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The Frozen Continent
  • Chuck Cook
  • Glenda Cook
February 2020

The Frozen Continent

We are going to the bottom of the world to explore our planet’s most mysterious and inaccessible continent. Read more
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  • Trip start
    February 10, 2020
    The Frozen Continent
    Patio Bullrich
    Donna and Glenda at Lunch in Lovely RecoletaEva Peron's MausoleumDominican Church, Recoleta, Buenos AiresRecoleta CemeteryA Gum Tree Over 200 years oldSofotel, Recoleta Buenos AiresGlenda at the Gum TreeA Touching Statue Gracing a Mausoleum

    Tangoland

    February 10, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 73 °F

    LATAM Airlines landed us in Buenos Aires and Road Scholar brought us to the Sofitel Recoleta Hotel downtown. New friends suggested we join them to visit a nearby park adjacent to the Dominican Cathedral. Its cemetery filled with mausoleums was literally a city of the dead. Among the graves stands that of Eva Peron. We returned to have lunch at a food court across the street from the hotel in a large mall called Patio Bullrich. We walked as a group to dinner at a beautiful neoclassical building constructed as the social club for the Italian community in wealthy Buenos Aires at the turn of the 20th century. The building itself was magnificent, and the lovely paintings and sculptures enhanced its beauty. I had a wonderful lasagna covered with bechamel sauce, and Glenda enjoyed an eggplant dish she pronounced as one of the most delicious things she has ever eaten.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent

    On to Ushuaia

    February 11, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 91 °F

    We have boarded another airplane and are on our way to Ushuaia, where we will board the Hurtigrüten ship M/S Midnatsol (Midnight Sun). Mother Theresa, our Roads Scholar attendant, has been replaced by Maria Laura as our temporary den mother. We had a huge breakfast at our hotel, so I really didn’t want the ham and cheese sandwich the flight attendant offered us on the airplane. I’m told that WI-FI on the ship is very slow and spotty, so that one cannot count on it. So I will keep my travel notes on the notebook and when we have a connection I will upload them. It looks as though any photos will have to wait. Not even the hotel’s WI-FI would take them.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    The Old Prison, Now a Naval BaseUshuaia WaterfrontUshuaia StreetsThe Beagle Channel, Gateway to AntarcticaMS Midnatsol, Our Home in AntarcticaThe Pallada, a Tall Ship from Russia Visiting ArgentinaThe Chilean Andes Across the ChannelSunset on the Beagle Channel

    The End of the World

    February 11, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F

    Ushuaia lies at the southern tip of South America and is the end of the world. Argentina put its version of Alcatraz here at the turn of the twentieth century because escapees could only die in the barren wasteland of Patagonia to the north or the turbulent ice of the Drake Passage to the south. It is the most southerly city in the world and now has little to do, other than funneling tourists into Antarctica. Two decades past, skiers who sought the most exotic downhill runs in the world came here after becoming bored with San Moritz, Lillehammer and girls named Ingrid. T-shirts from Ushuaia were more valuable to downhill racers than a Lamborghini and just as rare. Now the glacier has melted and Ushuaia’s steep streets are crowded with overweight American and German wannabes wearing jackets suggesting they have spent a frozen night on the North Face. Still, the town has its charms. Guides will show you their public school and a sign declaring that Ushuaia really is the true capital of the Malvinas Islands despite the butt-wiping the British gave Argentina in the Falklands in 1982. A coffee shop right out of the rural 1920’s features hot chocolate made by dropping the Argentine version of a Hershey bar into scalding milk. It warmed the cockles of our heart on this 70-degree day in the Argentine summer at the end of the world.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Our Stateroom
    Our StateroomLounge on the Fifth DeckA Pleasant Place on the ShipReception, Deck 4Afternoon Buffet, Deck 8Midnatsol Dining RoomVaccuuming Clothing Before Ariving at Antarctica

    The Drake Quake

    February 12, 2020, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 39 °F

    Rough seas throughout the night rattled the door of the little safe and a tray for our boots in our stateroom, waking me several times. We have sustained winds at 45 mph and waves 3-4 meters. The winds are about halfway up the Buford scale. I staggered my way to breakfast, and then returned to the stateroom to accompany Glenda. We went to a briefing about special programs. I chose photography. Next we were fitted for our arctic boots and our red polar Hurtigruten expedition coats. There are several more briefings planned for today, and we are snooping about discovering the MS Midnatsol.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Vacuum Cleaning Our Clothing

    Preparing to See the Beast

    February 12, 2020, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ ☁️ 39 °F

    This is no ordinary cruise. We just returned from a briefing on the International Antarctic Treaty and the regulations it imposes on our visits ashore. It’s a bit scary to think of all the things that can go wrong—wind, water, cravasses and angry animals were all presented as possible threats. On every other cruise ship we've seen, the safety drill includes: "In the event of an emergency, don't return to your stateroom, but go directly to your muster station." The drill here was different. They told us: "In an emergency, go to your stateroom first and put on layers of warm clothing. Then put on your arctic survival suit before donning your life vest. If we must board the lifeboats we will not be rescued for three or four days at the earliest."

