Cruises

Farewell to the high seas

jdewyze1 Comment

We tied up at the dock in Ushuaia around 7:00 Wednesday morning (3/25). Snowflakes swirled against a black sky. When the world began to lighten a half hour later, I was startled to see many of the mountains encircling the city covered in white. In the three weeks we’d been gone, we’d passed the vernal equinox on the calendar, but it felt a lot more like winter had arrived back in port.

After we sailed away from our final Falkland Island, two and a half days passed, at least a day more than our original itinerary had allotted. But Gaby had warned that the high winds and large swells would slow us; indeed she’d worried it might take even longer to plow through what turned out to be the worst sea conditions of our trip.

Here’s a glimpse of what it looked like in the wrap-around lounge on the 8th deck.

If I had panned the whole room, you would have seen that Steve and I were the only occupants. The motion was worst up there, but I was happy to discover it didn’t bother me (or Steve), even though neither of us was wearing patches or taking any anti-nausea medication. (A number of other folks were suffering down in their cabins.)

Here’s another view from closer to the water. (Ignore the background commentary, a presentation about photography.)

Another thing I learned during the trip was that high seas and fierce wind in the Southern Ocean usually aren’t accompanied by stormy skies. It did grow dark, briefly, on our passage between Antarctica and South Georgia, and a lightning bolt turned the world white. This astounded the crew, we learned later that day. Not one person on the expedition team had ever seen lightning in these waters before.

A third thing I learned was how mild the Southern Ocean was for us, compared to what it can be. Before the trip I’d read descriptions of its monstrous incarnations, but what made that real was the movie the crew screened on the night before we got to Ushuaia. Filmed in 1929 by a crazy American adventurer serving on the largest sailing ship in the world at that time (the Peking), it included footage of the wild tempest that battered the four-masted bark as it rounded Cape Horn: enormous waves that swept across the decks, insane winds. With today’s meteorological tools, captains can see such conditions building, and cruise ships do their best to avoid them.

When we finally arrived back in port, Gaby outlined the plan for the two extra days before the passengers were supposed to disembark: a bus trip to the local national park on Wednesday afternoon and a full-day excursion into the Patagonian countryside for Thursday. But Steve and I had already done the former, and we were fretting that if the storms moved into the city, flights in the coming days might get all screwed up. (You hear lots of stories to that effect in Ushuaia.)

We didn’t want to risk missing our plane home on Saturday. We’d bought changeable tickets from and to BA, so I got on the phone and managed to change our Friday afternoon flight to Wednesday at 2:45 pm, and to add two nights to our hotel in Buenos Aires. Amazingly, we got packed and checked out, the plane pushed away from the gate right on time, and we arrived at the city airport 10 minutes early.

We’ve been delighted to be in the capital again. We’re sorry we didn’t get to see the South Sandwich Islands; sorry our time in Antarctica was cut short (by one day) and the days in South Georgia reduced (by two).

On the other hand, we wound up with more time on the various islands in the Falklands. And I had ten full days at sea, on the wildest stretch of water of them all, where among other things, you learn to keep your balance when the floor under your feet shifts unexpectedly.

Ups and downs in the Falklands

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I haven’t written about it, but lectures filled many hours of our time on the Greg Mortimer. We attended talks about the geology of South Georgia, the history of whaling, photography, the Falklands War, the carbon-sequestering capacity of peat bogs and kelp beds, a field biologist’s guide to animal research, and more. For the most part, they were good, if a bit nerdy. I probably won’t remember much, but it helped to pass all the days at sea.

More unforgettable were the sights, however, and the Falkland Islands were no exception. We spent four days prowling among little-visited outposts and got a mix of disappointments and sunny marvels.

Shortly after sunset a week ago (March 19) we pulled out of Stanley’s harbor with high expectations. Gaby, our expedition leader, had explained that our first stop would be an island called Steeple Jason at the far northwestern edge of the archipelago. She sounded so happy, it was infectious. With luck, she’d explained, we’d visit a colony of black-browed albatross that might contain up to 200,000 of the amazing birds.

But luck wasn’t with us. By the next morning we had reached the island, but dangerously high surf was pounding the beach where the crew had hoped to land our Zodiacs. Gaby had a backup plan: motoring to the other side of the island. This took several hours, only to confront us with more impossible wind and swell and breakers. Disappointment seeped throughout the ship as we slogged to our next target: Carcass Island. There we finally scored.

We hit the beach about 3 pm.

A 15-minute hike brought us to a white sand cove on the far side of the island. Exploring the tide pools and taking in the bird life occupied us for the next hour and a half.

