TravelStream™ news feed for member cliffanddoris on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/cliffanddoris en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Sat, 17 May 2008 16:25:04 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204249080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204249080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204249080/tpod.html Sat, 17 May 2008 16:25:04 -0400 Antarctica = Adventure

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Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica



Antarctica has been on our 'hit list' and we finally made it! Friggin incredible! We spent 21 days visiting the Antarctica Peninsula, South Georgia Island and Falkland Islands and then spent a couple of days at Iguazu Falls. This entry covers the Beginning: Ushuaia, the Drake Passage and making sure we didn't get sick!

We hope you enjoy as much as we did!



Antarctica had been on our "hit list" for a few years but we never thought that we'd really end up traveling there. However, after visiting cities and historical sites throughout Italy, the Mediterranean and Greek Islands last year Doris and I realized that the volume of people traveling outside their home country is increasing exponentially and that "off-season" crowds are rivaling the seasonal crowds. Whether this is the result of globalization or the internet or the aging of our travel population I don't know. But I do know that there are not many places left in the world that can still be called "remote".





Antarctica is still a remote location. But the number of travelers and ships visiting this remote area of the world has been increasing by 30% each of the past few years. The result is that close to 50,000 people will visit Antarctica during the 2007-2008 November to March summer months. Travel is possible only during these months when the temperatures are more tepid and the ice pack around the continent has melted.

These numbers are up from 13,000 visitors just five years ago. So we figured that now is the time to go, before Antarctica becomes just another crowded tourist destination. [Hopefully not, since there are regulations in place that limit the number of people at any landing to 100 (more about that later). On the other hand, there are cruise lines doing "sail-by" trips whereby ships with over 1,000 passengers sail near the Peninsula but don't make landings.]

In the picture below, our ship, the M/S andrea, is in front of the M/S Fram. The Fram can hold 318 passengers while the Andrea holds 100. Incidentally, a month prior to our departure the Fram drifted into a glacier and had to be escorted back to port. You can see some of the damage in the paint on the bow of the Fram.



El Fin del Mundo
We departed from Ushuaia, Argentina, a city nicknamed "El Fin del Mundo". It's the southernmost city in the world and about 16 flight hours from Miami. There are over 40 ships going to Antarctica during the season, with each ship making anywhere from one to ten trips. Most depart from either Ushuaia or Punta Arenas in Chile while a few depart from Australia or New Zealand.


We arrived two days early (highly recommended!) to acclimate and to make sure our luggage arrived on time, which it did! The next day we hired a driver and explored Tierra del Fuego National Park (in the southern area of Patagonia) and the glacial lakes and wilderness north of Ushuaia. It was a full and adventurous day.






The second day we visited the Ushuaia Prison Museum. The prison was built in the late 1800's and its history is chronicled through exhibits in the cell blocks. This was a maximum security prison for murderers and other hard-core convicts. The prisoners were used to build the streets, bridges, buildings and railroads in and around Ushuaia. The train that transported prisoners to a rock quarry outside the city is now a popular tourist ride inside the National Park. The prison was shut down in 1950 and has been a museum ever since.



Sailing to Antarctica
That afternoon we boarded the ship at 4:00 p.m. After almost a year of anticipation, it was finally time to get on to Antarctica! Our expedition was on the M/S Andrea, a Norwegian cruise ship built in 1960 and renovated in 2003. The Andrea is ice-strengthened and is built to sail in Arctic and Antarctic waters. The ship is 285 feet long and holds 100 passengers. This is about as large a ship that is recommended if you want to get the maximum amount of landings and time on Antarctica. That's because tourism in Antarctica is regulated by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) and one of their regulations is that no more than 100 people are allowed on shore at the same time. In fact many of the ships traveling to Antarctica hold just 40 to 60 passengers.





The trip started calmly through the Beagle Channel the first evening. As soon as we reached open waters we were in the Drake Passage, a body of water known as the roughest seas in the world. It's a passage that's 500 miles wide between South America and the Antarctica Peninsula and the waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans all try to squeeze through together. It can make for a rough sailing.

