South of 60 and officially in Antarctica

It feels very surreal today - perhaps because of no sleep last night - but we are in Antarctica, the last frontier, the frozen planet and all that jazz. Forgive me if I get a little emotional here but it is truly an incredible feeling that neither of us can describe but we are oh so glad we took this adventure. Last night the seas were classed as rough with 5 metre waves and bigger occasional swells that would smack the ship. All of us were walking like drunken sailors but managing. Dinner and its many courses went off without a hitch and then we were entertained by an illusionist and a VERY good comedian (Q. If beauty is skin deep, is Camilla Parker Bowles inside out?" for example...). We toddled off to our little bunks, secure in the knowledge that by morning we would be South of the 60th Parallel and withing kicking distance of Elephant island. Well - we kept getting tossed around in bed and then the wind set up a howling like a clarinet through our balcony door. We attempted to silence it to no avail - it quieted when the wind rose to a roar and the seas started smacking our 11th floor deck. Yes - smacking our 11th floor deck. At 2 in the morning we were startled out of our beds by the drawers opening and closing and a glass hurtling across the room and smashing. We mostly spent the night laying in the middle of the bed giggling and trying not to fall out. We checked the Captain's log at around 3 am and were shocked to see that the winds were in excess of 78 knots (about 85mph) and the seas were rising above 10m and the ship was only achieving a top speed of 4knots. This morning the captain informed us that we had gone through a hurricane force gale with winds exceeding 120mph and seas of 12 meters with swells over that. YIKES! We did learn definitively that neither of us is seasick prone and also that it really isn't an antarctic visit unless you go through something like that in the Drake Passage. By around 10 this morning we were down to merely "rough" seas (5-8m) and have continued with that all day. We were treated to an exquisite viewing of Elephant Island (Shackleton 1915 (I had the wrong date before)) and are amazed that anyone survived living on that rock. Mountains covered in permanent glaciers soar straight out of the ocean to over 3000ft. Cape Valentine (where they first landed) is an incredibly tiny beach with a couple of penguins amidst sheer stone and ice. They moved and set up a "permanent" camp with shelter made out of 2 boats and some rock at a place called Cape Wild - named not for the weather but for the 1st mate who got them through the 105 days of hell. They survived on penguin, seal, algae, seaweed and stray bits of lichen. Mind-boggling is all we can say. Elephant Island is part of the South Shetland Islands and is just north of the Antarctic Peninsula proper where we are currently headed via Bransfield Strait. There we tour ice, ice and more ice; sail right into an active volcano and admire the ever amazing wild life that thrives despite the conditions they call summer down here. Today as we watched penguins zip in and out of the water as they swim, it snowed on us and the sun shone as well, the wind blew and the whales spouted and the Albatrosses still found no need to land. They can spend several months on the wing, never landing and almost never flapping. They are master gliders and amazing to watch as they play around the ship.

Bedazzled and humbled -

Dale and Marsha