Gentoo penguins toddled around the visitors.
Another prominent resident, the striated caracara — is both mischievous and rapacious.

The birds stayed on the beach, but about 20 of us then hiked the two and a half miles to the island’s only settlement.

It’s home to just one man and woman. We met some of the cows they keep but didn’t have a chance to chat with the human occupants.

Our destination for the next day was West Point Island, where azure skies and a docile sea made our landing carefree.

Again we started by hiking, this time on a path leading to a rookery that harbored two of the species we’d most lusted to encounter.

Rockhopper penguins, with their stylish hairdos!
They seem to wear happy expressions.

In contrast, the black-browed albatrosses look like they’re scowling.

The albatrosses that filled the rookery that morning were all juveniles who’d hatched just a few months ago. Many were still molting, shedding the fluffy down that kept them warm as chicks.

Some wore the remnants tastefully.
Others less so.
A few looked sleek, ready to start their lives aloft.

We learned that once the youngsters took off, they would not land for several years. They would ride the wind currents, swooping down to the sea to catch their fishy meals, rarely flapping their wings. When they finally reached sexual maturity, most would then return to this very cliffside to mate and have chicks, using the same nests in which they posed for us.

The sight of this striated caracara also fascinated me. That white orb on its chest is its crop, in which it can store dinner until it has the leisure to digest whatever it has hunted.

The plant life was magical too.

Back on the ship, spirits were high. And that evening Gaby gave us reason to expect more great sights the next day on Saunders Island, home to four different penguin species and other wildlife. When we got there Sunday morning, however, high surf again made any landing impossible. So we churned through another long sea day.

The news worsened that evening. Gaby showed us detailed charts of the massive low pressure system bearing down on us — the first of a series of extraordinary storms. The predicted wind and swells were worse, Gaby said, than any she’d seen in all her years of Antarctic excursions. Still she wasn’t quite ready to give up and run for home. She announced a plan to visit New Island, one of only two in the Falklands owned by the national conservancy. We could try to enjoy a few hours there Monday, and then make for Ushuaia as fast as possible.

I privately doubted we’d be able to disembark, but the next day couldn’t have been more lovely; we got off the boat early.

I admired this photogenic wreck, once a WWII mine sweeper, on the beach…

… then followed through lush tussac grass that climbed gently at first and then got challenging. Slippery mud and small boulders under foot made the going tricky.

Believe it or not, there was a path — somewhere in all that foliage.
The payoff was another wonderful bird colony.

Piles of feathers, like the remains of some epic pillow fight, hinted at the main activity here: more molting.

We later learned that this particular colony contained more than 5000 rockhoppers.
Scattered black-browed albatrosses shared the space.
They looked to be testing out their wings, as if any moment they would launch into their first flight (if only they could point themselves in the right direction.)

As stunning as the albatrosses are aloft, the rockhoppers won the charm competition on the ground.

This one had just a little bit more molting to accomplish.
Right next to the path this grisly sight greeted hikers: two caracaras ripping into a death penguin. Don’t the guys looking down from the rocks look sad?

We only stayed on New Island for a few hours, then had to return to the ship and head off into some of the roughest seas of the trip. We might reach Ushuaia by Wednesday, Gaby said. Or it could take a day or two longer if the sea got really bad. Or the authorities could close the port altogether.

But all we could do was press on.

All aboard

jdewyze4 Comments

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.

The ship’s library is one haven.
You can hang out in one of two bar/lounges.
The upper one boasts a panoramic view.

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.

All our photos on a message board helps to put names with the faces.

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.)

Antarctica Ho!

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It’s still summer in Antarctica, but the days until the equinox are dwindling. I’m guessing the polar summer doesn’t look much like the end of winter in San Diego, where the skies were clear and sunny, and the temperature was heading for 70 degrees this morning. But soon I won’t have to guess. In less than two weeks, I’ll be on a ship, sailing south from the tip of South America, embarked on an experience that promises to rank among the strangest of my life.

We will only be visiting the Antarctic Peninsula, that curvy tail that extends off the continent. Then we will sail in a big loop that will take us to islands I never before knew existed.

Of course, it doesn’t take 12 days to travel from California to the Antarctic Peninsula, but it’s such a long journey Steve and I wanted to break it up. So after landing in Houston, we’ll catch a non-stop flight to Buenos Aires (capital of Argentina) and spend three nights there. On Saturday we’ll fly several hours south to Ushuaia, which calls itself the End of the World. We’ll have five nights there before boarding a small Australian cruise ship, the Greg Mortimer. That will be our home for the succeeding 22 nights.

