Antarctic Adventure Part V

The flight from Santiago to Ushuaia was short, but during the leg from Santiago to Puenta Arenas, a woman rested her feet on my arm rest from the seat behind mine. She was a rather tall woman, so I understand her discomfort, but she never asked and I found it rather rude that she felt entitled to comfort herself at the expense of another's. Her final destination was also Ushuaia, but since there were fewer people on the second leg, she was able to find her own row. I'm glad she wasn't on the same expedition.

I arrived in Ushuaia with time to spare. I even had time to buy some post cards in town and send one to Mike since I won't have access to the Internet. In this day and age, you would figure that we would have some kind of inexpensive technology that will even keep those who are out at sea connected.

It turned out that a fellow named Kevin whom I sat beside on my flight from LA to Santiago was also on the same expedition. If I had known that Kevin and I had the same destination and stuck with him, I would have arrived in Ushuaia on the first try with much less drama, but then I wouldn't have had the opportunity to tour Santiago. I think it worked out okay.

Kevin's room mate Tony (from Yokohama) is a fellow Nikon D90 owner. There's also an Italian girl named Paola from Tuscany who is in our little D90 club.

We're passing the Drake Passage right now. Mike pointed out that this is the most perilous body of water on Earth. So far the sea has been kind to us. It was surprisingly calm this morning. The wind and waves are picking up but it's still not too bad. I haven't hurled yet! Non-drowsy Dramamine FTW! I've been taking Dramamine about once every 16 hours. Even though it's supposed to be effective for 24 hours, I don't want to wake up one morning and find that it has worn off.

I haven't met any unpleasant people on the expedition so far, but I guess it's to be expected, since it takes a certain mindset to want to go to Antarctica in the first place.

My room mate is a woman named Judy. She is from Virginia. She's pretty cool and is also going camping. I also met a Canadian girl from Ottawa named Melodie. She's in the navy and doesn't get sea sick at all.

I tried to take some photos of seabirds today, but none have turned out. Wildlife photography is extremely challenging. I found the 400mm lens that I brought to be far too slow and cumbersome for on board wildlife photography. The sea birds simply fly too fast. At maximum zoom, the field of view is quite small, and I don't pan fast enough to keep up. If I were to do this trip again, I wouldn't bring it.

Yesterday was the winter solstice. If we were south of the Antarctic Circle, the sun wouldn't have set at all, but we weren't, so dusk was around midnight.

The food on the ship is pretty good. It doesn't taste unhealthy either. I found soup to be especially comforting when trying to fight off mild nausea.

Oh yeah, I stupidly brought a power strip with a surge protector on the trip. It exploded and blew a fuse when I plugged it into the 220V European outlets. Luckily, there's an electrician on board, he flipped the power back on and removed the broken surge protector on the power strip. Now it works just fine as a regular power strip. Moral of the story: just bring a simple power strip unless you want to test if the surge protector really works.

We should be seeing glaciers and land tomorrow. W00t.