After 20 years of collecting early Antarctic postcards from the heroic exploration period, and trading in Antarctic Memorabilia, books and covers, it was inevitable I would get the urge to retrace some of my heroes footsteps, all be it in far greater comfort and far less danger.

Thirty-two hours after leaving Melbourne, we reached Buenos Aires via Sydney, Auckland and Santiago.  We then travelled 60km across the city to a hotel next to the domestic airport, where we departed at 5am next morning for Ushuaia – the southern most city in the world.  The flight was nearly 5 hours and the temperature fell from 36ºC to 9ºC.  Ushuaia is at the bottom of Tierra Del Fuego (Land of Fire), in the most beautiful location you could imagine.   It is surrounded by a National Park, The Andes, Spectacular snow covered mountains, huge glaciers which almost descend into the city, and the beautiful Beagle Channel and its hundreds of islands teeming with wildlife.

Before boarding our ship we went on a 2 hour train ride into the Andean National Park on a narrow gauge railway built 80 years ago by convicts, to a station called “The End of the World”.  The rugged scenery was breathtaking and the name most apt for many of the prisoners who laid the line. 

After a high speed taxi ride on dirt roads back to our hotel to collect our luggage, we joined others in our group and walked down to the wharf and boarded our vessel, the GRIGORIY MIKHEEV, a 10 year old ice strengthened research vessel, converted for passenger use.   With 48 passengers, from 13 different countries, plus a crew of 19 including a chef from Melbourne, who asked me what football team I barracked for, and upon finding it was Collingwood promised me lobster all week, we had a very interesting group and got to know most of the others on the ship, despite the language barriers.

Three other Antarctic cruise vessels were due to sail at the same time, including the Polar Princess, operated by Aurora Travel of Sydney.   The vessel adjoining us was the Patagonian Princess, registered in Tonga!  Panama used to be the major ‘flag of convenience' for world shipping so it came as a big surprise to see a South American ship registered in the Pacific.

We departed at 4pm, with several passengers from the other cruise ships waving us off.  For the next 7 hours we sailed down the Beagle Channel whilst we were shown to our cabins, quickly unpacked, familiarised ourselves with the ship and attended our ship safety lecture, life boat drill, emergency rehearsals, dinner and another quick run to the lifeboats just for practice.  In addition to this, there were fellow travellers to meet and the ever-changing vistas of the Beagle Channel to take in, complete with dolphins, Macaroni Penguins, seals and birds of all sorts.   Only 7 years ago Chile and Argentina nearly went to war here when Chile decided to annex a few of Argentina's islands in the area.  Chile maintains a large military garrison and two large naval ports in the region and Argentineans never retook them – perhaps remembering the Falklands War.   There were several shipwrecks around, but not due to military action.  My daughter, like many others, was already seasick and most people had gone to bed by 10.45 when darkness fell.  We were due to enter the Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean about midnight and it is reputed to be the roughest sea in the world.  Three hours later it was dawn and I got up to see the sights.  It was totally calm and there was no land in sight – nothing to see but a few birds.  Within a few days they were no longer just birds, but became Lightly Mantled Sooty, Albatrosses, Antarctic Terns, Giant Petrels, Skuas and the incredible Wandering Albatross with a wingspan of 3 metres.  With little else to see the day was spent with lectures on conservation, eco-tourism requirements in the Antarctic, dangers and how to avoid them, and how to identify the wildlife.  That afternoon I spotted our first penguins and it took us another 24 hours sailing to reach their home base, hundreds of kilometres  away – what swimmers!

Darkness lasted less than 3 hours and was the last time we saw it for 8 days. During that time the sun would set on the horizon about midnight and rise again an hour or so later with a sort of twilight in between.

Day 3, and I spotted our first whale right next to our bow. It was a small Minke Whale and this was the prelude to a stampede (or perhaps a flotilla) of about 50 whales we saw that sunny afternoon.   We passed our first icebergs and because it was so calm we made our first landfall at Penguin Island that afternoon, nearly half a day ahead of plan. 

The beach was littered with whale bones, driftwood from shipwrecks and a few seals, which looked like rocks till they turned around and showed their teeth.  We climbed to the top of the volcanic crater and watched the penguins tobogganing down the steep slopes on their bellies in the snow.  Large sheets of ice covered the island, which was devoid of vegetation except for areas of moss.  The smell of three huge penguin rookeries was nauseating, but walking amongst these birds was fascinating.   The Giant Petrels nesting nearby are their predators.  Although the penguins nest together in their hundreds of thousands, they never helped each other to deter these killers – mating pairs would solely protect their own nest, and watch as their neighbours was attacked.  A group of scientists was doing some fieldwork on the frozen crater lake.  They had winched a boat from the coast up to the rim of the crater and down to the lake, but meanwhile the surface has frozen so the boat was useless.  Worse still, the ice was too thin to walk on so they were not very happy.  We hopped back into our inflatable boats (Zodiacs) and retuned to our ship.