It still shocks me to write those words. Part of my identity (and Steve’s) is that we’re Not Cruisers. We know countless folks who are, and that’s great for them. But Steve and I have always loved traveling under our own steam, on land, preferably in places rich in human history and culture.

Steve thus never had the slightest interest in visiting Antarctica (the only place on the planet humans where have never created permanent settlements.) He hates being cold. But I have long been curious about this loneliest continent, harsh beyond imagination but also, by all accounts, strikingly beautiful. Because Steve is a good sport and open-minded, we’re going there.

I’ve heard that our ship is equipped with Starlink. So if I experience things that seem interesting, I can write about them and, with luck, post to this blog. That assumes I won’t be too busy being seasick. Or socializing with all those other passengers and penguins.

Boat life

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Less than 24 hours have passed since we were cruising the Mediterranean on a 90-foot-long wooden sailing ship. Yet somehow I can’t quite remember what I did between the time I woke up yesterday and our disembarkation 7 or 8 hours later. I know we ate breakfast. Later came a light lunch. I know I spent time laying on the velour-covered foam mattresses laid out on the rooftops over the main salon and the fo’c’sle. Rocked gently by the boat’s forward motion through the swells, I didn’t sleep. It felt more like a dream, an existence untethered from time.

Steve and have only a cruised a few times before, always on smallish vessels in exotic waters — down the Amazon, up the Nile, meandering among the fantastic rock formations of Vietnam’s Halong Bay. A close friend had sailed for a week on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast ten years ago, and her descriptions tantalized me; made me realize such cruises were a hugely popular touristic option. But the global lockdowns triggered by Covid halted all that maritime activity. I eventually learned that our cruise westward from Olympos would be the first offered by Alaturka, an old, well-respected Turkish cruise operator, since the onset of the pandemic. Although Turkey was never very locked down, tourists couldn’t get there because many governments stopped allowing their citizens to travel. The results were catastrophic for cruise companies like Alaturka. It didn’t operate at all in 2020 or 2021; the company had to offload 2 of their 4 vessels. Rahmi, the captain of our boat, had to sell his car to survive. Ali, the chef, lost the restaurant he ran during the off-season.

Their delight at finally being back on the water probably contributed to the ambient ebullience when we boarded Saturday afternoon. I myself was flooded with pleasure-tinged adrenaline at the sight of all that varnished wood and polished brass.

View of our sister ship, which sailed carrying a private charter group.

Not hard to understand why they call this the Turquoise Coast.

Didn’t take me long to figure out how comfy those mats were.

We learned we would be sailing with a crew of 5 tending to 18 passengers from all over the globe: 4 girls hailing from Australia, New Zealand, the US, and Canada, the latter married to one of three hilarious medical residents from the Canadian Maritime provinces. The other 9 were white South Africans, all friends and family of Andre, celebrating his 50th birthday with several weeks of bacchanalian partying.

Andre’s crew started slamming down the hard stuff within minutes of coming aboard. Here’s Andre starting off our first full day with a slug or two of tequila — before breakfast.

We set sail but stopped several times for excursions over the next three days. That first afternoon we made for a seaside village called Simena (aka Karakoy). A dinghy took us ashore, where a short steep climb led us to ruins built by the Lycians 2300 years ago.

The view from the ruins

Then we were off again, motoring over more ruins, submerged in the azure water. As the sun neared the horizon we docked at a bigger, more boisterous town called Kas to spend the night there.

Steve and I toured the town then returned to the boat for dinner.

Meals took place at this long, sociable table.

All the food was excellent; a standout were these beauties, which the chef grilled over a grill set up on the bow sprit.

Several of the South Africans were avid divers, and Sunday morning a group set off to explore an underwater wreck. That night we were supposed to dock again in another party village (Kalkan), but late in the afternoon a brewing squall made the wind so fierce we had to anchor in a protected inlet.

It was really nippy!

And so windy Rahmi had to lash down our speaker to keep it from flying overboard.

The change in plans prompted the South Africans to organize a game involving dice and tequila (several bottles of it, consumed in the form of shots.) Miraculously Steve and I (alone) had the sense not to join in, giving us the almost unique experience of feeling like teetotalers. Still, we drank enough gin and wine to enable us to join the riotous dancing that ensued both before and after dinner.

I was just as happy not to be hung over when the helmsman cranked up the engine at 5 the next morning. In our cozy cabin, we managed to snooze despite some serious rocking. When we finally arose and made it on deck, it felt like we had journeyed to a different watery planet, this one windless and painted in a different palette.We once again motored to a deserted beach and were ferried onshore to Butterfly Valley.

