese made the decision that safety came first and gently coaxed the gentoo penguin off the life preserver. Five slides including two of penguins in a snowmelt puddle, #40-44.

 Our afternoon landing was at Port Lockroy, partway up Neumayer Channel on a small island  in a sheltered bay west of Wiencke Island, which is large and heavily glaciated. Port Lockroy is a British Antarctic Survey base, built in 1944 to keep tabs on German activity in Antarctica and abandoned in 1965 as obsolete. It was reoccupied in 1996 when the second Antarctic Treaty required member nations to clean up the wastes at their bases. It is now occupied mainly to show the tourists what an old fashioned Antarctic base; spartan sums it up. There were two scientists there, and one operated the museum and gift shop. All the Antarctic cruise ships stop here; we were the last of the season, the 99^th. In a few days the supply ship will come and evacuate the two men. In the mean time the gift shop had nothing to sell except postcards and stamps. I mailed a postcard to Hanna and Andy Benesch to see how long it takes to arrive; it cost $1 for the postcard and $1 for postage, payable in dollars or pound Sterling. Since we were the last ship of the season we carried the mail to Stanley, capital of the Falklands. From there it will go by RAF plane to London and then on to the US. The two men were our guests at dinner tonight (they also took the opportunity for a shower, not available at their base), and they explained their research; it is a good example of scientific research on the cheap. They divided their little island in half and kept tourists off one half, then compared penguins on the two halves. The first standard of comparison was fledging success, i.e. the ability of parents to hatch an egg and raise a chick to where it can fend for itself; there was no difference between the two halves. The second standard was penguin behavior. On the half without tourists penguins squawk and run from people; on the other half I have to get out of their way. In fact on Petermann Island, one penguin tried to eat my hiking stick. Four slides including one of penguins saluting the Union Jack, #45-48. They also explained how the clear air here and the lack of trees or anything to give perspective distorts vision; the “nearby” peak on Wiencke Island is Mt. Francais, and it is actually 9500 ft high.

 Day 9, March 5, 2000.  This morning we had no landing, instead a 1 hr zodiac cruise around Paradise Bay. This was one of our highlights of the expedition. We were in our glory as we cruised in awe through the brash ice marveling at the rugged mountains, sheer cliffs, ice floes and ice caves in this wondrous, ethereal landscape around us. At one point we turned off the motor of the Zodiac and sat several moments in absolute silence. The reflections of a mountain peak could be seen on the surface of the calm bay. Here high peaks on the west shore of the Antarctic Peninsula come right down to the sea in sheer cliffs while several small islands offshore keep the water calm. One of these islands houses a large Argentine base which we sailed close to but did not visit. At the end of the bay a huge glacier fills the water with icebergs of all sizes. Four photos, all taken from the ship, since I find it hard to take pictures from a zodiac. However on this zodiac ride I did sight Minke whales.

 Before returning to the ship we passed an abandoned Argentine base. Here back in 1983, the Argentine base doctor went mad when told he was going to have to winter over here. He was so upset, he set the base on fire just as the ship was leaving. The crew saw the fire and went back and got him. They took the doctor back to Buenos Aires to be committed to a mental hospital.

 Whales: One of our lecturers, Sonja Heinrich, a German doctoral student, is an expert on whales and seals, and the following facts come from her lectures. There are many different species of whales, but they can all be divided into two types, toothed whales, which eat mostly fish, and baleen whales, which eat mostly krill and plankton. Most whales of both types come to the Arctic and Antarctic to feed, but many (although not all) species breed in tropical waters. Toothed whales include dolphins and killer whales; the largest tooth whale is the sperm whale, which dives deep to catch giant squid. The sperm whale has a large head filled with a light, oily fat called spermaceti, which apparently aids in echo location. Baleen whales have no teeth; instead their mouth is filled with comb-like filter. To eat the whale takes a big gulp of water, then expels it through the filter, which catches the krill. Baleen whale species include the blue, humpback, and right whales. The right whale is so called because it is the right whale to hunt; when dead it floats. For this reason the blue, humpback, and right whales have been so well hunted that they are, if not yet extinct, almost extinct, as is the sperm whale. Whalers always sought the largest individuals, so only runts are left, and not many of them. The International Whaling Commission has banned hunting of these species except for research purposes, which is a case of locking the barn door after the horse is stolen. The Japanese take thousands of whales a year, all for “research?”, and Iceland has left the International Whaling Commission and so respects no hunting limits. The Minke whale is the smallest baleen whale, little larger than a zodiac,  and so (up to now at least) has not been much hunted. However the loss of the whales is the gain of the seals and dolphins since there is now more krill for them to eat. Attempts to use krill as a human food have failed, since there is too much fluoride in the shells.