Climbing mountains in gumboots and snow gear was very hard work and the sweat poured off us in the ice.

Next stop was King George Island, which has over 60 bases on it.  We visited Arctowski (Poland), Ferraz (Brazil), Bellinghausen (Russia), Eduardo Frei (Chile), another Chilean Base, and Great Wall (China)  where I was greeted with a broad “G'day mate!” by their well-travelled leader.  The base scientists and other expeditioners were very friendly and showed us around.  The Chinese served tea and invited us to dinner, whereas the Russians served Vodka and invited us to drink.  Sadly our ship sounded its emergency horn and we had to return as  fog rolled in and it disappeared from view.   With 12 others in the Zodiac, and nothing to see but fog and the odd iceberg which loomed out of it, our engine died, which made a few people nervous.  Our Zodiac driver restarted the engine and followed the ships horn back to safety and New Years Eve celebrations.

The crew began singing Russian folksongs, and dancing as we had a barbeque on deck in freezing weather.  The food was superb and nearly all the ships crew partied on with the passengers.   Two sailors got a bit carried away, and set off emergency flares at Midnight, but fortunately no one came to rescue us.  It was disconcerting to think what would have happened if we were in distress!

My daughter, Katherine, ran around with the video camera taking intimidating shots of everybody enjoying the exuberance of New Year.  At 6.30am the bar shut and I climbed up to the bridge to talk to Yevgeny, the First Mate, and only other soul still up.  He showed me how the instruments worked, what our course was, how the icebergs showed up as solid red blobs on the radar, and the computer files of photos of the previous trips to places we would visit.  He then passed me the mouse and said, “You probably know how to do this better than me”  Well he had to be kidding!  He was sober, had slept all night, understood computers and could read the Russian Microsoft instructions –  I failed on all four counts, but we had an enjoyable conversation, with him slurring his English more than I was, when suddenly three large Sperm Whales surfaced next to our bow.  They lifted their enormous flukes and crashed them into the sea in a great display of power.  At this moment Monika, our tour leader came up to give her morning wake up call to the passengers and passed the radio to me.  My calls of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie – get up and see the 3 whales off the port bow” had half the ship scrambling for cameras, and the other half not believing a word of it.  During the previous evening everyone had sung numerous bursts of Waltzing Matilda, and chanted “Aussie Oi” presumably learned from watching the Sydney Olympics.

Later that day I spotted the black and while outline of the Polar Queen and as it approached we started the war cry. The many Australians on that ship were amazed to hear us (thinking they were the only Aussies for 1,000 kilometres) and for several minutes, the noise went back and forth between the two ships.

We sailed on to Deception Island and into the Crater Lake.  We investigated the ruins of a British and Norwegian Whaling Station, buried in a volcanic eruption in 1970.  There were dozens of buildings including an aircraft hanger and aeroplane, plus a cemetery.  It was an eerie place with spectacular views and a glacier that came down to the shoreline where the hot volcanic sands melted it.  I went swimming here without a wetsuit, in water that was 2ºC, interspersed with jets of boiling water from fissures in the sand.  Several people got scalded in the otherwise freezing water – a surreal experience which confused our senses.  We were presented with a Certificate to applaud our insanity and rejoined our ship.

Several of our party were keen stamp collectors, and like me had booked on this Philatelic cruise through the Polar Postal History Society of UK.  At every landing they would race off in search of postmarks, and cachets, from the bases and one collector had 26 kilos of mail for friends and resale.  I managed to sell some stock and hope the taxman is reading this!  This was a source of endless amusement to the 38 non-collectors on the ship.  They asked me to give a display and talk about Antarctic Stamp, which I did.  Shortly after they all began putting cachets and postmarks in their passports and on postcards.  Philately Rules!

We weighed anchor and moved off in heavy fog to Iceberg Alley, an area between the Antarctic Peninsula and Paulet Island, which is full of icebergs, broken off from the Larsen and Ronne Ice shelves, gyrating wildly in the Weddell Sea.  The radar was thick with red dots and a logjam of bergs frozen into 12km of pack ice surrounded our destination.   It was impassable, and extremely dangerous, and the Captain turned the ship around and we headed for Brown Bluff – our first landing on the Antarctic continent.  Icebergs several km long peeped out of the fog and visibility was less than 10 metres.

