Month: February 2016

Advised schedule for Day 2

• 7am Palmer Station
• 10am Le Maire Channel

We were supposed to return to Palmer station to drop off the manager whom we’d picked up in the morning, but because there had been a risk of Palmer being iced in, an alternative plan had been set in place, bringing the manager’s replacement with us from Santiago. So that morning the two had swapped over, and the existing manager, due for leave, simply continued with us the rest of the trip. That allowed us to spend more time in the Gerlache Strait, visiting Paradise Harbour (only just ice free enough for the Zaandam to enter) to see penguins, and visit Cuverville and Enterprise islands. Continue reading “Antarctica – Day 2, 31 December”

Advised schedule for Day One:

• 2pm Dallman Bay
• 2.30pm Canal Schollaert
• 3.30pm Gerlache Strait
• 4.30 Neumayer Channel
• 7.30pm Anvers Island

This was my first glimpse of Antarctica, at 6 am on 30 December: Continue reading “Antarctica – Day One, 30 December”

As I said in my first post, we took a lot of photos in Antarctica. I can’t believe anyone could go there and not do that. What astonished me though were the number of people who apparently only had their iPhones or iPads for cameras, or at best, a pocket digital. I bought a DSLR especially for the trip, and a combined standard and zoom lens, which together cost around $2000 – and I don’t regret a cent of it. When you are on the trip of a lifetime, at fantastic cost anyway, why skimp on the equipment? We did take a compact digital for quick and dirty shots in towns and so on, but the quality can’t be compared at all with those taken with the bigger camera. The things people choose to economise on, astonish me.

Anyway, the next three posts will be photo heavy, which is why I’m breaking this part of the journey up. Continue reading “Antarctica – Overview”