  In the afternoon we landed on Danco Island, which has the usual gentoo penguin rookery, a “rescue” station, built by the British but now used by Argentina, and a high point which has little snow on its slopes and so is fairly easily climbed. Lanny and many others climbed it, but I went only a third of the way up, up a steep rocky slope to a wide ledge. Lanny observed a gentoo penguin chasing off a skua and a late hatched gentoo penguin chick which is unlikely to survive the impending winter. Three photos of gentoo penguins, one photo of a seal blocking the path up the hill, one of a penguin next to a whale vertebrae, one of the surrounding view. We were required to wear lifejackets in the zodiac but generally discarded them on the beach until ready to return to the ship. Four Seattle Filmworks slides and photos of the overall view, and three of the rescue station and the (radio masts?) behind it, #49-56.

 Day 10, March 6, 2000.   During the night we steamed back to the South Shetland Islands. Our landing in the morning was at Hannah Point, on Livingston Island. It is named after the Hannah, an American sealing ship wrecked here on Christmas Day 1820. It had been intended to make this our first landing of the trip, but the windy weather on March 2 forced us to substitute Half Moon Island. I am glad we were able to land here; it was spectacular. It had a cobble beach with separate chinstrap and gentoo penguin rookeries and even two macaroni penguins mixed in with the chinstraps. The macaroni is a small penguin species, one of several species with feather crests on each side of the head. In the macaroni these crests are yellow. In the 18^th Century, British dandies, men with an excessive interest in fashionable clothing, were called “macaronis”. There were also elephant seals on this beach which make loud, crude grunting and belching noises. Lanny also saw a nesting Southern Giant Petrel. These birds have a nasty reputation of vomiting a noxious smelling, sticky fluid if you approach them too closely, thus they earned the name of “stinkers”. Nesting among the volcanic cliffs, they look like relics from a past age perhaps the best resemble a feathered pterodactyl. Slides 57-61.

 In the afternoon we sailed into Deception Island. The preposition “into” is accurate and explains the odd name for this island. The name was bestowed by the American sealers. From the outside this island looks as one would expect down here – bleak, barren mountains. However the island is really an active volcano. Long ago an eruption blew off the top of the volcano and the caldera filled with sea water, creating a perfect harbor surrounded by mountains. The eruption blew a 100 m wide cut in these mountains through which the sea, and our ship, entered. This is called Neptune’s Bellows.  In 1821 Nathaniel Palmer (see p. 6) climbed a low pass in these mountains, called Neptune’s Window, and sighted the Antarctic Peninsula. Some of our group climbed this pass, but there was too much fog for a view of Antarctica. We made two landings here. The first was at Pendulum Cove. Here hot springs at the water’s edge mix with the frigid seawater, creating the only place in Antarctica where swimming is possible. Depending on wind and tide, the temperature of the water may be anything between 0` and 50`C. Despite the fact Lanny was getting over a cold, Lanny went swimming with many of the other passengers. I did not; with 36`F air temperature and a 25 knot wind, it was not very inviting. There are no penguins or seals here; they don’t like warm water.

 The second landing was at Whaler’s Cove. From 1911 to 1931 this was a Norwegian whaling station, where whales were rendered in giant pots to catch the blubber (whale oil) that is the reason why whales were hunted in the first place. It was rebuilt by the British in 1944 and used as a research base until 1967, when eruptions and mudslides made the site uninhabitable. The site is a flat gravel plain across which several braided glacial streams make their way to the sea. The surrounding mountains are glaciated, but the glaciers are black; a thick ash coating prevents them from melting. On the plain are scattered the ruins of 2-3 buildings, including one dormitory, oil tanks, whale rendering equipment, and some wooden boats. The building in best shape is an airplane hangar.  An aggressive fur seal greeted us on the beach, charging a few passengers who approached too close. Three photos of the view entering Neptune’s Bellows, one of a hot spring at Pendulum Cove, one of Lanny after swimming, ten of the ruins, including the dorms and airplane hangar, and one of baby seals by a ruined tank.

