Heading South

The day the trip really begins. I boarded the flight to Stanley wondering what lay ahead of us. There's only one flight a week so you can't afford to miss it or you miss the boat, literally, not a good look.

What we found was a little piece of England with English shops, houses and people. The Falklands is a windswept island, it was raining, it was cold and the scenery seemed dark and brooding to those of us from sunnier shores.

Nothing prepared me for the size of the Polar Pioneer - it was much smaller than I expected and I was about to sail off into the open sea - bloody hell, what had I done?

We set off in the early evening for 2 days of open sea to get us to South Georgia. A time to get to know my fellow travellers, read a little and learn more about where we were going from our on-board experts.Read more