Have you ever been to a place where you simply wanted to stare in awe at its majesty, quiet, and grandeur? That describes our impression of the continent of Antarctica.
I had traveled to Antarctica 25 years earlier with friends, the Huskas, from SaddleBrooke, and I had no intention of ever returning (statistically only 2% of visitors ever return). However, I had often told my wife, Susie, about the incredible landscape there, where it’s all snow and glaciers sprinkled with penguins and seals. It was enough for Susie, a native Nebraskan accustomed to cold weather, to decide she wanted to go. In our 9 years of marriage, we had visited 99 countries together, and Antarctica would be her 100th. There is an organization called the Travelers Century Club, of which I am a member that permits membership after a traveler has visited at least 100 countries and island groups.
We arranged the trip with Silversea Expeditions, which offers a new and unique way to see much more of Antarctica without the pain of making the Drake Channel crossing but with all the comforts of a cruise ship. So, we signed up for Silversea's door-to-door package and flew to South America for what became even much more of an adventure than we had expected.
The continent of Antarctica is breathtaking, but to get there and back you must cruise the Drake Passage, which has some of the most turbulent waters in the world. That’s five days both ways of bouncing around, wondering why you are doing this, and wasting time you could be spending in Antarctica. I was not excited about repeating this prospect.
But I discovered that Silversea Expeditions now flies passengers directly to the continent of Antarctica in a special charter plane that departs from the tip of Chile right onto the continent of Antarctica, landing at one of the Chilean experimental stations there. It’s a barren place with neither airports nor harbors but it works for adventuresome travelers who don’t mind getting their boots wet and riding in a Zodiac rubber boat to join the ship that is waiting to take you out to sea.
The first part of the trip occurred as promised. We saw lots of incredible bays and made wet landings in full Antarctic clothing, including wearing long underwear, waterproof pants, and high, waterproof boots for the wet landings into and out of the Zodiacs, which were the only means of transportation. We saw thousands of penguins of two varieties (Chinstraps and Gentoo), whales, and seals, including the largest and fiercest of all the seals - the Leopard seal. The expedition included 8 locations and distinctly different sites for landing. The views were exactly as I had promised Susie – breathtaking. It reminded me of my favorite saying, “Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”(Maya Angelou)
Then it came time to leave, and the problem became getting out of Antarctica. The four charter planes that had brought the 235 adventurers in our group onto the continent and their waiting expedition ship, could not return to southern Chile on the date to leave due to low cloud ceilings and therefore unstable landing conditions in Antarctica. These planes, particularly suited for dirt and ice landings, only do visual landings and not instrument landings. No matter, for each extra day passengers had to remain on the ship, the Silversea expedition crew had a superb solution. It was to turn the ship back to the Antarctic Peninsula and visit yet another beautiful bay and of course, offer two more wet landings. Eventually, weather conditions improved, the planes came back, and we flew to southern Chile two days later than expected.
The problem now became how to get back home, since with two unsuccessful attempts to leave Antarctica, all of our return travel plans had to be rescheduled!! No problem for us as Silversea handled all the changed reservations efficiently, due to choosing their door-to door package. It was not possible to return to the US on the next day’s flight, so Silversea arranged for us to stay two nights in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Santiago at their expense.
Thus, we had 4 days of extra vacation, including a total of 10 interesting and drop dead beautiful Antarctic sites, and invaluable memories of Antarctica. All in all, it was an unforgettable adventure and the trip of a lifetime!
C. Andy Anderson is the author of many travel articles, as well as the book, With God as My Navigator, Living Geography One Adventure at a Time. He is a 23-year resident of SaddleBrooke and a veteran world traveler; at last count the 84-year-old widower had visited 220 countries and island groups. In 2017 he married Susie Wooster, also a widow, and a Nebraska educator who had frequently visited her sister-in-law and husband, the Feichtingers, good friends of the Andersons in SaddleBrooke.
Lloyd to get clarity on Arizona basketball future this week | Greg Hansen