You hope to get "Drake's lake" and not a "Drake shake". As it turned out the Drake Passage was relatively mild for us and we thought we were home free as we passed through the "convergence" late on the second day. This is an area about 20-30 miles wide where the cold southern waters meet the northern warm waters and it acts as a barrier between these extremes. Once we passed south of the convergence we were in Antarctic waters and icebergs began appearing. Icebergs can not float north of the convergence and many types of sea life do not cross the convergence.





After passing the convergence, we entered the Bransfield Strait and immediately we could feel the difference. The weather and the seas began deteriorating. The temperature dropped, fog and clouds rolled in and the seas kicked up. We were entering an Antarctic storm. Force 12 weather is hurricane force winds with seas in excess of 35 feet. On one day during the trip we had Force 11 weather -- 60 mph winds with 35 foot seas.




In open waters, the ship would do some serious rocking and rolling, which became a standard scene through the trip. We found out that we prefer when a ship "pitches" rather than "rolls". A ship rocks front to back when it pitches and side to side when it rolls.




One of the biggest challenges was taking a shower; try washing with one hand while holding onto a handrail with the other hand, soapy by this time. And then try drying with only one hand!

All Antarctic expeditions are led by an expedition team made up of a leader and in our case, eight guides. They are highly knowledgeable in areas like nature, marine biology, geology, history, ornithology and archeology. There was very little about the Antarctic that they did not know among them. The key to a successful expedition are the guides and ours did not disappoint.




During sea days the expedition staff gave several one-hour lectures throughout the day. The rest of the day was open: you could watch and photograph the Antarctic landscape and seabirds from the cold and windy deck, spend time with fellow passengers, take a break with a book, a movie or a nap, or sort and edit the images you've photographed so far! A lot of people came on deck whenever whales or dolphins were sighted. Sea days were full days. The images of birds, dolphins and whales were taken from the deck of the ship.





Zodiacs and Landings
For landings everyone dresses in the standard 'landing outfit' - knee-high waterproof boots, waterproof pants, two or three (or more) layers of clothing, winter hat, waterproof gloves, the red parka issued to us at the beginning of the trip, and a yellow life vest. It's hard to get lost with these colors!

Landings are done with rubber zodiac rafts. Ships anchor about a quarter mile offshore and then the passengers make a short hop from the ship's gangway to the zodiac. The ship has a mandatory rule that two crew members help the passengers on and off the zodiacs. This is a good thing in the choppy seas! To help protect the Antarctic environment all passengers walk through a pan of disinfectant just prior to boarding the zodiacs and then walk through the disinfectant upon return to the ship.




The zodiacs land on the beach or onto rocks and the knee-high boots come in handy since you generally wade through ankle or calf deep water to get to the beach. It's a process that becomes more routine as the expedition goes on.

Coming up in future newsletters
We hope you enjoyed the expedition so far. We'll share our adventures on the Antarctic Peninsula with you in trip report #2. These were amazing, incredible and inspiring days. Stay tuned!
Cliff and Doris

*** Explore the outdoors and enjoy our natural lands. When you visit, remember to "pack it in and pack it out" -- don't litter and don't damage anything. Leave the area as it was when you arrived and our natural lands will remain a memorable and rewarding experience for everyone.***
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1209845880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1209845880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1209845880/tpod.html Sat, 03 May 2008 17:50:09 -0400 Antarctica = Adventure

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Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica



Cruising for Chicks at Hannah Point
We had seen Skuas and Giant Petrels working at other rookeries to grab chicks but the action at Hannah Point was a highlight of the entire trip. We watched Skuas swoop down time and again to pull chicks from under a parent in the nest. Some were successful and others were not. The birds at Hannah Point were much more aggressive than we'd seen before. As you'll see in the images, life as a penguin is not all peaches and cream. As cute as penguin chicks are, they are also tasty little treats to their predators.

First let's review the dynamics of Hannah Point. It lies on the southern coast of Livingston Island, which is part of the South Shetland Island chain. These islands are just north of the Antarctica Peninsula, and include King George Island, where ten different countries have permanent research stations. To keep it in perspective, this archipelago lies about 800 miles south of Argentina.

Hannah Point is really a half moon bay that slopes up to about 500 ft high. There are all kinds of penguins and birds nesting here along with elephant seals. There is no snow on Hannah Point during the summer and in fact it is covered with green grass! This is the only grass that grows in Antarctica and it's called Antarctic Hairgrass. There's also a lot of mosses and lichen growing on the ground and the rocks, which gave it a sub-tropical feeling. There was a beach on the far end of the bay with fossils, and although a lot of people walked over there, we didn't make it. We ended up at the penguin rookery in the middle of the point where there were thousands of adult and chick Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins, along with predator birds, Skuas and Giant Petrels, who were cruising for chicks.