We dropped anchor and sent out an exploratory Zodiac equipped with radio and the two most experienced drivers, with the captain giving them directions from the radar and Global Positioning Satellite.   After they returned safely we all repeated the exercise with four Zodiacs each carrying 13 people, including the Captain, The Chef and the Purser.   The Zodiacs travelled a few meters apart to stay in sight of each other and after 30 minutes of sitting at wave level amongst these towering bergs, the fog started to lift and the Antarctic beach appeared just in front of us.  I jumped into the water, landing on my right leg and helped pull the boat in. In front of us were half a million penguins, some living hundreds of metres up the bluff from the coast. The giant mountain rose 2000 metres up into the fog and clouds, and was covered with sheets of ice and snow. The fog lifted dramatically and what a view!!!  Penguins defied gravity to get to the top of isolated chunks of ice, stranded on the beach where huge Elephant Seals lay snoring.  After about four hours we returned to the ship which was still surrounded by fog and sailed for a few hours to Esperanzo Base, where 98 Argentineans lived with their families, a primary school, church, casino, museum, post office and many other buildings, including some under construction.   It was the only landing we made at a jetty. Children have been born at Esperanzo Base – true Antarctic citizens.

Nearby we visited the deserted Uruguay base, Artigas, where huge waterfalls of melted snow plunged over the cliff face, causing walls of ice to shatter and collapse down the mountainside with a thunderous roar.  It was here that my brand new video camera broke down and Katherine got stuck firmly in knee-deep snow, which trapped her boot so effectively it took both of us several minutes to pull her out and rescue her boot.   Fierce winds howled across the exposed slope we were on and the temperature, with wind-chill, was about –15ºC.

It was good to get back on board safely and not be attacked by the local Leopard Seals, who enjoy biting the Zodiacs and hearing them pop, and air hissing out.  These seals are famous at this base but the boats have nine air sections and the seals have never damaged more than 3, so safety wasn't a problem.

By the way do you know what the difference is between a male and a female penguin? According to our on-board naturalist, the females have footprints on their back – a point I made to one of my friends when someone trod on his jacket – leaving footprints on his back!

Esperanza Base also had the ruins of the hut built by the 1904 Nordenskold Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 3 of whom were trapped there over winter, sustained only by water from melted ice, and penguin cooked of a fire burning only penguin fat as fuel, there was nothing else.    The fire was their only source of light for the 6 months of continuous darkness and could not be allowed to go out.   The following year their rescuers found 3 black and unrecognisable survivors – covered in soot and smelling disgusting after months without bathing and living in a tiny, smoke filled hellhole, reeking of dead penguins.   The Argentinean Navy, who were given the base as a token of gratitude, rescued them.  They have permanently manned it since 1951.

Anchors away, and we sailed off through the Antarctic Sound. When we rounded the Antarctic Peninsula we gradually sailed away from the massive icebergs, fog and bad weather.   We sailed at top speed for 12 hours to Port Lockroy, a British Base that was formerly part of the Falkland Island Dependencies.  The base was started nearly 60 years ago and has been preserved as a working museum of that time.  It was here that they discovered the hole in the ozone layer with its worldwide consequences.  En route we passed through Gerlache Straits – named after the 1897 Belgian Expedition leader.  Enormous snow capped peaks covered with vast glaciers, thrust up from the sea. Icebergs in all sorts of shapes and sizes took on familiar forms like the Sydney Opera House, animals and the Matterhorn when viewed from the correct angle.  Pods of Minke Whales frolicked on the glass like surface of the Neumayer Channel amongst the brash ice from glaciers collapsing nearby.  Only 200,000 people have ever visited the Antarctic, so we were privileged indeed to see all these sights.

Many members of the conservation lobby, in addition to banning whaling, fishing and mining in the Antarctic, also want to ban tourism so that only scientists and researchers can go there.   It would be a tragedy if such ‘political correctness' prevented responsible tourism there, but it is a very real possibility.  Don't run the risk – go now, rather than later!

