The bottom of the world...

December 2004 was an awesome christmas and birthday month for me. We were cruising from Valparaiso(Chile) to Buenos Aires (Argentina) via Antarctica, then up to the Falkland islands. It was a monster cruise of 16 days I think and that included like 9 days at sea, with rough weather. The Straits between South America and Antarctica join the Pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean so yes things got veeeery rough.

We went to Ushuaia, Argentina, as our first stop on Christmas day. This is the most Southern permanaetly inhabited town in the world also known as worlds end. The trip there was awesome. The glaciers and fjords compare to Norway in every way. Got some time off and phoned home and bought some Souveniers. You must remember that this was a normal working day for everyone.

Ushuaia, the end of the world as we know it...

All the Saffas got together on deck the afternoon that we docked in Antarctica. We dressed up in our warmest fineries but alas after five minutes in the Antarctic cold we were tickets, The wind was bitingly cold, never have I experienced that sort of cold, don't forget this was "summer".













This is Wattana, a great guy I met from Thailand. He looks a lot like an Eskimo in this shot...




I have collected hundreds of sunset photos over my travels but this one has to be one of the most memorable ever...

Sun-Chilly

Antarctica is very protected in an enviromental sense. No food is allowed to be served on verandahs and no waste is allowed to be disposed at sea (although our cruiseline's enviromental policies did not allow us too discard any waste at sea).

The other thing we did was to send a rescue boat out and hacked a huge piece of ice off an iceberg. Martinis were then made with this ice in the bars that night. Icebergs contain the purest ice in the world. Having been in a frozen state for hundreds of thousands of years. The ship photographer got a ride on the boat and took some awesome photos. Now if can only figure out how to get photos off a powerpoint presentation I could get them posted for you all to see. I am sure someone could email me directions, Pleeease help.

Thanks for the comments and the support, have a great week.

Later