Chicks were gathered together in groups (called "crèches") of 10 to 15 all over the rookery. These are like day care centers, with one adult penguin watching over the chicks while the parents go to sea for food. When the parents eventually return they find their chicks by calling to them. Even with thousands of penguins in the area, the chicks and parents recognize their own unique voices. Among all this were nests with adults watching over their newly hatched chicks. And cruising overhead were the predator birds, Skuas and Giant Petrels, looking for nests to grab a "Chik-Filet" lunch. Skuas will kill penguin chicks to get food for their own chicks. Penguin chicks are fed regurgitated seafood by their parents, and the Skuas will kill the chick in order to harvest the chick's stomach for that food. This is the food chain at work, and it is amazing to watch!

We watched Skua after Skua dive bomb nests and try to grab chicks. They usually work in teams of two. One Skua lands next to a nest and attacks like he's after the chick. The parent penguin will start screeching to chase the Skua away. While this is going on a second Skua swoops down to grab the chick from the other side. The penguins pretty much know this is going to happen so they stay alert to both sides. Most of the time the penguin is successful. So it took a while before we finally witnessed a Skua swoop down, attack and fly off with the chick. You'll see this in the series of photos below.

As soon as the Skua starting flying off with the chick though, a Giant Petrel started chasing and the Skua eventually dropped the chick in the middle of an open field. The chick hit the ground, bounced and rolled a few times and finally came to a stop. Another penguin came out to help the chick, but two Skuas and a Giant Petrel showed up. In the hierarchy of these predators, the Giant Petrel is larger and more dominant, so the Skuas backed off, as did the penguin. The Petrel walked over and picked at the chick but didn't attack it, and eventually, after a confrontation and help from the penguin, the chick limped off to safe harbor under the protective eye of the penguin. This was the game of predator and prey at its best!

The amazing thing was that neither the Petrel nor the Skuas made any attempt at the end to grab the injured, limping chick. They just watched him head off to the safety of the other penguins. Apparently this was now just a game to these birds! There was no more challenge, and then they flew off to cruise for more chicks. Fortunately for the chick.

Enjoy!


Scene 1 - The Skuas attack penguins at their nests and try to get their chicks



















































Scene 2 - Skuas attack a nest and try to grab a chick













Scene 3 - The Skua finally wins one! And he flies off with the prize. Notice near the end that the chick is so upset it begins to defecate.














































































Scene 4 -Wait! The Skua is chased by a Giant Petrel, a more dominant predator.
The Skua tries to fly away but drops the chick. The Giant Petrel grabs it while
it rolls down the hill. The Skua knows its place. It can only stand back and hope for the remains.
























































Scene 5 - Brothers to the Rescue! An unrelated penguin leaves its own nest to confront the Petrel and help the beaten and crippled chick. He has no fear. Look at him go beak-to-beak with the predator!







































Scene 6 - After chasing the Petrel off the playing field, the penguin pleads with the chick to recover and stand up





























Scene 7 - The chick gets up and, under the protective eye of the penguin, he limps past the predator Skuas to the safety of other penguins and chicks.























FINALLY, A HAPPY ENDING!




















]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204254540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204254540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cliffanddoris/1/1204254540/tpod.html Sat, 03 May 2008 15:12:20 -0400 Antarctica = Adventure

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Antarctica, Antarctica

OK, in our first report we rocked and rolled from Ushuaia, Argentina through seas and passages on our way to Antarctica. Now we've reached the mainland and we'll spend a few incredible days along the Antarctica Peninsula. We try to share a wide range of our photography and adventures with you and hope that you enjoy as much as we did!

When you hear about a trip to Antarctica, it's generally an expedition following this same route or very nearby. These place are the main attraction of any Antarctica trip and they did not disappoint.