    I went and got a dry-bag for my camera from the ship’s store just in case. We are required to vacuum our clothing to avoid carrying seeds, soil or spores to Antarctica. We are being fitted for boots that will be washed each time we go ashore. We are being warned to follow the trail established by the expedition team. Failure to do so could land one in a glacial cravasse. Much to consider.    Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    What Else Does a Guy Do on a Sea Day?

    Still Preparing to See the Beast

    February 13, 2020, South Pacific Ocean ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    We woke from a night of solid sleep and calmer seas to hear that strong storms are approaching our proposed landing site. We will have to stay on the ship another day as we head farther south. In days to come we will proceed north along the Antarctic Peninsula as the storm works its way east. We enjoyed an excellent breakfast that contained everything needed, including brown cheese, to make a traditional Norwegian waffle. The crew is trying hard to keep passengers occupied on this extra sea day. A very entertaining lecture by the ship's photographer, Espin Mills, suggested ways to make our photos more appealing. Glenda is eager to attend the next lecture: "Penguins: Your New Best Friend." If the title of this travel blog is "Find Penguins," she plans to be sure she does exactly that.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Approach at Dawn
    In Search of a Landing SiteClose Enough to TouchForetasteIn Search of a Landing SiteDeploying the ZodiacFind PenguinsAdellie Penguins Standing Guard Until their Molting is FinishedFind Penguins

    Sixty-Eight, Sixty-Eight

    February 14, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 32 °F

    Before dawn our ship was greeted by ominous mountains and glaciers. The expedition leaders finally announced that we would go ashore in Antarctica today. We landed at a place I call "Sixty-eight, Sixty-eight," a site whose latitude and longitude are the same. Its real name is Pour Quoi Pas Bay. The French name means "Why not?" and is the name of the first ship to land at this island. Today it is the place where we meet Antarctica, the Temptress, the Ice Queen, the Monster. Only once before has this passenger ship traveled so far south, and that trip occurred four years ago. Our group, "the Crab-Eater Seals," were scheduled to go ashore around mid-day. Adellie penguins, fur seals, and five spouting humpback whales welcomed us ashore as we stumbled along a rocky beach to a ridge overlooking an active glacier. The good news is that the penguins are still here. The bad news is that the snow and ice have gone, melted so that the beach appears as a rock-strewn strand without a trace of snow or ice. Some of the glaciers, which take millennia to build, have receded up to twenty miles in the last four years. Antarctica is having a heat wave. The week we left North Carolina a research station near here reported the highest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica--67 degrees Fahrenheit. Today the temperature is about 40 degrees, and we are sweating underneath three layers of UnderArmour. We need hiking poles to traverse the beach, covered with irregular rocks the size of cantaloupes. While most of the penguins have already left the beach for their four-month-long swim in search of food, a few Adellies still stand here like statues, moulting in stolid silence. Our ninety minutes here whetted our appetites for more adventures among the glaciers, icebergs and animals of this mysterious land.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Photography. Seriously.
    Brought to you by. . . HurtigrutenSeal DreamsThe Council of EldersKeyhole to HeavenPhotographer's DreamSleeping BearBlue-Eyed ShagsChillin' Out

    First Photo Cruise

    February 14, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 32 °F

    The colony of blue-eyed shags didn't care that I was in the Zodiac for a two-hour photo cruise with ship's photographer Shayne McGuire. They were more concerned with the giant petrel trying to eat their chicks. Crowding together around their young ones, they eventually drove off the intruder. I felt sorry for him. The hungry bird had to go elsewhere for a meal, but at least the baby shags were safe. That's the thing about Antarctica. You never know whether you should pull for the penguins or the fish, for the seals or the penguins. Nature is raw here. Everyone eats. For a while. Then everyone is eaten. Eventually. I suppose that process goes on everywhere, but in Antarctica it is in your face. Dozens of icebergs showed their lovliest blue faces on this overcast day, and I heard a crack loud enough to announce the end of the world as a glacier a quarter mile away calved an iceberg as big as a city block.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    The End of the Day for Adellie Penguins
    Deploying the ZodiacPour Quoi Pas Beach, with Morraine and Glacier BeyondPatient SkuaExplorer par ExcellenceFloating ArtCascades of BlueMoultingReturning from the RidgeAntarctica: Where God Goes for Solitude