 Day 11, March 7, 2000.  This morning we landed at the Chilean Antarctic base Arturo Prat, on Greenwich Island. The base lies on a gravel plain at the foot of a glacier. The base was built in 1947 by the Chilean Navy, primarily to bolster Chile’s Antarctic claims. Eleven people, 9 seamen and 2 civilian scientists, spend the winter here. We were given a tour of the base, which was very comfortable; it includes a sauna, a gym, and a library. The TV was connected to a satellite dish which could pick up 132 stations; it was tuned to CNN. Since it is impossible to go outside in an Antarctic winter, the base had better be comfortable. There was also a small building to the side which serves as a refuge in case the main building burns down. Fire is a real fear down here, since rescue is impossible in winter. The snow in winter is so high that one must enter and leave the base by the roof. The scientists explained their work; it involves studies of the abundance of krill and other zooplankton as functions of water depth, salinity, and temperature. The salinity varies with season, low in summer as the glaciers melt and high in winter as salt is expelled from the sea ice lattice. There was also a small museum which included an explanation of Chile’s Antarctic claims, going back to the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494, and photos of Shackleton and his men after they were rescued from Elephant Island (the most northerly of the South Shetland Islands) and taken to Punta Arenas. The base featured a dock which allowed an easy dry landing, but I still wore my boots because the wind and 3 ft swells guaranteed that the zodiac ride would be wet. One of the Chilean naval officers gave Lanny a magazine on Chilean mountaineering after seeing all of Lanny’s numerous hiking patches on his pack. Getting back to the ship was quite an adventure with the relatively high swells while waiting to disembark from the zodiac on to the ship’s gang plank at one point it looked like we would be swamped. Two slides of the base #62-63.

 In the afternoon we made our last landing in Antarctica, at Aitcho Island. This is probably the greenest island in the South Shetlands; the rocks are covered with moss. This makes walking difficult, since the moss is fragile and must not be stepped on. We took a long walk over the high part of the island  past storm petrel nests. Chicks sat on the raised nest waiting to be fed, but they must not be approached too closely since the skittish chicks can spit out a foul oil that simply does not wash out of clothing; for this reason the birds are called stinkers. At the end of the hike was a beach with gentoo and chinstrap penguins, whale bones, a ferocious surf, and sea stacks that reminded me of beaches on the Olympic Peninsula. Two slides, #64-65. The slides came out poorly due to the thick fog. After everyone returned from the island, the ship upped anchor at 5:30 pm to begin the long crossing of Drake Strait to the Falklands, which would take two days and nights.

Days 12-13, March 8-9, 2000. These two days and nights spent crossing Drake Passage were filled with lectures, bird watching from the bridge, and a tour of the ship. This tour first took us to the bridge, where we learned that the ship is computer-controlled and equipped with dynamic positioning, which by means of variable pitch propellers and thrusters (water jets) enables the ship to hold a position when the water is too deep to anchor. Interestingly enough I asked the captain what the declination is here, and he didn’t know. This is reasonable; nobody in his right mind would use a magnetic compass for navigation, and  the Akademik Ioffe  is equipped with gyrocompass and satellite navigation systems. Akademik Ioffe was a Russian scientist studying semiconductors, and the ship named for him did research in sonar systems. The “mud room” where we stored our rubber boots for the landings is actually a moonpool where high (< 40 kHz) and low (< 0.5 kHz) underwater sound generators could be lowered to depths of 1200 m. The lowest deck of the ship (under the water line) included a computer room for this research, but as might be expected from a ship which has not done research since 1992, the computers are obsolete; they don’t even have internet capability. The ship is powered by two 12 cylinder Russian diesel engines (which do not burn mazut) and which can drive the shop at 14 knots. Electricity is supplied by a 25 kw diesel electric generator. The ship also has electric motors which can drive the ship for 6 miles, allowing time to start the diesel engines. Water is supplied by two 20 ton/day salt water distillation units. In addition drinking water is available in tanks filled in Ushuaia.

 Toward the end of the trip we had a lecture on Antarctic conservation. Marine Expeditions is a member of the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO). Members of this association pledge to be ecologically responsible, leading tours which do not harm the indigenous life. This certainly applied to our tour, considering how careful we were not to step on moss, which is about the only land-based plant life in Antarctica. In the1999-2000 Antarctic summer,  IAATO members brought 15,000 tourists on 15 ships to Antarctica; these numbers are not expected to increase. Most but not all tourists come down on IAATO ships. On our trip we never saw another ship, but that was only because we were in constant radio contact with other ships to coordinate our landings so no two ships were ever in the same place at the same time.

 When we were at sea, a bulletin of the day’s activities was posted each day. Each bulletin started with a different quote. One of these was Dr. Frederick Cook, an American who served as surgeon on a Belgian expedition to Antarctica in 1898 (the ship got stuck in the pack ice and had to winter over), describing the taste of penguin, a major staple on these early expeditions. “…Imagine a piece of rotting beef, odiferous cod fish, and a canvas-backed duck, roasted together in a pot with blood and cod liver oil for sauce.” Penguins exist only in the Southern Hemisphere; in the Arctic their ecological niche is filled by puffins, of which  Lanny and I saw plenty in Iceland, where puffins are an item on restaurant menus. Apparently Icelanders have strange food tastes.

