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This is the first chapter of my travelogue from our December 2008 Antarctic adventure with Quark Expeditions. I don’t yet know how many will follow, but I'm currently working on Chapter 7. This is our second trip to Antarctica. It was fortuitous the way it came about. Pete had flown to Texas on business for a week, and while he was gone, I received an e-mail message announcing a slide show presenting photos of Antarctica, and Zelfa Silva was to introduce the presenter. Zelfa is our friend who originally got us involved in traveling to Antarctica back in 2001. We had such a fantastic time on that trip that we have had the urge to return. After viewing the beautiful slides, the urge grew more intense in me and I chatted with Zelfa afterwards, and mentioned that Pete and I were thinking of another trip to Antarctica. She said that our timing couldn’t be better. There was a large group cancellation on the Classic Antarctica Expedition aboard theClipper Adventurer departing from Ushuaia on November 21^st. It was the same 12-day trip we had taken in 2001. She said there was a $2,000 discount per person on the cabins. I did some quick math in my head, and discovered that with the discount it was actually less expensive than the trip we took seven years earlier. I mean, how could we pass up such a deal?

As soon as Pete returned home, I told him the news, and of course he happily agreed that we should do it. I called Zelfa and booked our passage. This was in April 2008. By the time November rolled around, the trip was fully paid for, and we had our bags packed. A small bump in October was the news that the fuel surcharge, which we were told would be around $400, was actually $1,160. Curses OPEC. The price of oil had increased to over $100 a barrel. It was too late to change our plans, so we just bit the bullet.

But then, a week before our trip, good fortune would visit us again. We got a call from Zelfa, telling us that a second Quark ship the 110 passenger Lyubov Orlova, (that was supposed to sail from Ushuaia on the 20^th of November just one day before our ship was to set sail) had problems and it could not sail. She never mentioned what those problems were. Quark was looking for passengers on our ship to give up their cabins to accommodate passengers from that ship. In exchange they offered us the Antarctic Quest Expedition, which is the 20-day trip from Ushuaia to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, and the Antarctic Peninsula. It would depart Ushuaia on December 3^rd on the Akademik Shokalskiy, a much smaller ship, with capacity for 48 passengers versus 122 passengers on the Clipper Adventurer. They even agreed to pay the cost of changing our airline tickets (which only amounted to $50.00), and with no other additional cost to us. We had always thought that this 20-day trip would be quite an adventure, but for the two of us the cost was prohibitive at $24,500 (which doesn't include the fuel surcharge). With such a great deal as this, we certainly didn’t mind postponing our trip by two weeks. Our story follows, with experiences and photos from this wonderful adventure.

DAY ONE

We arrived in Ushuaia at 2:00 PM on the 2^nd of December and made our way to Hotel Los Nires. This turned out to be the same hotel we stayed at in 2001.

In the seven years since our last visit, they seemed to have added onto the hotel with a nice restaurant and outdoor seating area, and some major foundations are being worked on at the back of the hotel.

Our pre-boarding briefing was scheduled for 18:30, giving us very little time to visit the town of Ushuaia, so we decided to just hang out at the hotel, and killed time by enjoying the beautiful scenery, and a bebida on the deck.

This time of year at this latitude the sun sets late and rises early. It never actually gets totally dark.

When we checked in, the hotel manager offered us a tour the next day of the Tierra del Fuego National Park. It was to go from 8:30 until 13:30, and since we could not board the ship until 16:00, it seemed like a perfect way to spend the time.

DAY TWO

We are waiting for the tour driver. Henny is a very nice lady from the Netherlands

The road we took to the park was Ruta Nacional No. 3, which is actually the southern end of the Pan American Highway. We took it to the very end.

Distances are in kilometers, but in miles it’s 11,091 to Alaska and 1,913 to Buenos Aires.

Those snowcapped mountains in the background across this body of water, which is part of the Beagle Channel, are in Chile. This pier acts as a post office and Aduana (Customs). We got our passports stamped here.

Our guide (in the pink blouse with the dark hair) took us on a hike through the beautiful forest, to check out the fauna. There was an interesting fungus that grew on the branches of the trees. It is called “Indian bread” or Llao Llao.