If you've been fortunate to have visited Antarctica then you know that the words and images in our newsletters cannot begin to describe the incredible beauty, immense vastness and remote desolation of this continent. It is a grandiose wilderness made up of ice packs, ice fields, volcanoes, mountains and glaciers that seem to go on forever. It is the coldest, windiest and driest continent in the world. A little known fact is that Antarctica is the largest desert in the world with an overall average of just 4 inches of precipitation a year. This makes the Sahara Desert look like a rain forest! Since there is no evaporation, snow just keeps stacking up over years and millenniums, turning Antarctica into the tallest continent in the world with ice stacked up to 10,000 feet in some places. Near the shores and in the seas are wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. It is incredible and magical.


We were scheduled to reach the Antarctica Peninsula on the third day of the expedition, but because of the weather and heavy seas we didn't make it until the next morning. After three days of rocking and rolling we were ready to put our feet on firm ground! This was a gentle reminder of what to expect on an Antarctic expedition. This is not a cruise. Everything is subject to weather and conditions and the schedule can change at a moment's notice. And it did, almost every day!



Penguins!
Paulet Island was our first landing. It's actually a small extinct volcano just off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship anchored at 6:00 a.m. and four motorized zodiac rafts were used to ferry everyone to shore. This is pretty much the same procedure used for all landings on an Antarctic expedition and it can be a challenge in rough seas.


The island is surrounded by small icebergs with penguins swimming all over the place and jumping on them. We anchored about a quarter mile offshore and the zodiacs had to navigate around the ice to get to the shore. That was fun! Take a look at the picture below to see what we drove through. It was incredible. As we approached the shore in the crisp and colorful morning, the snow-covered volcanic beach stood majestically in the background. It is hard to believe we are finally here.


Paulet Island is home to the largest colony of Adelie penguins in the world -- about 250,000 adults and chicks. There are birds everywhere... on the shore, in the water, on the slopes. There are tens of thousands of chicks running around and crying for food!


We are required to maintain a 15 foot distance between ourselves and the wildlife but there are so many penguins it is just not possible. At times the penguins would come and start pecking at our clothing. These guys are so tame that we could pet them if we wanted to.


If an adult and a chick get separated they both start squawking, an even with hundreds of thousands of adults and chicks running around and squawking, they still find each other. The noise is deafening.


On the Mainland
Our next landing was at Brown Bluff, our first stop on the Antarctica mainland. We are here! It was exciting to step off the zodiac and say that we were finally standing on Antarctica!


Brown Bluff was filled with gentoo penguins and its landscape was made up of black volcanic rock covered with white snow. It made for some great photography! We stayed in each location anywhere from two to four hours and it was never enough time to really explore the area. We could have stayed in this one place all day!



After leaving Brown Bluff we sailed through the Bransfield Strait again on the way to next day's destinations. The scenery along the Strait was stunning and incredible. Each day is more beautiful and spectacular than imagined. On overcast days (of which we had many) the sky flows into the mountains while the clouds and fog blend together as one. Most of the time you cannot tell where the sky ends and the sea begins. It is mind boggling. As much as we love photography you just cannot record through words and pictures what this continent looks like and is all about.

Neko and Cuverville
The next day we landed at Neko Harbor and Cuverville Island. We have now lost all sense of time and society. We had to ask to find out what day and date it was. The ship distributes no world news and there are no public channels on the television. On any other trip there is always some type of news or communication from the world. But not when you are in Antarctica. It is silence. It feels good, but we do miss knowing what's going on. With the ship charging $1.00 per minute for internet access, we used it very sparingly.

At Neko Harbor there were thousands of Gentoo penguins and chicks along with a glacier that we could hike up to the top. I went to the top, slipping and sliding along the way. Most of the people brought walking sticks, but we left ours at home. Word of advice: If you ever make it to Antarctica, bring a walking stick with you.


From the top of the glacier we watched huge walls of ice calving from the Antarctic ice shelf and exploding into the bay. Neko Harbor is a half moon bay with a sand beach and you'd think that you're in the Caribbean if it wasn't for the penguins, ice and small bergs on the beach! The Andrea was anchored in the middle of the bay between the beach, the glacier and the ice shelf. Astonishing and incredible! Almost like a postcard.

Doris was on the beach during one of the calvings. The expedition staff chased everyone off the beach because the calving can cause a tidal surge of up to 3 or 4 feet. This one though, was minimal.