 History and geography of the Falkland Islands. These islands lie at latitude 52` south (vs. 54` for Ushuaia), about 200 miles off the Patagonian coast of Argentina; geologically they can be considered part of Patagonia. They consist of ~ 800 islands, but most all the land is in the two largest islands, East and West Falkland, which are separated by Falkland Sound. The islands are not mountainous; the highest peak is only 2297 ft. All the beaches we landed on were white sand.

 The average temperature varies from 37`F in winter to 47`F in winter. Rainfall is light, but this does not mean sunshine. Most days are cloudy, humid, often foggy, with occasional drizzle. The most important weather feature is the wind, which never stops blowing. Perhaps this explains why there are no trees; most of the land is either grassland or peat bog. Before the islands were settled, much of the land was covered with tussock grass. Unlike Alaska, where the tussocks are only a few inches high, the tussocks here are higher than a man, and hiking through it is worse than bushwacking through Catskills cripple bush. From a distance the tussock grass looks like trees.

 The islands have a checkered history, claimed by England, Holland, France, Spain, and Argentina. In 1764 France planted a colony, with people from St Malo, hence the Argentine name for the islands, Malvinas. In 1770 this colony was bought out by Spain, and the colonists went home. In 1830 Argentina planted a colony, but the governor was too strenuous in claiming the right to regulate the sealers, and the US defended its sealers by kicking out these colonists. In 1833 the British planted a colony, and this colony is still there. The population is less than 3000, and almost all live in the only town, Stanley, which sits on a fine harbor in East Falkland. The people are called “kelpies” for the seaweed which covers the beaches. They heat their homes with peat and live by raising sheep, which have eaten almost all the tussock grass. There are 320 sheep for every person on the islands. In 1982 Argentina invaded the islands and told the kelpies that they were now Argentine citizens. The kelpies greatly resented this, especially having to drive on the right, the way everybody except the English does. The UK mounted a huge expedition to recapture the islands. The Argentines fired Exocet missiles at the British ships, but the fuses on the missiles were set wrong, and the missiles passed through the ships without exploding; if not for this Argentina might have won the war. Once the British were able to land troops it was all over; the Argentine occupying troops were conscripts, poorly trained and equipped, with low morale. The British still maintain a large military presence there, but the troops do not mingle with the kelpies. Although there was no real fighting in Stanley, the Argentines mined all the land around Stanley, and these mines are still there, so hiking is out of the question. All our landings were on small out islands where there was no fighting.

 Day 14, March 10, 2000. In the morning we landed on Sea Lion Island, which is 3 miles in diameter and lies southwest of Stanley. The weather was foggy and windy, ~ 52`F. We walked the entire length of the island, 6 miles in 2.5 hr, trying to find a rockhopper penguin rookery. The walking was easy because the island is flat. In the Falklands all the open land outside Stanley is called camp, from the Argentine Spanish campeo, another word for pampas. We walked over two kinds of camp, hard camp, which is covered with bushy shrubs about 1 inch high, i.e. krummholz, and soft camp, which is covered with grass and ferns. The grass was very low, and there were lots of sheep fences but no sheep, which obviously were raised here until recently.  See also Lanny’s photo #12 (digital) and his photo of geese on the camp (#15). The geese are a species found only here, but they are just as annoying as the Canada geese on Long Island, and their droppings are everywhere. We were unable to reach the rockhopper rookery because as we approached the end of the island we ran into tussock grass. When we tried to walk through the tussock grass, we were stopped by huge sea lions, which cannot be seen in the high grass and can be quite dangerous if you blunder into one. One large one roared at us!  On the soft camp we passed the burrows of Magellenic penguins, the same species I saw in 1991 at Peninsula Valdes, Patagonia. On the way back we walked on the edge of the camp, where it drops to the sea in a cliff, with sea lions on the rocks below the cliff (Slide 70). Before returning to the ship, we stopped at the Sea Lion Inn. The owners of this Inn own the whole island; guests reach the Inn by air, using the small air strip next to the inn. We passed through luxuriant  kelp forests as we motored back to the ship.

