Sunny Stanley - Sunday 15th Jan

A few days into our Antarctic cruise, it seemed odd to see classic English phone-booths and red letter boxes as we walked ashore at Stanley this morning. Before exploring the town, we rambled to Gypsy Cove and clambered over the dunes – avoiding the land mines – to find a group of pink-faced magellanic penguins and a lone king penguin waddling around in the silicon-like sand and surfing the shore break. The king had apparently come ashore to malt – a rather uncomfortable time for a penguin, when its sheds its worn-out coat for an entire new plumage on an annual basis.

White sands and megellanic penguins at Gypsy Cove

Stanley itself is a peaceful town of colourful, corrugated iron houses and welcoming inhabitants - known as ‘kelpers’ - who are keen to chat about the history and daily life of their island. Stanley has roads but no traffic lights and no native trees. The gardens here are dressed in colourful flowers and organic vegetable patches burst with green leaves; “we grow these out of necessity – we need to eat,” one elderly resident informed me; “gardening in Stanley is not just for fun!”. After we'd hiked across the island, perused the gift shops and sunk a few beers in The Globe, the Gadventures team shuttled us back to the ship to continue our Antarctic cruise.

Stanley's colourful houses

Beers at the Globe in Stanley

Now back onboard the M/S Expedition, we enter the next chapter of our Spirit of Shackleton adventure and face two days at sea, on our voyage southwards to South Georgia. Sea-sickness tablets in our stomachs and sick-buckets on standby, we’re all hoping that the Antarctic weather will stay calm for the crossing…

This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures

A bumpy ride

The M/S Expedition disembarked Ushuaia at 6pm yesterday (Thursday 12^th), with just over 100 passengers and 50-odd staff members. Destined for The Falkland Islands, we’ve skirted the eastern end of the Drake Passage and are now headed north-east. Scheduled to arrive in the Falkland Islands tomorrow morning (Friday 13^th), we’ve been briefed on Falkland history and birdlife, as well as how to dress ourselves in the mud-room and board our boat-to-shore vessels, or ‘Zodiacs'.

M/S Expedition departs Ushuaia for the Spirit of Shackleton  Antarctic cruise

Followed by albatross at our stern, dolphins were spotted this morning and the bird-watchers amongst us have been on-board for much of the day, peering through binoculars and extra-long zoom lenses. But for many, - myself included - the rough seas have been too much today and several hours have been spent watching the horizon soar and plummet through the port-holes of our cabins. Anti-nausea tablets are slowly taking a hold of the situation now and we’re beginning to find our sea legs but we’re all welcoming reconnecting with terra-firma tomorrow…

Safety onboard the M/S Expedition


This blog-post forms part of a series of adventures experienced on-board the M/S Expedition in January 2012, whilst on an Antarctic Cruise - The Spirit of Shackleton - courtesy of Gadventures

Off to Antarctica - my trip to come

Photo by John E. Lester

As a prize for winning the Guardian's 2011 'Adventure' Travel Writing Competition, for my entry about the Amazon,  I'll be heading to Antarctica on the 10th of Jan, for a three week tour of the coldest, windiest place on earth, courtesy of G-adventures. I'm going to be blogging about my adventures before, during and after right here.

Let's kick off with an overview of the trip...

Flying from London to Ushusaia, via Amsterdam and Buenos Aires, my first adventure will be one heck of a plane ride, to get myself to the southern-most city in the world, where my G-adventures expedition begins.

Day 1 will be spent on the shores of the Beagle Channel: Ushuaia was originally inhabited by the Yamna people and was once a penal colony for political prisoners and hardened criminals. I'll be interested to see how tourism has shaped the modern-day town, which is now a hopping-off point for Antarctic cruises, as well as a magnet for skiers, hikers and nature lovers.

Photo by 23am.com

Day 2 is the day we set sail. Embarking on our vessel - the M/S Expedition -  at 4pm, I'm looking forward to exploring the ship and meeting my fellow passengers.

Day 3 is a school day
En-route to the Falkland Islands, we'll begin our lecture and information sessions to start discovering all about the human and natural history of the Antarctic region.

Day 4-5 we set foot on The Falkland Islands 
Experiencing the biological diversity and scenery of the southern islands, I've been promised penguins, elephant seals, sea lions, king cormorants, black-browed albatross, skuas, night herons, giant petrels, striated caracaras, plenty of sheep, and some hardy local inhabitants.

Day 6-7 School time in the Southern Ocean
On course for South Georgia, we'll spend more time at school to prepare us for South Georgia, with the distraction of sea bird and whale-watching en-route.

Day 8-11 South Georgia - the true spirit of Shackleton
I can't wait to follow in Shackleton's steps, see his grave, walk through the former whaling stations and be bombarded by king penguins. If this doesn't mean much to you, then book yourself a few hours to watch this fantastic 4OD film about his South Georgia self-rescue.

                     Photo from www.shackletoncentenary.org

Apparently, there's around 300,000 elephant seals, 3 million fur seals, and 25 species of breeding birds, a king penguin rookery of 100,000 and around five million macaroni penguins - good job i got a new camera for Christmas.

Day 12-13 Shackleton's Scotia Sea voyage
Retracing Shackleton's epic sea voyage, we'll be sailing towards Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands, where the rest of his expedition team, awaited his return. The  rich nutrients of the Scotia Sea, make for an abundance of whales, seals, and seabirds.

Day 14-17 Setting foot on the white continent
Four days exploring the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula! The weather makes the rules down here but, if all goes to plan, we'll be standing next to penguins, sighting whales, watching seals in the  ice floes, seeing the wingspan of the albatross and visiting scientific research bases, all with a backdrop of  ice-choked waterways, glistening icebergs, immense glaciers and snow-capped mountains.

Day 18-19 back via the Drake Passage
Sailing north across the Drake Passage, there'll be two more days to absorb the epic scenery of the south before arriving back in Argentina.

Day 20 Goodbye Ushuaia 
Ending as we started, we arrive back in Ushuaia before the long flight home.