Packing Is Going To Be Tricky...
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 5 ~ January 18 ~ Punta Arenas to Antarctica
And here we all are at silly o'clock, about to board the airport bus.
That's a good sign. (And they've taken our hotel card keys now, so it looks like everything is going to plan.)
Antarctic Airways planes are all painted as different penguins!
They have four in total, and we are on Pingüino Papúa, Gentoo in English. Gentoo penguins are the fastest swimmers of all the penguins (which is why one version of the Linux operating system is called Gentoo Linux), but I don't think it means our plane will fly faster.
Through the window, we can see Macaroni being prepared, presumably for our second group.
Our onboard snack box. The different meal options have different penguins again. Do you get the feeling there's a theme going on here?
It may not be the most exciting in-flight catering we've ever had, but it's certainly the first to regale us with interesting facts about Emperor Penguins.
The flight itself is pretty much all over open sea, so nothing particularly photogenic from the air.
As we reach King George Island, we can see some ships below, but we have absolutely no idea if any of them might be ours.
All out and into the bus.
And now we're on the beach preparing to board Zodiacs which will take us to the ship.
HEY! WE'RE IN ANTARCTICA!!!
[Much later, back home, we will discover from comment threads on the Quark Expeditions Facebook page that we have been lucky that everything has gone so swimmingly for us. While we were always aware that problems could arise, we hadn't really given any thought to the possibility that we might spend literally days in Punta Arenas and miss half the cruise, as some unfortunate folks have done.]
Here's how you reach the ship.
Ocean Explorer is much more luxurious and modern (built 2021) than Ortelius, our Arctic cruise ship, was. This is a quality hotel room, not a cabin!
And we have full-height patio doors onto a private balcony, although it's a bit chilly to sit out in it.
I mean, don't get me wrong, we had an absolutely brilliant time on Ortelius, but it's a different planet!
To the lounge for a welcome drink and introduction.
The library deck is just above the lounge.
Here's to a successful voyage!
On the top passenger deck, there's a hot tub (with another on the other side), and the steps on the right lead up to a small swimming pool.
Definitely for the brave. It's heated, but the surrounding air isn't.
After lunch, we have an emergency drill. Maritime rules do not allow the voyage to proceed until we've all done this basic drill, although quite how much we'd remember in the event of a real disaster is a bit of an open question.
Still, it's a lot more lively than sitting and pretending to watch the safety briefing on an aeroplane, which I also suspect is more for passenger psychology than practical substance.
[It's very hard to find any solid figures for real incidents where what they show in the briefing needed to be put into practice, but it's not a big number. There's one famous occasion when a plane crashed in the Hudson River near New York, and everyone survived on the escape slides that turn into liferafts, but finding other similar cases with modern commercial airliners is near-impossible.]
So I mentioned I'd bought a new lens. That's it. Subtle, eh? It's time to see if we can spot anything.
Aha!
Now strictly speaking, this is not our first penguin. There were a few on the beach we departed from, but they were a bit of a way off and we didn't have any time to get closer. This is also evidence that my monster lens is going to be pretty useful.
And while I'm not going to claim that this is the finest whale picture ever taken, it is our first.
It's strange the way the snow seems to have been scooped away around this hill. Exposed peaks breaking through an ice field are called ‘nunataks’ (from an Inuit word), but I can't find any other pictures online with this crater effect.
A glass of wine before dinner as we end our first day at sea. This is the ‘bistro’ on deck 8, as against the main dining room on deck 7. It's smaller and quieter, but serves the same food, so it suits us well.
After dinner, Yun, the offficial expedition photographer, gives a talk about how to get the best photos in the Antarctic conditions, and while I don't learn anything particularly new, we do bond a bit over some lens porn: she's intrigued by my big one [can I say that in 2026?!].
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