It was a great place to hike, shady, filled with flowers, and culminating in a pretty waterfall. Returning to the beach, we found it transformed…

…by a horde of day boats.

…who found plenty to drink.

The water looked so beautiful I swam from the beach back to our ship.

That swim felt exquisite. The sun was hot; the water not too chilly. But it turned out to be the only time I got into the water on the trip. Every time I was tempted, the other option was stronger.

Most of our fellow passengers jumped in several times a day.

Steve and I also passed on the opportunity to jump off the (alleged) second highest paragliding site in the world, though the Canadians went and seemed to enjoy it.Steve and I did join in on the final excursion of our trip. Late Monday afternoon we anchored off St. Nicholas island……where a short dinghy ride took us to a trailhead leading to some Byzantine ruins built in the 7th century.

The ascent through the crumbling stonework and old tombs was pleasant. At the top, everyone else from our boat had hauled up cocktails or bottles of wine, forethought Steve and I had lacked. The landscape alone was pretty intoxicating, though, and we took some pleasure in being sober as we scrambled down over the rocks and scree in the deepening gloom.

That night after dinner, we moved the long table once again and this time danced to more ethnic fare: Turkish and Greek folk dance music, The Circle of Life from the Lion King. I may not remember every archeological site. I may not be able to tell you how I passed all those lazy hours. But I don’t think I will ever forget that revelry.

Ali was both a great chef and a fine dancer.

Cruising the enchanted bay

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In 2008 Steve and I took the first cruise of our lives, down the Nile. There are other waterways we’d liked to cruise some day, but we’ve saving them until we’re older and infirm, unable to handle the rigors of more adventurous travel. We made an exception to that rule for Halong Bay; spent Thursday and Friday nights sleeping on the Treasure.


 Our cruising home

It is possible to see the bay on a day boat, but that would be arduous. The bus ride from Hanoi takes more than three and a half hours. We boarded our bus at 8 a.m. Thursday, reached Halong City shortly before noon, and boarded a small pontoon boat that transported us to the junk, a handsome motorized sailing ship that sleeps about 30.

The Treasure was lovely: dark polished wood and rich upholstery, our cabin well-designed and comfortable. Meals consisted of multiple courses, many of them tasty sea creatures freshly harvested from the bay. Steve and I did all the activities: tai-chi lessons on the deck at dawn,

Vietnamese cooking lessons both evenings at 6 p.m. In between, we climbed into a sturdy double ocean kayak and paddled for hours, following our guide around the islands. We paddled to a deserted sand beach (one of the few left in the bay, we learned, due to shellfish farmers stealing the extraordinarily fine-grained sand to use in their aquacultural enterprises.) We toured a sea cave and a floating village, home to about 100 of the bay’s 500 resident fishermen. All of it was fun.

Getting into reed boats for a tour of the fishing village

None of that compared, however, to the pleasure of simply gazing at the staggering beauty surrounding us. Halong Bay has been included on at least one of those recent lists of Seven Natural Wonders of the World. It’s been declared a World Heritage Site on two counts — for nature and beauty. We couldn’t quibble with those designations. The place is as spectacular, in its own way, as the Grand Canyon or Table Mountain in South Africa. What makes it so special are the 1,969 islands that stud it. Composed of highly eroded limestone, what makes them so special, in turn, is their great height. The legend goes that they sprang up from seeds of jade spit out by dragons protecting the local folk from an invading army. Today they’re covered with jade-green plants, and they indeed look magical.

I was somewhat prepared by how splendid the bay would be. What was unexpected was how superbly our expedition company (Handspan Tours) managed to organize our itinerary to keep us out of sight of other cruisers. The first tours of Halong Bay began just 10 or 11 years ago. Steve and I have friends who visited in 2005 and were the only passengers on their junk. Now, however, some 500 tourist boats play the water daily — 300 for daytrippers and 200 for overnight cruisers. I’d read warnings online of how traffic-jammed the bay can seem, marred by the sight of garbage floating on the water. But the Treasure steamed to a relatively pristine section. Once moored, we often were the only visitors in sight.

I’m not a good enough writer to describe the bay and islands adequately. So here are a few digital impressions:

I’m hoping all these photos will upload because the Golden Sun Palace, our hotel in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, has very good wifi. We arrived back late yesterday afternoon and already my neurons are overloaded with the effort to take this place in. I’ll let them calm down, then I’ll try to describe some fraction of it.