Antarctica: It's Not As Cold As You Think!

Things I'll remember about Antarctica.  The other worldly pristine and quiet.  The shades of blue and many shapes of icebergs.  The vast and blinding whiteness.  The lack of green. The cliffs of glaciers.  The rumbling of ice sheets breaking off somewhere unseen. The peaceful sighing sound humpback whales make when they’re bubble feeding.  The shock of cold and salt of a polar plunge. The joy I felt watching penguins.

The #1 thing I didn’t realize is how similar the trip to Antarctica would be to a safari - with minor differences in transportation and types of animals.  Antarctica has so much wildlife!  Penguins! Seals!  Whales!  Birds!  

Did I know there would be penguins?  Yes.  Did I realize we would see hundreds of thousands?  Absolutely not.

I was expecting a few or like Boulder’s Beach in South Africa, which had 2100 penguins as of 2011. I looked it up.  Our Antarctic landing and zodiac cruise sites had 20,000 and 150,000 roosting pairs!  

Because I’d only seen a meager approx. 2100 penguins when I visited Boulders Beach, I did not know what 20,000+ penguins smell like.  Let me tell you, it is not good.

Antarctic penguins use their poop to melt snow so they can build their nests.  You can look this up.

We saw penguins sitting on eggs, feeding babies, pooping, yelling at each other, slapping each other, and doing all other kinds of funny penguin things.  They are not bothered one bit by humans.  They just keep living their lives while we stand around and take pictures.  That was something I’ve really loved on African safaris - being on animal time and fully in their world.  It’s such a treat.  We also saw orcas trying to eat penguins.  Circle of life!

Mom & Dad taking care of baby penguin.

Knowing that Antarctica is basically a cold safari via boat, choose a tour operator with strong expedition experience.  Our trip was organized by my college alumni association which offered the luxury of me not needing to do any research or make any decisions other than saying yes to going.  They picked Swan Hellenic for our ship and TLDR go with NatGeo.

Other things I did not know before going to Antarctica:

-Because of avian flu, you are not allowed to have anything touch the ground except your boots.  And those are disinfected before and after the landings.  You could not put a bag down, you could not squat to take photos, you could not sit down on a rock for a rest.  They also required biosecurity checks of your outer layers before our first landing.  They checked for seeds, debris, anything that could upset the fragile environment.

-It’s not as cold as you think.  December in DC was far colder than it was when we were in Antarctica.  The temperature hovered around 33 degrees and on some landings I was so warm I had to remove mid-layers, ditch gloves, and I rarely used a hat.  Let me tell you removing mid layers is NOT EASY when you cannot put anything on the ground.  It was a 3 person effort.  

-You don’t need as much clothing as you think.  The landings are fairly short each day so I probably could have gotten away with one set of base layers for the whole trip.  I would have used the ship laundry before my roommate tossed me overboard for smelling.  More on this in my Minimalist Packing List for Antarctica post.

-Weather controls everything you get to do, including where you go.  By some stroke of kindness from the universe we had the best possible weather imaginable.  Drake Lake up and back.  Several days of bright sunshine.  Mild temperatures.  Only snowed once.  We got to do an extra landing because we made it through the Drake Passage quicker than expected.  Only our final landing was called off because the sea conditions were too rough for safe zodiac travel.  The crews’ motto was flexibility.  The ship may have a desired agenda but seas, wind, and ice will determine where you actually get to go.

-You want the smallest ship you can afford.  Someone else on our trip said this and by “small” I mean how many guests it has, not the physical size.  Only 100 people can be on land in Antarctica at any given time.  So, if you’re on a ship with 400 people you will have to wait longer for landings, and maybe get less time on land or skip landings, compared to a ship with 200 people.  Our ship had 199 guests.  Hurtigruten Expeditions had 400.  NatGeo max is 138. 

Fun fact: each cruise line gives you a bright/awful colored parka so when we got back to Ushuaia it was easy for me to find guests of other cruise lines and ask them annoying questions to satisfy all my new curiosities.  NatGeo’s were orange and that is the one place I am superior to them so take that!

**Make sure the ship also has quality stabilizers so you don’t die of sea sickness in the Drake Passage.

Penguins at our first landing. Won't be left behind in these jackets!

-You don’t necessarily get to cross the Antarctic Circle.  This was a bummer since I crossed the Arctic Circle in 2014.  We didn’t sail far enough south, but people I met at the Ushuaia Airport on the NatGeo cruise did make it down there.  It wasn’t clear if they had a longer cruise ($$) or if their captain booked it down when the Weddell Sea wasn’t available because of ice thickness.  Flexibility!

-Some itineraries also include the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.  This is a much longer expedition (and more $$), but I would do it if your budget allows.  Rumors are the animal life there is even more incredible than what we saw.  Hard to believe, but I would like to know!

-They are real serious when they tell you not to book your flight from Buenos Aires to the USA until after 9pm in case the charter flight from Ushuaia is late.  I was wheelchaired through the airport to make my JFK connection.

-I have no self control at a cruise ship buffet.  Oh wait, I did know this already.

If you can make the time and money work, I highly recommend a trip to Antarctica. I get the impression no two trips there are ever the same based on the number of times the crew said “this is so rare!”  But then, they could just be saying that because most of us only get to go once?  Could I turn this into a research question and get a few sponsored trips to Antarctica?  Rare or not, here is our agenda:

December 29: Charter flight to Ushuaia.  We boarded the ship via tender.  NatGeo had a parking spot at the dock.

December 30: Day at sea in Drake Passage.  Attended lectures and prepared for landings and zodiac cruising (fittings for jackets and boots, safety training, biosecurity checks).

December 31: Landing at Turret Point.  Sailed into an ice field for New Year’s Eve night.  One of my favorite nights on the trip.

January 1: Continental landing at Brown Bluff.

January 2: Sailed into the Weddell Sea but the ice was too thick for deep exploration.  Sailed to Hope Bay for zodiac cruising.

January 3: Zodiac cruising around Gourdin Island and sea kayaking at Astrolabe Island (those not kayaking did a landing at Astrolabe Island).  These islands were both discovered by the French and our expedition leader was French…

January 4: Zodiac cruising at Cierva Cove.  Afternoon polar plunge at Curtiss Bay!

January 5: Staff of Port Lockroy did a presentation on ship and zodiac cruising around the area.  Landing at Damoy Point, home to an abandoned UK base.

January 6: Final landing at Whaler’s Bay at Deception Island.  Unable to stop at Elephant Point because of weather.

January 7-8: Sailed through Drake Passage to Ushuaia.

January 9: Flights home.

My favorite iceberg with some penguins for scale.