Glenda Cook

Glenda Cook

traveled in 69 countries Read more🇺🇸Asheboro

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Medriatic Sojourn
The Plaza of Miracles
April 14, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 57 °F
We had visited Pisa once before, but the sun was setting and our light was leaving. I took a few interesting photographs of the exterior of the cathedral, the baptistery, and the famous Campenille. Today we were actually able to see much more of the interior of the buildings. I was particularly pleased that since today is Maundy Thursday, a mass was being celebrated at the cathedral by the archbishop of Pisa. We saw Cathedral doing what a cathedral is supposed to do—housing a liturgical gathering. Unfortunately because the service was in progress, we were not allowed to take photographs inside. So we went over to the baptistery, made our photographs, and then returned to the cathedral to enjoy the rest of the worship service.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Livorno
April 14, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 54 °F
We are in Livorno ancient capital of Liguria. Once this seaside city was the capital of a large republic that extended along an arch marking the north of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Now it serves as the gateway to Pisa Florence and other inland towns.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Monaco—The Living Fairytale
April 13, 2022 in Monaco ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F
Coming to Monaco was not high on my list. I’m probably the person least likely to enjoy a city that is nothing but a playground for people who are extremely rich, extremely famous, or extremely beautiful. After being here I see that Monaco is all of the above. However, there are some remarkable features to this fairy land kingdom. For one thing, there is no income tax here. The vast majority of the country’s income is derived from gambling and luxury taxes on expensive cars boats and helicopters. Although many of the buildings look old, most are relatively new. A section of the palace was built in the thirteenth century, but with renovations and reconstructions, I would swear that not a single stone of the “old” part is over one hundred years old. The result is that all of the buildings here are utterly beautiful, especially the opulent casino. There is not a piece of litter nor a mark of graffiti in the streets. Every public toilet has a full time janitor keeping it spotless. Already streets are blocked and grandstands are being built for the formula I auto race that will take place on the main streets at the end of May.

Before one can relocate to Monaco, he is required by the government to open an account in a bank in Monaco and deposit enough money to buy an apartment and sustain the kind of lifestyle expected here. This is the only place I’ve ever been where most of the women I see on the street (except for tourists) are wearing clothes and makeup that probably cost more than my car. Most really do look as though they just stepped out of the pages of Vogue magazine. Yet their beauty is not all cosmetic. From the time our ship arrived early this morning I have seen women (and a few men) of various ages out on a dockside exercise area receiving coaching in kickboxing, judo, and weightlifting. They were working hard.

People of my generation remember the wedding of movie star Grace Kelly to Prince Renier in 1956. It was depicted as a union that would make the girl from Philadelphia the Princess of a fairytale kingdom. I assumed all of that myth was merely Hollywood hype. Now that I have come here, I see there was more than a grain of truth in that description. Renier, like his father Prince Albert I, was an absolute monarch, but both were also astute businessmen who ran the kingdom like a corporation. The wealth concentrated here is truly astounding. The 64-year-old son of Renier and Princess Grace, Albert II, is the current monarch, and he is more concerned with the environment and with social issues. A special interest is the preservation and renewal of the oceans. He has founded an institute for oceanographic studies that operates a fantastic museum and aquarium, which we were privileged to visit today.

