Introduction

Before I go any further, I must thank my crowdfunding supporters for making this entire journey possible. This writing endeavour, I formally dedicate to you. Special shoutout to @impossible_labs for being the primary sponsor of the expedition! Another important sponsor I must thank is Nanyang Technological University's Alumni Affairs Office for their generous contribution. And finally this expedition wouldn't have happened without the experience and expertise of the @quarkexpeditions team, so big shoutout to them as well.

One of the perks I promised in my crowdfunding campaign was a handmade poster for the supporters. Check it out!

#antarctica #journeytothe7thcontinent #crowdfunding #2041climateforce #robertswan

4th March 2017, Day 0

5th March 2017, Day 1

6th March 2017, Day 2

We were off to an early early morning the next day, with breakfast at 6AM, and the bus to the domestic airport at 7AM! Destination? Ushuaia, the southernmost city in Argentina. Flight time: 4 hrs estimated, but 6 hrs actual.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #ushuaia

Finally, we touched down in Ushuaia - the city that is proud to call itself the end of the world. While it may sound quaint now, towns like Ushuaia were once at the edge of civilization itself if you were to read up on the history of sailing on the open seas. Many of the famous voyagers like Magellan and Darwin are known to have come through here, and their names have been immortalized in the names found on the map.

In the background, you can see the black-and-white ship I was about to board.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #ushuaia #quarkexpeditions #endoftheworld



The moment was fast approaching. After 6 months of planning, preparation and dreaming, I was finally standing in front of the ship that would take me to the remote 7th continent. And this was it, the Ocean Endeavour, a repurposed research vessel that would be my home for the next 10 days.

There's another reason why I'm posting this picture, because it is a photo of the ship from my viewpoint while standing below it. I hope it will go some way in appreciating the size of the thing - a decent-sized building floating on water with enough room to carry slightly more than 200 people and not feel claustrophobic at all. I need you to understand because, in Antarctica, scale was something we lost all sense of and so, comparison to the ship was usually the only way to understand the magnitude of the views we were taking in. Actually, not even then.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #quarkexpeditions #oceanendeavour #hotelonthesea #ithoughtthiswasbig #antarctica #antarcticahereicome

As dusk fell, we were merrily working our way out of the Beagle Channel, named of course after Darwin's ship, the HMS Beagle.

A channel by the way is a geographic feature where a water pass is flanked on both sides by land, offering an area of protected waters for ships. As we retreated to have our first dinner aboard the ship, we had excellent views from the dining room of either side of the channel, with lush vegetation and plenty of sea birds flocking all over.

I was quite tired from all the travelling and so called it an early night soon after dinner. But not before Drake-proofing my room...

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #farewellcivilization #openwaters #drakepassageherewego #antarcticahereicome #antarctica

The Drake Passage, my roommates told me, is one of the roughest seas on the planet. It is rough for a couple of reasons, most notably because the latitudinal currents of the Southern Ocean are suddenly forced through a bottleneck between the Argentinian Cape and the Antarctic Peninsula (not to mention the rough sea bed from a lot of tectonic action under the ocean floor). It is also the region where the Pacific meets the Atlantic and, halfway through the Drake is where the warm waters from the equator meet the cold waters of the Antarctic in what is known as the Antarctic Convergence.

All of these factors literally make the waves and swells sometimes hit record highs of 11 meters... In other words, guaranteed seasickness for even the toughest of sailors.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #openwaters #drakepassageherewego #farewellcivilization #antarcticahereicome #antarctica

7th March 2017, Day 3

Because of all the warnings about the Drake, we spent a good hour Drake-proofing our rooms before sleeping. This meant packing away the suitcases into the cupboards, putting loose items into tight pouches close to the ground so they didn't rattle in the drawers, and making sure every drawer and door was locked and latched.

The next morning however, we woke up having the best night's sleep because the sea has gently rocked us like a baby's cradle all night. Going out onto the bow, all we saw was a placid sea in every direction! (I really liked that at certain times in the morning, the blue of the sky and the blue of sea were so similar that you couldn't tell where the horizon was anymore.)

The experienced veterans were laughing at how lucky we were to experience this "Drake Lake" as they called it. Robert (Swan) mentioned that in 30 crossings, this was by far the most placid he had ever seen the Drake. Even so, they reminded us not to wish for the full Drake experience. Geez, how bad does the Drake really get?!

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #openwaters #drakepassagecrossing #morelikedrakelake #carefulwhatyouwishfor #antarcticahereicome #antarctica

There was also plenty of time to explore the ship. This is the bridge, where the sailors and the captain navigate the ship. (We were allowed on one side while the navigators stayed on the other so that we didn't disturb them.)

