We’re off to Antarctica!

I met three cool women on the bus: two from Sydney and one from Ohio. We hit it off and had a nice time, then went to lunch together. We walked around the shops for a bit after lunch, they introduced me to their favorite ice cream place (from earlier this week, they arrived before me). We had dulce de leche ice cream while it snowed outside. Then, we walked down to the port and boarded our boat, the M/S Expedition.

(I took this pic of our boat later in the trip, out to sea, because it’s a better photo than the one I took at port.)

Here is a photo of Ushuaia from our ship:


I’ve never been on a cruise before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but our boat is nice. It is warm onboard, unlike the very cold air outside. Jen, the gal from Ohio, is my roommate (she was also on the canceled trip last year). We have a nice window on our outdoor cabin (all cabins face outdoors because the ship only holds 120 people), along with two twin beds and a tiny bathroom. I’m typing this at our writing desk, and we have another chair in addition to the one I’m sitting in. The food is tasty, the staff is attentive, the expedition leaders are smart and excited, and the other passengers are fun and friendly.

The first order of business was a mandatory emergency drill. We all had to gather our life vests, put them on correctly, and board the life boats. Precautionary measure, of course, but their boat did sink a few years ago (the first cruise ship ever built to ply the frigid waters off Antarctica became the first ever to sink there in Nov 2007) so we all paid close attention! They also welcomed us with a video (Can You Feel it by the Jacksons, with GAP folks around the world), which was fun.


It’s 11:30pm as I type this and we just left the Beagle Channel and are entering the Drake Passage. Everything I’ve read and been told is that this is the place to get sick. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet here so the water is rough. We’re a relatively small boat, so we get tossed around a bit. One of the expedition leaders sat at my dinner table tonight and he said this passage was brutal last night. He said the ship was like “a marshmallow rolling around in a mug of hot chocolate.” Yikes! I’m doing everything I know how to do short of taking drugs: I’m staying hydrated, eating well, not reading too much, wearing Sea Bands on each wrist, and I have a band-aid on my belly button (okay, so the last one is likely placebo, but whatever works). I plan to have a fantastic voyage to Antarctica, and getting seasick isn’t part of the plan.


We’re to tie everything down tonight when we go to sleep, to ensure that our cameras, computers, books, and bags don’t fly around our room. Luckily, we should pass through the Drake in less than 2 days. Tomorrow, we have 4 lectures scheduled so we can learn a lot about Antarctica before we set foot on the continent. The trip just started, and I’m already having a great time!

My Spanish mistakes of the day today: (1) I didn’t know the word for scarf (which I accidentally left on my final flight) so I tied an imaginary one around my neck – the guy at the store told his colleague (in Spanish) essentially “She is either looking for a scarf or a way to hang herself.” I learned the word for scarf is bufanda. (2) At the ice cream parlor, I tried to tell the guy that the ice cream cone he made me looked like a troll doll (it was straight instead of swirled around, so it looked like their up-and-down wild hair). Turns out trolo is the slang word they use for homosexual men, so he heard my “It reminds me of a troll doll.” as “You remind me of a gay man.” Wow, I’m on a roll. Everyone on board speaks some English, so there will probably be fewer issues like this in the coming days :)