Our Travel Stories

Author:Mayuresh

Antartica is truly the 7th continent where this land mass is vast and packed with ice. Just happens to be far away at the south pole and so aptly named opposite of Arctic i.e. Antarctic.

We reached 60 degree south latitude yesterday to enter in the Antarctic waters. However with crossing the 66 degree and 33 minutes south latitude, we have now crossed the Antarctic Circle.

There was a countdown followed by ship blowing its horn as we crossed the circle. We followed it with a champagne toast and ceremonial pictures. We also got our Antartica names King Penguin (Shraddha) and Frostbite (for me).

We saw lots of icebergs and ice sheets. We also saw Adele penguins, seals and humpback whales.

There are always birds around the ship and here are couple of interesting ones

We took a small detour to visit rarely accessible Balleny islands. These islands are always surrounded by ice packs and ships cannot access them.

Luckily the wind cleared the ice packs enough that the islands were accessible and our captain and expedition leader made a call to make a detour to visit these islands late in the evening.

We got into zodiacs and had a ride along the islands. We saw penguins and humpback whales feeding. So we call ourselves lucky few (about 100s) who visited these islands. Some achievement 👏.

These are rough seas and Antartica. The weather changes very quickly and while on the Zodiac, the wind picked up and it started snowing. It was almost sleet and it hurt our faces (the only exposed part). Needless to say, not everyone enjoyed this experience. But, the whole zodiac ride felt true to the spirit of expedition and exploration.

Tonight we will head towards Cape Adare, the first point in the Ross sea area.