Monaco is a remarkable place of unusual beauty. The oceanfront on this windy day is magnificent. The architecture is glorious. I do hope you can come here one day—for a visit, of course. No one I know could afford to live here.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Where are the Romans?
April 12, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 63 °F
When we were leaving Marseille, I went on deck to take some pictures of the sail out. I was surprised to see half a dozen beautiful arches spanning the canyons near the coast. I suppose there have been stonemasons and brickmasons here ever since the Romans built their settlement in Marseille. Reading history sometimes gives us the idea that the Romans left and then the Visigoths came. Then the Visigoths left and then the Saracens came. Actually I suspect that the transition from one government to the next seemed much more subtle to the people who actually experienced it. So the question arose in my mind where are the Romans? Looking at these arches one might be persuaded that the Romans never left. They are still here. Or at least their children are.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Coming Home to Aix en Provence
April 12, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F
Glenda and I had been here before on a voyage onboard the Ruby Princess. Then we fell in love with Aix-en-Provence (pronounced like “Ex on Provonce”). It’s amazing how sometimes it’s the little, out-of-the-way events that stick in one’s memory. For example when we were here before, the day was very cold and we had no plans for lunch, so we stopped in at little crêperie located in a dark underpass right by the Fountain of the Rotonde. I remember how the woman flipped that crêpe around with something resembling a yardstick. We went back today just to see if she was still there. She was not, but the crêperie was still there, staffed by two young women. We wandered for over an hour, retracing our steps back to the city market, and then to the church of Sainte Savieur. Earlier Dominique our guide delivered the clearest explanation of the connection between politics, art and architecture that I have ever heard. He pointed out how baroque art and architecture were a product of the Catholic counter-reformation. We stopped at a little coffee shop and enjoyed the warm espresso with a piece of lemon cake. These are simple memories, but they are the ones that stand out so vividly when the cruise is over. Many tourists come here to retrace the steps of artist Paul Cézanne, but we came here simply to enjoy the wonderful atmosphere of this strikingly beautiful French village. Of course, pilgrimages here to find Cézanne often end at his home on the north side of the town, which is preserved exactly as he left it the day he died. (See https://www.cezanne-en-provence.com/en/ ) Whenever we return to Aix en Provence, though, we come simply because it makes us feel as though we have come home again.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Marvelous Marseille
April 12, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 64 °F
Marseille is the third largest ship port in Europe. It is exceeded only by Amsterdam and Hamburg. We have come through this amazing city a few times before, but we have never docked at the port here. The first time we came to this part of France, we docked down the coast at Toulon. The next time we were here we flew out of the airport following a cruise down the Rhône river. Today we get to see the port in all of its glory. It is a busy place, currently hosting at least four cruise ships docked nearby. One can understand why the Romans settled at this place, since it is the doorstep to the rest of the south of France.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Carcassone and the Crusade
April 11, 2022 in France ⋅ 🌬 59 °F
The settlement of the site of Carcassonne dates to the sixth century BC when it was a Celtic fortress. It was part of the Roman province of Narbonensis until the 600’s AD when it was incorporated into the Visigothic kingdom that ruled this remnant of Roman Gaul. A hundred years later the Muslim invaders coming up from North Africa through Gibraltar and Spain became its overlords. In the 800’s it became part of the kingdom of the Franks.

In the early 13th century a small group of monks in the nearby town of Albi became dissatisfied with the wealth, corruption and immorality of the Church. Their public criticism of the excesses of the Church won many converts, and the monks’ success alarmed the civil and religious authorities. Some of the more extreme converts became known as the Catharii (meaning “the pure, or cleansed ones”). They took literally Jesus’ ethical teachings, giving away all of their possessions to the poor, even their clothing. Many gave away all of their food as well and died within a few days from starvation or exposure. Nevertheless, the contrast between their selflessness and the venality of the priesthood was apparent, and adherents came to this new reform movement in droves, even including many noblemen such as Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassone.