    Pour Quoi Pas Photo Landing

    February 14, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 32 °F

    On our photo landing, ship's photographer Espin Mills led us to a place on the beach where we waited for a skua to take off, or fly, or eat, or do something. However, it seems that the skuas are as contented as the penguins in sitting on the rocks and doing very nearly nothing. So next he led up to the top of a high ridge, a mountain of glacial morraine, much higher than the regular tour groups had scaled. From there we saw the whole of Pour Quoi Pas Bay at our feet, gleaming in the polar sun. More beauty than we could contain, and far more than we could photograph, assaulted our eyes and our overcrowded lenses. Our hike left us exhausted as we returned to the beach a thousand feet below us. Though the midnight sun never sets below the arctic circle, it fell low enough in the sky to offer us some color behind some Adellie penguins just ending their day.

    I was so grateful to Glenda and to our room steward Jaru. I was delayed in getting back to the ship and I missed supper. Glenda had asked Jaru to save a sandwich for me, but he got lasagna, salad and the rest of a whole meal, put it on a warmer, and served me a hot meal in our stateroom when I returned cold and exhausted after 9:30 pm.    Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Tabular Ice Broken from the Ice Shelf
    Icebergs Assume an Infinite Variety of FormsShayne McGuire, PhotographerAloneA Gift from Yaru, Our Room StewardWaiting Out the StormsSeaborne ChapelTabular Ice 2 Km Long

    Serendipity

    February 15, 2020, South Pacific Ocean ⋅ ☁️ 28 °F

    Although we did not intend for it to be such, today turned out to be a sea day. Bad weather prevented our anchoring at the beach scheduled for today, and ever since, the ship has been loitering, seeking a site to which we could repair safe from the storm. They have offered lectures on the Antarctic Treaty, the geologic history of Antarctica, and other interesting topics. However, one begins to think that their skills are being taxed when they also offer classes on knot-tying and travelogues of the expedition leaders. I have welcomed the time off, though, since yesterday was so arduous. Some of the icebergs we passed were amazing in their beauty, complexity and variety. At 5:00 pm we had an unexpected surprise. The captain announced that we were shortly to pass an iceberg two kilometers long. Everyone rushed to the bow and took pictures. I remember that there was a photograph of a similar tabular iceberg that sold at Southeby's recently for more than a million dollars. Here's my million dollar shot.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Gentoo Penguins Marked by the White Headstrap Connecting the EyesMS Midnatsol at Petermann IslandPink Snow Colored by Red AlgaeFur Seals, Vicious and Dangerous When AwakePenguin PooPenguin SkeletonAntarctic ExplorerBay Full of IcebergsDirty BirdsAdventure is OUT THERE!

    Petermann Island

    February 16, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    At 2:45 am I was rolled out of bed by the rocking of the ship, and I decided that today would be another bust. The weather was not cooperating. Nevertheless, by breakfast time, the crew was preparing for another day ashore at a place called Petermann Island. Since we Crab-Eater Seals were the last ones to go ashore on the previous excursion, we were at the top of the list this morning. We hit the beach and walked onto a landscape as foreign as that of another planet. The beach was covered with seals, Gentoo penguins, and birds. There was no snow on the gravelly beach, but the adjacent mountains were covered with pink snow. An expedition leader told me that the pink color came from a red alga that fed on the excrement of the penguins. We also saw in action something that had been described in a lecture. Penguins sit on their eggs for months at a time, not even leaving for a comfort break. Still, the penguins don't want to be covered in their own excrement, so they have developed the ability to shoot their penguin poo out about a meter. It is prodigious to see this action. The unfortunate neighbor who gets splattered by the poo takes it all in stride. In fact, every penguin is neighbor to another who must at some point relieve himself. Birds are splattered with each other's dung, mud, krill, and unassorted mess. The smell of the penguin colonies is horrendous. Imagine the odor of a densely inhabited chicken coop in which all of the birds have eaten nothing but fish for their entire lives. The stench is indescribable. All one can do is to take it all in until the nostrils acclimatize. The smell alone almost tempted Glenda to return to the ship as soon as she hit the beach. We smelled the penguins long before we ever saw one. The penguin is a foul fowl. The stink is deafening. We climed a broad expanse, carefully marked to avoid the sleeping fur seals, to top a ridge overlooking a small bay with a dozen of the most beautiful icebergs imaginable. The arctic blue is the most wonderful shade of azure I've ever seen. The overcast sky accentuated the blue color of the glaciers. Finally we made our way back to the Zodiac, looking forward to an additional cruise this afternoon.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    The Sydney Opera House
    Reindeer Pita PocketInfinite VarietyMaking MemoriesThe HorseshoeWindow to WonderThar She Blows!Lovin' Life