Funny, because Llao Llao is also the name of the famous resort in San Carlos de Bariloche, which is a beautiful hotel and spa, much like the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, only much larger, with an 18-hole golf course.

The Llao Llao Hotel in San Carlos de Bariloche

We passed by some peat bogs, which are merely an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. This particular bog is several meters deep, and has been accumulating for thousands of years.

Walking on this peat bog is very spongy. The stream forms areas that are so soggy you can’t walk on it.

The “Fire Tree” has beautiful blossoms and is a stark contrast to the lush green foliage.

There was only one introduced species in this park, and it was the beaver. It seemed like a good idea at the time: In 1946, hoping to start a fur trade, the Argentina government released 50 North American beavers in the sub-Antarctic islands on South America’s southern tip, basically in what is today Tierra del Fuego National Park. With no natural predators the 50 original beavers have multiplied to over 50,000, and are literally destroying due to their dam constructions some of the most pristine but defenseless forest in existence. The fur trade fizzled, in part because the climate is somewhat different from their natural habitat, and it changed the fur coat of the animals, making their pelts practically worthless.

A typical beaver dam. This one has been abandoned, the critters having gone on to virgin forests.

See how destructive their dams are. They have even crossed over to mainland Chile.

It’s a serious problem, both for Argentina and for Chile, who share this Patagonian paradise, but only the Chilean government seems to be doing something about it. They are at least paying hunters for the pelts. The beaver, however, is still winning the battle for survival. They seem to bread like rabbits.

Such unspoiled beauty. I could almost live here. But I’d miss Buenos Aires.

They really care about the environment. The board walkways protect every blade of grass.

The end of a great hike. It was well worth going on this guided tour.

Back in town, we have a few hours to kill before we can board the ship, so we look for a place for lunch.

Down town Ushuaia at lunchtime. Where’d all these cars come from?

There’s only one main street, so I guess that explains all the traffic.

We found a great little place for lunch. It was nice to just sit and relax after all the hiking we did on our tour of the national park. Little did I know that the real hiking was still ahead of us? At one shore excursion we actually repelled down the mountain, without a rope! Seriously, it was steep enough that we should have been repelling. I still don’t know how the “old” people managed.

And there’s our ship, tied up along side the dock, waiting for us. It looks really small.

We are patiently waiting for the bus to take us out onto the pier next to the gangway to board.

They were pretty strict about people coming and going on the pier. We had to remain on the bus while our host presented our papers to the port authorities, and only then could the bus pass through, and drop us off at the ship’s gangway. The procedure has sure changed from seven years ago.

We are now onboard and we stood at the rail watching containers being loaded onto that ship.

Pete actually timed the loading process, and it took exactly 4 minutes from hook up of one container to hookup of the next to load each container. We were impressed, and Pete later asked one of the crew about it. He told him that the fee is in the thousands of dollars per hour to be tied up to the pier, so they have to minimize that time as much as possible.

There was an Argentine submarine tied up to its tender just ahead of us.

Our captain, Igor Kiselev from Vladivostok, on the bridge. His English was excellent.

We were supposed to have cast off at 17:00, but the port authority really took his time getting to the ship with our pilot. We cannot leave port without a pilot. He gets dropped over the side to a waiting boat once we are in the Beagle Channel.

Casting off the last bowline and our cruise begins at 18:30 hours, 3 December 2008.

The stern is clear, and we are under weigh. This is a really exciting moment for us.

Before we even reached the Beagle Channel we had our lifeboat drill. I was glad they have enclosed lifeboats on board, but I did notice that there was reflective tape on the bottom of them, as well as handrails to hang onto. Not exactly a comforting thought, wondering about that.

Inside the lifeboat, it smells like diesel . . .

 . . . and it’s starting to feel a little cramped.

I’m really glad we won’t have to use this thing for any reason.

This little diesel engine is only designed to keep us headed into to wind.

As we say goodbye to Ushuaia, we are well into the Beagle Channel, headed for Drakes Passage.

As dusk encroaches, we pass our sister ship on her way back to Ushuaia.

Thus concludes DAY TWO of this new chapter in our life. I hope it hasn’t been too boring. The photos will become much more spectacular as our adventure continues in Chapter 2.