Pope Innocent III declared these Albigensians to be heretics and mounted a crusade to exterminate them. Count Simon de Montfort was appointed as commander of an army to march to Occitania to erase the heresy. A number of military operations were conducted in the area around Albi against the Catharii. Given their literal interpretation of Jesus’ teachings, the pacifist Catharii offered little resistance. Most of these military operations can only be described as slaughter. Still, Trencavel offered the Catharii the use of his castle at Carcassone as a place where the reformers might have some sort of defense until God provided a miraculous rescue or until the Pope lost interest in his crusade. Neither occurred. While the castle was never breached, in 1209 de Montfort poisoned the water supply upstream until most of the resistors in the castle died. The few remaining Catharii surrendered and were executed by the civil authorities at the request of the Church. In 1226 the castle was handed over to the King of France. For centuries thereafter it served as a royal fortress protecting the border between France and Spain.Read more
TravelerWhere's Glendas Hat?
5/11/22Reply
Chuck CookShe wore it yesterday, thanks to you.
5/12/22Reply
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Medriatic Sojourn
Welcoming Sète
April 11, 2022 in France ⋅ 🌬 57 °F
Although we were delayed in leaving yesterday’s port of Barcelona, we arrived this morning at the charming little seaport of Sète in Occitania. A squadron of powerful little tugboats met us at the mouth of the harbor and led us in a delicate little dance. At the end of it our ship backed in to a small pier. This tiny Seaport is too small for any of the mega-liners that block the sun in major harbors, but our ship of 720 passengers with the help of half a dozen tugs slipped right in despite the forty-mile-per-hour winds that wanted to push us against the rocks. At one point our bow was less than fifty feet from the jetty. I observed that parking an ocean liner is an art. No one does it better than the crew of the Viking Sky.

This part of France has its own unique character. It certainly is not Paris. The region derives its name Occitania from a peculiarity of linguistic history. The Franks north of here said “yes” by using their word “oui,” which became standard over most of the country. However, in this little corner of France, speakers would say “yes” using their word “oc.” Their dialect became known to the other Franks as “the language of ‘oc,’ or Languedoc. The region thus became known as Oc-citania.

This area has been the theater for many cultural and religious revolutions that have marked French history, including the attempted reformation of the Roman Catholic Church by a group of ascetic reformers called the Catharii. But more about them in the next footprint.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Palm Sunday in Barcelona
April 10, 2022 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 55 °F
Although we had prepared ourselves for yet another lackluster bus trip through the city, the included excursion provided by Viking turned out to be a real treat. We started with a drive-through of some of the more picturesque neighborhoods of Barcelona. Martha our guide eventually led us to the church of the Sagrada Familia, designed by the world-famous architect Antonio Gaudi. Despite the grotesque ugliness of the building, it is a treasure trove of Christian iconography. Martha gave us a fascinating detailed description of the exterior of the church. Next we went to the Gothic part of the city where we saw artifacts going back to the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, the cathedral of Barcelona, and the royal palace of the kings of Spain used in the 15th century. It was this palace that Christopher Columbus visited when he petitioned the rulers of Spain for funds to finance his voyage. Narrow streets and ancient buildings exuded charm in this historic neighborhood. I was particularly impressed by worshipers coming out of the cathedral bearing elaborately woven palm fronds and doing the traditional dance of Barcelona to music provided by a live band. We viewed the four huge columns formerly located at the Roman forum, reminding me that the ancient fortress overlooking the harbor was built by the Romans. We returned to the ship around 1:30 PM where I ate pizza in the World Cafe onboard the Viking Sky. Glenda let me finish her salad for her. Afterwards I went down to guest services to see whether I might be able to arrange for the use of a piano for practice while we are on this voyage. We finished the evening with a musical presentation in the Star Theater featuring American music from the 1950s and 60s. The ship’s departure was delayed by about four hours. We won’t leave the Port of Barcelona until 10 PM. That means we’ll get a later start tomorrow morning.Read more
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Medriatic Sojourn
Arrival in Barcelona
April 9, 2022 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F
It has been two years and two months since our last international trip. The COVID-19 virus seems to be subsiding and we are ready to travel again. A short bumpy flight to the airport in Newark was followed by a leisurely hiatus in the fabulous Polaris lounge. A Boeing 767 brought us to the airport in Barcelona, where we found that Spain was no less meticulous in enforcing its Covid regulations at the airport than it had been online. We went through multiple checkpoints to have our documents confirmed, and then re-confirmed, to have our temperature taken, and finally to spit into a test tube. So far it looks as though we are Covid free, and now we’re safe on board the Viking Sky. We have put away our clothes, met our new room steward (Yassin from Tunisia), and have our stateroom immaculate. We’re getting cleaned up after a long trip, and we’re looking forward to a beautiful meal in the restaurant tonight.Read more
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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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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The Frozen Continent
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
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