    On the Zodiac

    February 16, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    Returning to the ship, we only had an hour until we had to board the Zodiac for our cruise of Petermann Island. Because we could not wear our expedition clothes in the dining hall (they had picked up the smell of penguin poo), we decided to enjoy the outdoor buffet served on the sunshine deck. The cook barbecued shredded reindeer meat on the open deck, and folded it into a pita bread taco spiced with pickled onions. It was delicious! Quickly we suited up and headed back for the inflated boat for our cruise around this surreal terrain. First we saw an iceberg that resembled the Sydney Opera House. The successive waves of surfaces come from the iceberg gradually melting and shifting. Next we met a berg shaped like a horseshoe turned on its side. It was about a hundred yards across, and just as deep. We were surprised to see a humpback whale spouting near us. I was even more surprised to see that it was not moving. Does a whale sleep? I wanted to Google that question, but throughout our cruise, Wi-Fi, though advertised, was very spotty, often unuseable, and very expensive. We chose to ditch our cell phones and remain unconnected for the entire trip. Before we returned to the ship, the light changed, and I took the opportunity to work on photographs that displayed the glint of the sunlight off the thousands of facets of each gargantuan gem floating in the ocean. It's suppertime now, but I still have a photographic cruise to enjoy before the sun sets at 2:30 am.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent

    Loving the Light

    February 16, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    South of the antarctic circle the sun never sets. Still, at night, or what passes for night here, the light dims a bit. With the magic of the camera and this spooky light photographers produce some wonderful images. It is difficult to imagine scenes any more beautiful than those to which Espin Mills and Shayne McGuire led us on our evening photographic cruise.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Praying for Snow

    Once Upon a Time There Was Snow

    February 17, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☁️ 32 °F

    We woke this morning in Paradise Bay. One group went out in kayaks, but another group planning to camp on the continent overnight had to cancel their plans because of bad weather. I just heard that one of our Zodiacs encountered a humpback whale that simply floated beside their boat for several minutes.The ship has moved a few miles and anchored just off the beach at the Gonzales Videla Research Station. This Chilean outpost is named for the first head of state to set foot on the frozen continent. He visited here in 1940 at the site where two British explorers spent a year and a day in 1921-22 with only an overturned whaleboat for a shelter. Thomas Bagshawe, one of the two explorers, began a study of the Gentoo penguins here which continues to this day. Antarctica is going through a heat wave this summer. Chilly winds make us keep our jackets on, but highs have been in the 40's, and at no time during our trip has the temperature dropped to the freezing point. Though they were cute, the penguins here are filthy. With no snow here they are forced survive in ankle-deep mud. Most of their fellows have already begun their five-month-long feeding swim in the ocean, but these birds are still molting. Until they finish shedding old feathers and growing new ones that will allow them to swim, their young will endure with almost no food. And the molting adults will simply stand in the mud. Itching. Shedding old feathers. And waiting. In the mud.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Danco at Dawn
    Antarctican Beach BunnyLeopard SealI call this iceberg, "The Pulpit."Polar Bares

    Danco, the Hapless Hero

    February 18, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ⛅ 32 °F

    As a child Emile Danco always wanted to be a soldier or a sailor, but a heart defect prevented him from entering either the Belgian Army or Navy. The sickly young man became a studious pupil, and his studies led him to become one of the world's first geophysicists. In 1897 the Belgian explorer Adrienne de Gerlache proposed a survey of Antarctica, and Danco signed on as the expedition's scientist. At one point Danco fell overboard in the icy waters, but was rescued, barely alive. Yet the accident didn't kill him; his heart defect did, and his shipmates buried him in an unmarked grave here at one of the most beautiful places on the globe. The expedition commander named this place for him, and now Danco Island offers us some of Antarctica's most attractive wonders.

