At home and abroad

Yikes. I’m starting this post just before going to sleep on our third night at sea. Tomorrow at 8 we will enter Phase 2 of our Antarctic adventure. But I haven’t yet reported anything about Phase 1!

Making up for that….

These first days have taken us into a realm almost as foreign as Antarctica itself: the cruising world. Steve and I know many folks who love it, but we’d never chosen to go there in any significant sense. To see Antarctica, though, you pretty much have to travel by ship. A handful of folks do fly from Patagonia to military or scientific airfields, but they’re the exception. The continent has no commercial airports; no hotels nor permanent tourist accommodations. It’s the only place on earth where humans have never lived full-time.

We’re traveling with a long-established Australian cruise line, Aurora Expeditions, on their last trip of the 2025-2026 season. We chose them partly because the Greg Mortimer is small, carrying a maximum of 130 passengers. As luck would have it, however, only 66 have signed up for this voyage. We’re being cared for by a crew of 96, a ratio that feels almost obscene.

Because the pace of our activities is accelerating, here’s my brief review of the four aspects of being on an Antarctic cruise ship that have most impressed me:

The coziness

I have never felt more coddled. Though small, the ship is elegantly outfitted, designed with a half dozen wonderful places to hang out.

Three times a day we make our way to the dining room, where the food and wine have been uniformly delicious and amazing. The steward for our cabin, Leland, unobtrusively makes our bed every morning, then turns it down at night.

All this luxury contrasts with the view out the sliding glass doors to our balcony.

At the moment, hundreds of bits of ice float in front of a gigantic glacier. At other times, the sea’s been blustery. I can prop myself up with pillows on our big bed and feel no need to snuggle under a comforter. I normally dislike being coddled, but this feels surprisingly pleasant.

2) The Drake Passage

Do you know the name of the ocean that encircles Antarctica? If I once did, I’d forgotten (but have just relearned) that it’s called the Southern Ocean. It includes some of most dangerous expanses of water on the planet. With no land masses to impede its fearsome currents, the southern latitudes known as the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and the Screaming Sixties can whip up gale-force winds and massive waves — sometimes 50- and even 60-feet tall.

South of South America, where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern oceans converge, conditions in the 600-mile-wide Drake Passage have terrified uncountable seafarers, and sunk hundreds, possibly thousands, of ships. I was nervous Thursday night when we turned out our cabin lights. Cruising through the Beagle Channel, the ship was moving gently. But we were heading for the Drake.

When I got up to pee around midnight, I momentarily felt dizzy. Then I realized the motion wasn’t in my head but under my feet. This continued Friday morning — enough rolling and pitching to make some of our fellow passengers seasick. It didn’t bother Steve or me, however, and as the 30-mile-per-hour winds dwindled over the course of the next day, the sea grew calmer. By the time I spotted a line of white in the distance Saturday afternoon — Smith Island just off the Antarctic Peninsula — I could understand why some lucky passengers call it the Drake Lake.

3) Cruise society

There may only be 66 of us, but everyone’s got a story. This is the easiest place in the world to start a conversation. “What brings YOU to Antarctica?” I ask. It maybe be the least important aspect of this trip, but talking to our fellow passengers is still pretty interesting. The best time is at dinner, where it’s easiest to sit down at a random table.

4) The unpredictability

Steve and I signed up for this journey more than a year ago. Yet we can’t really say what the weather will be like three hours from now. Bad weather could have delayed the ship from leaving Ushuaia, possibly for days. It still could force major changes in the rough itinerary the expedition leaders are hoping to follow.

We’ll just have to deal with whatever nature serves up. Still, at the moment we’re passing magical, otherworldly scenes. I need to give them as much of my attention as possible until our next stretch of sea days. That should start Thursday, March 12. (But things could change.)