The ship’s navigation table holds two nautical charts. They both show we are passing through waters that haven’t been surveyed. Using depth soundings, our captain charts a safe and steady course. He may be a seasoned Antarctic sailor, but he’s never sailed this channel before today.

Snow falls heavy on the ship and dusk sets in about us. Our visibility is greatly reduced. The falling flakes quickly accumulate on the bridge windows. We can barely see the icebergs that fill the channel ahead. Thankfully, the floating barriers appear clearly on the radar. The monitor clearly shows each berg in blaring orange. One gigantic orange mass emanates from the screen. It’s only three kilometers away. You need to visit this site to learn about antarctica travel adventures.

The captain whispers an order with one kilometer left. With quick response, the helmsman alters the course of the ship. Through the falling snow and deep fog, we glimpse a tabular iceberg. This kind of berg can only be seen in the southern ocean. The sides go one hundred feet straight up and the top is flat and extremely wide.

Antarctica has struck me speechless again. The goal is to reach the Antarctic Circle via this polar class cruise ship. Life was seemingly absent on some of the far-away places we passed on our trip. Seventy-nine years after having been first sighted in 1820, a human spent an entire winter on Antarctica for the first time. While attempting to find the southern pole, many adventurers died. Scientists were the next group of people to come to Antarctica. Only very rich tourists could visit Antarctica until very recent times. With the extreme drop of costs, you can visit this continent for about as much as you could a Caribbean island.

Antarctica is shaped a little like a manta ray. The manta ray’s tail extends to within 500 miles of South America. Home to the worst seas on the planet, this space is known as the Drake Passage. Passing through these waters, which have also been called the ‘Slobbering Jaws of Hell’ is a stiff price to pay to reach Antarctica. One nice woman reminds us to stow all of our gear and make sure our cabin portholes are well latched before we retire for the night. Learn about adventure antarctica tours.

After sailing from Ushuaia, in Argentina, we sailed through the Beagle Channel and reached the open ocean. The ship traveled on for two more days in extremely unsettled waters. Extremely strong winds constantly blew. Splash from waves crashing on the ship?s bow passed above my fourth-deck window. Swells could be seen in the range of fifteen to forty feet; size varied according to the observer’s level of seasickness.

After two days of sailing from South America, we got to the Southern Ocean. A coastal archipelago was a welcome sight that first morning. Due to the land, the water seemed to have quieted. Mile-high mountain summits were draped in clouds. Looking like chocolate spikes through the glacier’s frosting, angular ridges poked up. Unusually rough, the bumpy slabs of ice fall right into the sea. The giant mountains looked as though they had been plopped into the ocean’s deep blue waters.

A passenger thought that traveling to Antarctica reminder her of labor during childbirth. This continent seems to behave as a bad child would. It?s the coldest, driest, windiest, and highest continent on earth.Though the surface holds seventy percent of the world’s freshwater in reserve, Death Valley gets the same amount of precipitation as its polar plateau. This land is not owned by a single person, has had no aboriginal peoples, nor any animals that remain year round on it.

In this rough environment, shore landings, as well as sailing routes, all depend on the weather. Our guides remind us that flexibility is key. Then our first landfall becomes available. Our assigned groups meet on deck. My group of ten gets into an inflatable boat. We cross a mere quarter mile of water before running into land. And with that last step, I join a small number of people who have actually stood on the Antarctic Continent.