Port Lockroy was iced in and there was substantial sea ice in the adjoining bay, 2 hours away, where the Chilean base Gonzalez Videla was situated.   As we walked along the narrow shoreline next to the melting tongue of a glacier where the base obtained their fresh water, I saw the strangest sight – pink snow, and green snow on the mountain slopes.   It turned out to be snow algae but gave the distant appearance of moss or grass.  The stations biologist showed us two of the most famous locals – two white (but not albino) Gentoo Penguins.  None of the other penguins seemed to care, as both had mates.   An Ice cliff crumpled and crashed into the sea behind us with an awe inspiring thunderous roar, and sent shock waves racing across the ice-free parts of the sea.   Humans are insignificant in these surroundings.  Whale bones littered the beach with their rib bones looking like dead tree trunks pointing skywards.

We returned to the ship for dinner and soon after were back in the Zodiacs for a harbour cruise of Paradise Harbour.    Seals and penguins lolled around on small icebergs and rocky outcrops barely above sea level.  The blue hues of the enormous glaciers and the gravity defying jagged ice chunks suspended over the sea gave an enormous sense of majesty and power.  It was extremely dangerous to go too close to these unpredictable death traps, which regularly crush penguins and seals. Ice becomes bluer as it gets older and more compressed – forcing the oxygen out.  The variation in the colour of the ice has to be seen to be believed.  Rarely was it white – particularly near the penguins, with algae, volcanic ash, sulphur and pressure all having an effect.

One of our Zodiac groups had a whale surface and dive right next to their boat. It dwarfed them and they tried to chase it for more photos but had to turn around when we realized the captain had upped anchor and was sailing off in a very effective bluff to get us back on board.

The next highlight was the Lemair Channel – claimed to be the most beautiful scenery in the Antarctic – a big claim but it would be hard to imagine something better.   The golden sun set over the black waters and twilight fell.  Tabular icebergs which looked as though they had been cut at right angles, lined our route whilst enormous cornices and chunks of ice hung off cliff faces a thousand metres above our tiny ship, threatening to avalanche down upon us if our sound waves disturbed them.  It was dead calm and most of us were speechless.  We endlessly chewed up film, thus confirming the areas nickname of Kodak Channel.

It was now 4^th January, and we visited the old British Base of Faraday, which was passed over to the Ukrainians, who named it Vernadsky.  Here our guides gave the most in-depth scientific explanation of the research and equipment.  It was surreal to see a Surridge cricket bat on the wall as they haven't been made for 30 years and none of the Ukrainians knew what to do with it.  We then went upstairs to what is reputed to be the best bar in the Antarctic where, as a matter of courtesy, I sat down and drank a few vodkas with the Captain.  Everyone was so friendly and another adjoining historic base was open nearby, but we were out of time.   It was a long Zodiac ride into Vernadsky, which is located on the Argentine Islands.  The ship's Captain was our driver, a rare treat for him to leave the ship, and naturally the other Zodiacs all followed at a respectful distance.  A hundred metres off shore we hit submerged rocks and our engine cut out, but we all knew to pretend not to notice, and nothing was said.  The second Zodiac, driven by the 3^rd mate was about to hit the same rock – following his captain with blind loyalty – when Martin – our naturalist, seized the tiller to avoid the collision.   It was all very funny as we analysed it later on, but at the time we could have been in danger.

Our final Antarctic stop was at the deserted Argentine Emergency Base of Marambio on Petermann Island.  It was derelict but there was a scientist there observing penguins (not hard to do when there are 2 million of them!)  It was here that the famous French explorer Jean Charcot wintered in 1909.  I climbed the nearby mountain to visit the cairn that he built but it had skuas nesting on it and I decided to retreat whilst my scalp was intact.  They can be very vicious.  Katherine and some friends tobogganed down the slopes.   We built snowmen, had snowball flights and reluctantly returned to the ship to sail back through Lemair Channel, past Anvers Island and back across the Drake – a much rougher trip than coming down, so we couldn't see any whales.  The ice cliffs of the Antarctic didn't sink out of sight till we were 200km away.

The fog rolled in, the wind grew stronger and the sea became violent as we crossed the Drake heading for Cape Horn.   In the afternoon of 6^th January we rounded Cape Horn from the Pacific side, into the Atlantic.  It is a barren and desolate place and the graveyard of thousands of sailors and their ships.   Long lines of submerged rocks were apparent from the Mikheev's bridge, but many of the sailing ships sank in calm weather, unable to sail out of trouble and dragged onto the rocks by strong currents, which then swept survivors out to sea.

That night we had our farewell party, told jokes, stories and some even made a funny video.  A few of us won prizes for our efforts – including me for a poem I wrote the night before.  It was all an unforgettable experience but by 8am next morning we nudged gently into our berth in Ushuaia, finished our breakfast, our packing and said our last goodbyes to our many new friends.

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