Reflections

As we begin our long journey home, I've had a lot of time to reflect upon how lucky I am. At just 18 years of age, I can proudly say that I've been to all seven continents. Traveling has educated me in a way that no amount of schooling could-- I see first hand how the world works, and I would consider myself a well rounded person due to my extensive travels. Shoutout to my mom-- without you, none of this would be possible and I probably wouldn't be the person I am today! Love you!
Below, are pictures from each continent we've been to. Enjoy!

1) South America: Galapagos/Ecuador 2004

2) North America: Alaska 2004

3) Europe: Norway 2007

4) Asia: Thailand 2007 

**Yes, that is a live elephant

5) Australia/New Zealand 2009

6) Africa: Tanzania 2010

7) Antarctica 2013

Monday, December 23

Today was a bittersweet day-- it was our last morning in Antarctica! I woke up looking at the Frei station one last time...

Took one last ride in the thick snow...

Said goodbye to our favorite expedition leader, Loli...

And then flew off!

Now we are in Punta Arenas, Chile until tomorrow afternoon. Then, we will begin the long journey home, stopping in Santiago for less than 24 hours until our final flight home on Christmas day. Sorry for the late entries, but thanks for following this blog! 

Sunday, December 22

Today was our last full day in Antarctica… time flew by! In the morning, the ship sailed into the caldera on Deception Island. We went onshore for a few minutes just to look around, but it was very  cold so we didn’t stay long.

After we took a few pictures of the boat and the few penguins that were by the water’s edge, we took a quick zodiac tour around the volcano.

As you can see, we came across a large group of seals—maybe 30 or more of them! There was a mix of Crabeater seals and Weddell seals and they were all so close! I wish we had seen Leopard or Southern Elephant seals, but this was still pretty cool.

Today was the coldest day by far and I’m VERY thankful it wasn’t this cold and windy for the rest of the trip.

Saturday, December 21

While nothing eventful happened in the early morning, today was a very exciting day. After breakfast, we went onshore to take a group picture. We didn’t stay onshore long, as it was another penguin colony and by now we are ODing on all the penguins.

In the afternoon, we had almost too much excitement to handle. We made another continental landing, where we on the actual continent as opposed to ice shelves, and we walked amongst even more penguins.

As I was wearing a penguin hat, I wanted to see if the penguins would come up to me if I sat down—so I did! Eventually, brave penguins started to walk towards me, as I was sitting extremely still. Below is a picture I took of one of them—without my camera’s zoom!

After about an hour of sitting and photographing the penguins, we took a zodiac tour around the Nikko Harbor. We covered a lot of ground and came across a Weddell seal sitting on some ice.  The seal was snoozing—we could even hear it snoring!—but eventually it looked up to see who was around.

On the way back to the boat our zodiac driver/whale expert, Mike, heard that there was a spotting of an Antarctic minke whale. Suddenly, we saw the whale’s dorsal fin and waited around for the whale to surface. Eventually, the whale popped up right by our zodiac!

I have never been closer to a whale, even on a whale-watching trip, and being able to look straight into the eye of a whale was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I almost wish this was our last day in Antarctica because this would have been the perfect ending to a great trip, but we will see what tomorrow brings!

Friday, December 20

Today we were woken up by an announcement by the captain that there were humpback whales on the port side—aka RIGHT outside our window! It was impossible to get a picture of the two young males breaching, but it was amazing to see so up close and from the comfort of my own bed! It almost reminded me of when I woke up to an elephant next to my bed in Tanzania. The whales stayed there for about 45 minutes, and it was definitely a good way to start the morning.

In the late morning, I attended a lecture on climate change, which was interesting but incredibly scientific and long. I did learn that during the winter ice in central Antarctica has been increasing, however, which many scientists fail to mention. Also, for whatever reason we are also seeing more ice around Antarctica. Apparently, the oceans aren’t as warm here as they are in the Arctic, which could be why the warming process is so slow down here, contrary to popular belief.

Later in the afternoon, we began sailing through a large body of water with a ton of ice. I looked out our cabin window and all I saw was ice like this for miles!

Surprisingly, we were able to take the zodiacs out in all that ice. On the larger ice shelves, we looked for seals and we saw quite a few!

We also found great beauty in icebergs. Below is my favorite of the day!!!

As we were making our way back to the boat, our zodiac driver Lollie said “and now a surprise!” From far away, it looked like a zodiac broke down because two zodiacs were hooked together and one of them only had two people. When we got closer, however, our driver hooked our zodiac onto the other two and we saw crew members serving us hot chocolate!

 It was a great surprise and we all enjoyed some hot chocolate in the middle of Antarctica!  (Never thought I would say that!!!!) When we were very close to the boat, we spotted a piece of ice that almost looked crystalized. You’re probably thinking, “Ice? What’s so special about that? Antarctica is FULL of that!” Well, this ice was special. We learned that it was probably thousands of years old and if you took a drill and analyzed the air bubbles, you would see what the atmosphere was like when the air bubbles were first trapped in the ice.

What a fun day!!!

Thursday, December 19

Today we got a true taste of Antarctic life. In the morning, we were pleasantly surprised by a pod of orca whales, maybe 10-14 of them, which we then followed for an hour. As you could only see their dorsal fins, seeing the orcas wasn’t a great photo opportunity. After breakfast, we went out in the zodiacs for two hours, where we saw our first Adelie penguins!

As we continued our zodiac tour, we came across beautiful icebergs. This iceberg was one of my mom’s favorites, as the sun was reflecting on it to create different shades of blue.

It was almost scary driving around in the zodiacs because you could hear the zodiac going over icebergs, which resulting in a loud popping sound—almost like popcorn popping in a microwave.  It was also pretty cold with the wind, so I ended up looking like a ninja with all my gear on!

We even got to disembark the zodiacs to step on a drifting iceberg…But that didn’t last very long because we had to rush back to the boat so we didn’t get stuck on all the drifting ice!

The kayaking team wasn’t so lucky, however. Even though the kayaking team was directly behind our zodiac, they got stuck in all the ice and have been stranded on a drifting iceberg for over 3 hours. The boat kept trying to get to them, but unsuccessfully.

Once it was high tide, the kayakers were finally able to paddle back to the boat, where they were warmly welcomed by the other passengers on the top deck.  While I am extremely thankful I chose not to go on the kayaking expedition, this could have happened to any one of us—even in a zodiac. Thankfully, the zodiacs are supplied with a tent, sleeping bags, food, water and extra fuel in case something like this ever happens again which, apparently, happens quite frequently. As one of the expedition leaders said, this wasn’t the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last.

After dinner, we went to Brown Bluff for our first continental landing and walked around an Adelie and Gentoo penguin colony.  We saw many chicks that were only a few days old as well as many other Adelie penguins that were sitting on their rock nests.

It was an eventful day to say the least!