    Before going ashore, I loaded up with ibuprofen to mask the horrible cold shared by half our passengers. The humpback whales spouted, the penguins cavorted and the fur seals lolled in the sun just as they have done for the last twelve million years. They have done this whether anyone was there to see them or not. Indeed, they are doing it right now as you read this. We saw the remains of the British Station "O," an antarctic outpost dismantled in 1959 during the International Geophysical Year. At that time the nations holding claims in Antarctica relinquished them to cooperate in the exploration and preservation of this wonderland. We are allowed to take nothing from Antarctica--no souvenirs whatsoever. Even the junk remaining from the observation station is being studied for its rate of decomposition. Washing our boots before boarding the ship ensures that we carry no soil, seeds, spores or lichens with us. I borrowed Shayne's polarizer to intensify the blue of some icebergs. Caroline, Ray and some others stripped down to their swimsuits to plunge into water right at the point of freezing. All reported relief when re-emerging from the icy ocean into relatively warm 40-degree air. Looking around at the snow-clad mountains, the sapphire sea and the pearlescent palaces floating past us, dwarfing our Zodiac, I remembered Emile Danco. All things considered, he would be pleased.

    We cruised through the LaMaire Strait, a path passenger ships almost never visit. Usually this gloriously beautiful passage is choked with ice, even in summer. Today the ice is melted and we are seeing majestic mountains whose steep sides tumble right down into the sea.    Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Volcanic Steam Rises on the Beach
    In the Center of a VolcanoLunar LandscapeResearch Station Destroyed in the 1970 EruptionThe Adventure Almost CompletedHiking Around the CalderaBriefing on the Beach

    In a Smoking Volcano

    February 19, 2020 in Antarctica ⋅ ☀️ 32 °F

    The M/S Midnatsol is anchored in the middle of a volcanic caldera. This is not an inactive or dormant caldera, as one might imagine, but the center of an active volcano. The last big eruption occurred in 1970, but there are still areas around the edges where steamy water condenses as it meets the frigid arctic air. Everything here is barren. A lunar landscape contains as much life. Only a few distant hills wear a modest crown of snow.

    Following our excursion photographer Espin Mills offered a class in Lightroom, but I excused myself after an hour since I already had learned the techniques he presented. I stood on the ship and watched through binoculars the string of shipmates who chose to hike to the crest of the ridge overlooking the caldera. The stark beauty of this place will return in my memories for years to come.

    Like several of the beaches we have visited, Deception Island's lack of snow and ice surprises me. Antarctica has ice and glaciers. We saw plenty of each. Yet those returning here comment on the rapid retreat of many of the tidewater glaciers and the unusually warm temperatures that have met us this week. Global warming is apparently real, yet not even the alarmists of the media have good ideas about how to address the issue. I am grateful for the opportunity to visit here. I am also grateful for the international agreements that limit the number of tourists that can be on this continent. Our ship can only release no more than one hundred at a time. Let us hope that the nations of the world cooperate to solve climatic problems as successfully as they have cooperated to preserve this pristine continent.    Read more

  • The Frozen Continent

    In the Wake of the Golden Hind

    February 21, 2020, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 41 °F

    I am feeling a little better after Glenda's administration of the proper cold medicines. Yesterday we turned in our boots and badges, and then retrieved our passports. After the Captain's Farewell Dinner we continued to pack and to prepare for the re-crossing of Drake's Passage. The navigator gave a presentation suggesting that the trip back to Argentina may be a bit worse than the trip over.

    I was awakened several times during the night by the rocking and pitching of the ship, though motion sickness has never bothered me. The Captain is running fast through the Passage to get us back to Ushuaia before another storm to our west hits us. We should be back in Argentina sometime early tomorrow morning. Everything I won't need for the remainder of the trip has already been packed. Tonight after supper I will stow my toiletries, electronics and chargers and start to live out of my camera bag until we arrive home in North Carolina.    Read more

  • The Frozen Continent
    Ushuaia at Sunset
    The Mission, the Oldest and Most Exclusive Neighborhood in UshuaiaUshuaia Wall PosterHot Chocolate in the Old General Store

    Homeward Bound

    February 22, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ 🌧 64 °F

    We ate an early breakfast onboard the MS Midnatsol and met Theresa, our Road Scholar guide, on Deck 5 for the bus ride to the airport in Ushuaia. Another guide, Sylvia, gave us an hour-long tour of the town, and Theresa bought us hot chocolate at a cafe designed to resemble an old-timey general store.Read more

  • The Frozen Continent

    End of an Adventure

    February 22, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ 🌙 64 °F

    A three-hour Latam Airlines flight has brought us back to Buenos Aires, the starting point for this adventure. An hour-long bus tour of the city initiated the ride to the international airport in the Ezeiza Partido, some 45 minutes away. We cleared security and found the VIP lounge, where we are awaiting the flight that will take us back to Miami. Now we are grateful to be through Argentine security, to be fed and rested, and to be permitted to enjoy this adventure, the journey of a lifetime.Read more

    Trip end
    February 23, 2020
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