Antarctica - Day 3 - Seeing Iceberg/Land

The night was slightly better than yesterday, but the sometimes heavy rocking of the ship means that I did not get a very good sleep again. At this point, it's all part of the adventure. That’s at least what I told myself.

Anyway, today was the last day of crossing the Drake Passage and the waves were relatively calm in the morning, but certainly picked up in height in the afternoon. Luckily, until this point all the medicine against seasickness was working and apart from feeling tired sometimes, I felt totally ok.

Since today was a full day on sea, we had quite a lot of informative presentations scattered across the day ranging from whales, birds, glaciers, etc to the upcoming more exciting activities (i.e. camping without a tent, kayaking and mountaineering).

So, after a heartful lunch, it was time to sign up for all the various activities that we would be doing whilst being in Antarctica. For me, that means after a full day of exploring and setting foot on Antarctica via Zodiac the next day, I would head back to the continent after dinner to go camping.

Camping without a tent in Antarctica - yeah, crazy. But then, I have already done enough crazy stuff on this trip to last for a few lifetimes, so what is one more? ! definitely am super excited for that, you cannot imagine!

That said the day flew by relatively quickly. I did spend quite a lot of time on the bridge again talking to the second officer about navigation, a career in the maritime field, hierarchies onboard a ship, the equipment, etc. It was a great opportunity to learn more about how a ship works and the faces and stories behind it. In addition, we spotted a ship on collision course (but it changed course very well in advance) and my first ever proper iceberg on the starboard side of the ship. This was truly the first sign that we are heading closer to Antarctica - in fact, we would reach the South Shetland Islands by around 8pm and the continent of Antarctica just past midnight.

This meant, after dinner, a few of us went to the lobby, chatted the night away and tried to spot some wildlife (esp whales) that would hopefully show up more frequently over the next few days, as we headed deeper towards the Antarctic Peninsula.

This pretty much concluded Day 3 and a wave of excitement captured me and some of my fellow passengers, as tomorrow would be a day I would hopefully never forget. I mean, according to plan, I would be setting foot on the 7th continent, I would see penguins and hopefully some whales en route and to top it all off, would camp under the Antarctic stars with the silent sound of nature around me.

Man, I cannot wait - let's do this!Baca lagi