Ever since we left Ushuaia we've been running behind schedule and today was no different. It feels like we left time two steps behind us. It just doesn't catch up! Because of rough seas we lost a few hours so we ended up making our second landing, at Cuverville Island, after dinner. Wildlife activity was stranger here than other places. The penguins were busy nesting and breeding and courting and the atmosphere felt almost business-like.

At other landings the penguins were socializing and playing, but here they were spending all their time building nests, raising chicks and courting. We almost felt like we were intruding on them, except that they still checked us out like at all other places. We're never sure who is more curious about the other, us or them. When a penguin is crossing in front of you, you've got to be careful or else it'll just walk right over your boots or stop and look up at you.


Narrow Passages
The next day was an early wake-up. We were sailing through the Lemaire Channel around 4:30 a.m. and the expedition staff wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see the narrowest channel and some of the most astounding scenery on the Peninsula. Lemaire Channel is about seven miles long and less than a mile wide so the mountains and glaciers seemed like they were right on top of us. The weather was cold, windy, wet, snowy and foggy but made for some great photography!



The channel generally has a lot of ice and icebergs and is not always navigable. There was a lot of ice on this day but we were able to navigate through, although very slowly. It looks easy but navigating in Antarctica waters takes special talent and a lot of experience. We had an Ice Captain aboard and he was always in the bridge and in charge when we were near ice. Most of the waters in Antarctica are not charted so even the large cruise ships have to do a lot of navigating by sight.



Glaciers and Gift Shops
After passing through Lemaire Channel, we got ready for our landings at Peterman Island and Port Lockroy. Peterman Island is a small island with thousands of Gentoo penguins, a small glacier and a hut owned by Argentina. The hut is abandoned now but in good shape. A lot of locations in Antarctica have huts, buildings or bases of which some are in use and some are abandoned. It's a strange mix out here.



It was on this island that three men got stranded in 1982 and stayed in the hut, but lost electricity for lights and communication, and went insane. They disappeared and their bodies were never found, but it is suspected that they tried to walk across the frozen bay when the ice was not strong enough. They had eaten penguins and left penguin skins tacked to the walls even though there was still plenty of food in the hut. The ironic part is that if they had stayed in the hut they would have been ok -- rescuers reached the island only three days after the men left.


Port Lockroy is the most visited place in Antarctica and is also the world's most southern and remote gift shop/post office. It's owned by the U.K. with a few buildings and of course, thousands of penguins. It was originally a whaling station and then became a secret location for the British during World War II to detect German submarines, but none made it that far south. Three Brits live there during the summer and they take care of the station and the gift shop. They said that one or two ships land there daily during the summer. Like almost everyplace else in Antarctica, the base closes down for the winter. After 8 days of total blackout from civilization it really felt strange to be inside a store again. But we went, we saw, and we bought the T-Shirts!



Cruising for Chicks
The next day would be our last on the Antarctica Peninsula. And as you'll see, it was a great ending to these four days! As we found out, the trip only gets better every day. Hannah Point was our first landing and is located in the South Shetland Islands, just off the coast of Antarctica. It's a half-moon bay that slopes upward about 500 feet from the sand beach. There are all kinds of penguins and birds nesting on the Point along with elephant seals. Amazingly, there is no snow and in fact the landscape was covered with green grass. That was something I never expected - grass in Antarctica. It's called "Antarctic Hairgrass" and is the only grass that grows in Antarctica. Along with mosses and lichen growing on the ground and rocks on Hannah Point, it felt like we were in the sub-tropics.



What makes Hannah Point so special is the penguin rookery in the middle of the Point along with the elephant seals. There were the usual thousands of penguins nesting and caring for chicks, but flying among the penguins were Skuas and Giant Petrels that were more aggressive than we've seen before. These guys were cruising and swooping all over the place looking for unprotected chicks.

In the middle of the action were about 25 elephant seals who live at the penguin rookery. A full grown elephant seal can weigh as much as 8,000 lbs while a full grown gentoo penguin weighs about 15 lbs. And yet the penguins were bossing the seals around! It was a riot. As you can see from the pictures, it was molting season for the elephant seals. They shed their skin once a year.



The show at the rookery was amazing, and worth it. I had seen Skuas and Petrels working at other rookeries to grab chicks but the action at Hannah Point was a highlight of the entire trip. This was "cruising for chicks" at its best. We watched Skuas swoop down to nests and try to pull chicks from under the parent. Some were successful and others were not. This was so intriguing that we're including only a few shots here and we'll cover the full action in a separate newsletter.