 In the afternoon we landed at Bleaker Island. By this time the fog had burned out, giving us mixed sun and clouds and temperatures that seemed tropical in comparison with Antarctica. The terrain was quite similar to that on Sea Lion Island, but here we were able to reach the rockhopper penguin rookery. Rockhopper penguins are similar to macaroni penguins but smaller; they nest on rocky cliffs which they reach by hopping up, hence their name. Just inland of the rockhoppers was a cormorant rookery. The cormorants build huge mounds for their nests; most of the mounds were empty since the young had already fledged. There was nothing growing due to the huge deposits of guano, and the stink made the smell of the penguin rookeries in Antarctica seem like perfume.  There was also a gentoo penguin rookery on the wide, flat beach where we landed.  

 Day 15, March 11, 2000.  The planned landing this morning at Volunteer Point, an exposed headland northeast of Stanley, had to be canceled due to strong winds and heavy surf. This meant that we did not get to see King penguins at all on this trip. Instead we got to spend the whole day in Stanley, which has the atmosphere of a small English town transplanted to the middle of nowhere. The weather was cloudy with occasional fog, ~ 55`F, and very strong winds; a windbreaker was essential. We landed by zodiac at the town dock, which has concrete steps leading down to the water. The fine harbor is littered with all sorts of wrecks; many ships, battered by storms in the attempt to get through Drake Passage or the Straits of Magellan, limped into Stanley and were abandoned there since it would cost too much to make them seaworthy again. It was a pleasant town to walk through. The houses are all brightly painted, with corrugated iron roofs. The streets are all well paved, but all the cars we saw were Land Rovers, since at the edge of town the streets degenerate to dirt tracks. However I would not want to drive on any of these tracks, since all the land around Stanley was mined by Argentine troops during the Falklands War, and those mines are still there. The British Army maintains an office in town which keeps track of all the mines. Most everyone, including me, had a pub lunch. I expected fish and chips, but had to settle for chicken curry and chips. The pubs were crowded with locals and were rapidly running out of food, but not of course out of beer. The locals are quite used to tourists since every cruise ship that comes down here stops in Stanley; however not many cruise ships go this far south. There is one newspaper, the Penguin News, published weekly.

   Marine Expeditions paid for our admission to the museum, which had exhibits on life in Stanley circa 1900, on the Falklands War, on the first settlement, and on the geology. The Falklands were originally part of Gondwanaland and as such has both South African and South American rocks, but it seems to be drifting west toward Patagonia. Maybe someday it will at last collide with Argentina, which would finally settle the jurisdiction question.  I asked at the museum about the sheep, because I was curious about a statement in the guidebooks that the mutton is of too low a quality for export. The problem is that there many breeds of sheep, and those in the Falklands are designed for wool rather than meat. The wool is of high quality, but currently wool prices are too low for raising sheep to be profitable, considering the high shipping costs from this remote location. The kelpies do eat the sheep, but the mutton must be stewed for 4 hr, and even then is probably tough and gamy.

 At the museum I ran into the author of The Horse Whisperer. He was visiting the Falklands to study the small, hardy local horses. He was flying out today by what is apparently the only regularly scheduled access to the islands, a weekly flight on the Chilean national airline to Punta Arenas, with connections to Santiago. There used to be daily flights to Buenos Aires, but the Falklands War eliminated that. However the local travel agency was advertising vacations in Ascension Island, another British possession in the South Atlantic. This volcanic rock is at latitude 10` south, which gives it a tropical climate, but the permanent population is only 1000, so it seems even more isolated than the Falklands.

 Steamer ducks are large and do not fly. Their wings churn the water like an old fashioned paddlewheel steamer, hence the name. What looks like the McDonalds arches in front of the church is made of whalebone.

 Day 16-19, March 12-15, 2000. In the evening we steamed west from Stanley to make the final landing of the trip the next morning at New Island, a small island west of West Falkland Island. Fittingly today also featured the best weather of the trip, 60`F, bright sunshine, and a gentle breeze. We landed at a fine, protected harbor on the south side of the island, marred only by the wreck of a Canadian minesweeper (slide 86), then hiked north across a narrow neck of the island (slide 87) to a huge colony of rockhopper penguins, cormorants, and albatrosses, coexisting peacefully ( slides 88-91) above cliffs on the north shore of the island. To the left of our landing site were a few houses, in which live Ian Strange, Tony Chater, and their families. Ian and Tony are caretakers for the nature trust which owns this whole island, and they were out selling postcards, patches, books, etc, to raise money for the trust. Having time I hiked to the summit of a nearby peak, which turned out to be a headland, one of many which make up the north shore of the island. Slide 92-93, views of the sea cliffs on New Island.

 After 3 hr we returned to the ship and set sail for the 1,100 mil