#journeytothe7thcontinent #quarkexpeditions #oceanendeavour #openwaters #antarcticahereicome #antarctica



So how cold was it? How do you dress to walk on Antarctica? Let me try to answer that in this post.

Firstly, keep in mind that the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are exactly opposite to the North. March is the end of winter and beginning of spring in Europe, and so it means the end of summer and beginning of autumn in the South. Also, I did not cross the Antarctic Circle (came really really close to it though!) or go anywhere near the South Pole. This translates to the kind of chilly weather you expect in Northern Europe or halfway up a mountain, but not the coldest extremes that Antarctica is known for.

In fact, the air was quite pleasant, like standing right under an air conditioner. But when the winds started blowing, you would immediately feel a chill that reaches your bones. Imagine these winds for a second, gusting over hundreds of kilometers with no obstacles of any kind - brrr pretty chilly.

So I would say we didn't experience any temperature below -5 degrees C at any point (even nights, early mornings, cloudy and windy days), and most of the time it remained above this limit. But like I mentioned, whenever there was wind, it felt much much colder almost immediately.

So, to keep warm, the mantra is "layers, layers, layers". For the chest, this meant 3 layers: a body-hugging thermal layer, a comfortable mid-layer (e.g. thin fleece jacket) and finally the iconic yellow wind and water-resistant shell jacket provided by Quark Expeditions. For legs, I found that a thermal layer and insulated waterproof pants (e.g. ski pants) were sufficient. It was most comfortable when neck and ears were covered (a combination of balaclava and warm beanie). Feet and fingers were most likely to feel the cold first so warm woolen socks (2 pairs if need be) and two layers of gloves (thin Merino wool liners with heavy duty ski mittens) were sufficient.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #antarcticasubzero #cold❄ #layerslayerslayers #wheninantarctica #yellowpenguins #antarcticahereicome #antarctica

Since many of the expedition leaders were themselves trained ornithologists, glaciologists, seal/whale specialized marine biologists, they were so passionate about their area of interest and gave us enough information to appreciate the subtle nuances between species of penguins, the different hunting habits of whales and seals or even the geological reason why Antarctica is way colder than the Arctic.

I really feel that these lectures went a long way in enhancing my experience, so thanks to the Quark team for the wonderful and interesting tidbits!

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #openwaters #quarkexpeditions #birdnerd #whalewhisperer #sealchaser #summerschoolmarinebiology #antarcticahereicome #antarctica

8th March 2017, Day 4

I slept quite well during the whole trip and especially while on open waters because I had a bunk on the lower floors and that meant the rocking of the ship felt like a gentle rocking of a baby's cradle. You can imagine however this was not the case for passengers on the upper floors...

Anyway the next morning, I woke early feeling fully refreshed and was walking around deck after a hearty breakfast when I saw my very first iceberg! We were close to the 7th continent!

I can still picture this moment, and it was surreal. Little did I know this was the first of hundreds of icebergs I would see in the coming days...

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #antarctica #notjustanyiceberg #myfirsticeberg #youneverforgetyourfirst #iceberg #antarcticahereiam

Already though, a couple of things were becoming clear. Seeing an entire landscape of white ice (and not snow), and that too at sea level (as opposed to glaciers between mountain ridges), is something I don't think I'll ever get used to. Already we could see these great white expanses stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see.

The second thing was the sense of distance and scale. Even in this picture, it may seem like land is close by, perhaps 15-30 minutes away but these first guesses were usually way off. Consider this. Ice in itself is white and from afar, seemingly featureless. Also, everywhere else on Earth, we mentally rely on trees, buildings, vehicles and other humans to judge distance and scale. Antarctica has none of these things in immediate view. So at least for the first couple of days, we were constantly second-guessing our intuitive notions of how big or far some landmarks were, and got them wrong anyway. In this very real sense, Antarctica proved to be "larger than life".

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #landahoy #southshetlandislands #wemadeitthrough #drakepassagecrossing #socloseyetsofar #opticalillusions #likeanalienplanet #antarcticahereiam #antarctica

Energized after seeing land after 2 days in open sea, water in every direction as far as the eye can see, we gathered in the lounge for another lecture, this time on the geology and glaciology of Antarctica. Get ready to have your minds blown a few times!