Skuas are the enemy. Skuas are predator birds that kill penguin chicks for food to feed to their own chicks. So if a penguin chick is not being watched closely by its parent it could end up as a Skua meal. This is the food chain at work, and it is amazing to watch!

I have to tell you, I had an experience that was really disgusting but hilarious! First off, the smell of penguin guano is bad. But we didn't know that we would find something even worse. It's the smell coming from a colony of four-ton elephant seals belching and expelling flatus (I can't say "fart" here). The smell is excruciating! Even the seals complained about their own smell every once in a while! These seals made the movie "Blazing Saddles" look like amateur hour. They were belching and expelling flatus so loud and strong that there was steam coming from ... their bodies! (maybe that's the cause of Global Warming?) And they were lying right next to the one great spot to photograph the bird action from. I had to keep moving to stay upwind of the seals. Even the noise was disgusting! Whenever the wind changed I had to move fast or hold my breath or start gagging. It was awful, but fun! I got some great shots of the rookery.




We hated to leave after about 4 hours on Hannah Point but it was time head back to the ship and have lunch. Once on board I got out of the boots and waterproofs and changed to jeans and a t-shirt. Whheeww - the smell of guano on my waterproofs and boots and parka is enough to kill a full grown person! Doris on the other hand stays in her waterproofs because it is too much of an effort to change before the next landing. Whheewww!



Swimming in Antarctica
That afternoon we sailed through rough seas on our way to Deception Island in another part of South Shetland Islands. Almost every day we were rocking and rolling and pitching. Today was no different. It was almost impossible to walk without holding onto something. Walking seems simple but it's not easy when the ship is being tossed and turned and pummeled by the sea. Lunch and breakfast are on the buffet basis, and watching people attempt to put food on their plate and then walk to a table is always fun! Most of the time they make it but once in a while someone's food ends up on the floor. It's a dance that takes time to master. Every so often we'll hear loud crashes coming from the kitchen. That's a load of dishes and glasses smashing to the floor. I'm wondering, if they use plastic instead of glass, how much less would the trip cost us?

It may be rough sailing but we made it to Deception Island. It's actually the caldera of a still-active volcano that last erupted in the 1980's, destroying several bases on the island. Over the course of thousands of years the volcano has blown itself to sea level creating the caldera that's about five miles across. It was heavily used for whaling operations since the area is enclosed with calm waters most of the time.

Our first landing was at Pendulum Cove, a 'hot spot' with steam rising from the water and the beach. The ground is heated by the volcano making the water under the beach a toasty 90°-100°F while the air temperature was 35°. The expedition staff dug a trench so that whoever wanted to could take a quick dip in the freezing Antarctic water and then jump into the trench to warm up. About 35 people actually did this in their bathing suits. They were almost all British. I knew the Brits are crazy, but....




We then headed over to an old whaling station on the other side of the island. Most countries terminated their whaling operations in the late 1960's and only Japan and Norway still hunt whales commercially today. The whaling station we visited is owned by the British and has not been touched or maintained since it was abandoned 40 years ago. Lumber, tools, canned food, furniture and trash are strewn around and it feels like it was just abandoned last year. I found an unopened can of beans on the ground -- Too bad I didn't have a can opener! It's remarkable how the cold weather helps keep a lot of artifacts well preserved through the years.



After Deception Island, we were ready to take a break. We'll be sailing for the next two days to South Georgia Island, about 800 miles northeast. So far the trip has been astounding and extraordinary, and if it was already time to head back to Ushuaia we'd have enough memories and stories to keep us happy for a long time! But we're only half done - we've been on the ship 10 days and still have 10 more to go!

As always, have great travels, enjoy the outdoors and keep shooting!

Cliff and Doris Kolber

email: kolbernews@kolberfineart.com


*** Explore the outdoors and enjoy our natural lands. When you visit, remember to "pack it in and pack it out" -- don't litter and don't damage anything. Leave the area as it was when you arrived and our natural lands will remain a memorable and rewarding experience for everyone.***

All contents copyright Clifford Kolber and Doris Kolber.
Unauthorized reproduction or use is strictly forbidden.




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