As you can see in this figure, the Antarctic continent is 1.5 times larger than the continental US in land area, and on the bottom-left you can see the UK dwarfed in comparison. Of this, 99.8% is covered in ice permanently, most of those areas along the Antarctic Peninsula which we would be covering.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #likeanalienplanet #thatsalotofice #antarctica

As you can see in this slide, if you were to take a cross-section between points A and B, this profile of Antarctic ice would look like the top third of the slide. Towards the center where the ice is thickest, that's almost 2km of solid ice. Not a 2km tall mountain covered in a layer of ice, just solid ice.

It gets cooler (pardon the pun!). At the South Pole, the ice you're standing on would be 4.8km thick. That is so much ice that you have difficulty breathing because you are at a high altitude. That is ice enough to match the altitude of Mont Blanc (tallest mountain in the Alps) and more than half of the height of the Everest.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #thatsalotofice #likeanalienplanet #tallerthanthewallinthenorth #antarctica



More facts about Antarctica, yay! But this one's important, so pay attention.

In the coming years and decades, as we deal with climate change, we will inevitably have to read about the health of the ice on our planet. When it comes to planetary ice reserves, there are a few terms that sound similar enough to be confusing. So I'd like to take some time to define them.

Let's start with a word we have all probably heard of already: glaciers. Glaciers are basically rivers of ice, moving/flowing at a steady pace across the landscape, from higher elevations to lower. Glaciers are what you typically see in mountainous areas.

Next we have ice sheets. Our planet current has 3 major ice sheets: one in Greenland and 2 in Antarctica, on West Antarctica and East Antarctica. So what are ice sheets? They are large continent-sized masses of ice, usually kilometers thick and stretching across entire landscapes. Currently, the Greenland ice sheet is melting really quickly, but so far the (smaller) West Antarctic and (larger) East Antarctic ice sheets are pretty stable. For now.

And then we have ice shelves. What are those? When glaciers reach water, they typically behave like a puddle of water, spreading out equally in all directions with about equal thickness. Mind you, these can still be thick enough for heavy planes to land on comfortably. However they are vulnerable and increasingly so. When the water around and underneath the ice shelves gets warmer, it slowly but surely melts the ice faster and faster, slowly disintegrating the floating ice. Recently you have probably been hearing about of a 1000km crack across a stretch of ice in Antarctica? That would be the Larsen C ice shelf. The Larsen A and B ice shelves already broke off decades ago; the latter was an chunk of ice approximately equal in area to the U.K.... let that sink in for a second and keep it in mind, because we'll be revisiting it later on.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #ihavegoodnewsandbadnews #thatsalotofice #anditsmelting #arewescrewed #holdon #itsnotthatsimple #antarctica



I have good news and bad news.

The good news first. Ice shelves melt first but when they do, they don't raise sea levels. Why? It's the same reason your glass doesn't overflow when the ice cubes melt - the ice is already floating on water. Great!

The bad news. Ice shelves act like a plug where glaciers meet water - they counter somewhat the downward momentum of these moving rivers of ice. As the ice shelves melt, the glaciers speed up, emptying their load of ice faster and faster. So, the sea levels might not be rising immediately, but we can definitely expect it to do so in future.

Good news again. The Antarctic ice sheets are the least of our worries. The massive East Antarctic ice sheet, if it ever melted completely, could by itself raise sea levels by almost 60 meters! But, scientists predict that the majority of Antarctic ice will not be affected in the near future.

And then the bad news. Antarctica is a big continent and most of the ice near its center won't be affected, as far as we know, for now. But the ice closer to the edges will - which contribute to modest sea level rise. More than that, these are the areas where most of the amazing wildlife of the Antarctic can be found. Even small shocks in the climate could drastically disrupt this fragile ecosystem.

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #thatsalotofice #anditsmelting #arewescrewed #ihavegoodnewsandbadnews #itscomplicated #savethewhales #thinkofthepenguins #antarctica

Okay, enough lectures. I'm guessing you came to see epic pictures of dramatic icescapes in an untouched wilderness, so this is where it begins.

The air on the ship was electric. Everybody was stoked. And then the voice on the speakers came on and said we were to get ready to do our first landing! As if the situation couldn't get more surreal, more exotic, the name of the first island we would visit: Half Moon Island - literally shaped like a tiny perfect crescent.

Here you see the leading party heading to the island to set up the paths and block areas that would disturb the penguin colonies. (Try to guess how far/big the glacier in the background is, and then zoom in to find the 10-seater Zodiac boat heading to the island to start calibrating your sense of scale.)

#journeytothe7thcontinent #traveljournal #antarcticahereiam #nofilter #likeanalienplanet #timemeansnothinghere #nosenseofscale #itfeltlikeadream #antarctica

Read more on Day 4…