18 March – 21 March
Now that I am back on land in Ushuaia I have some time to post all of the Antarctic blogs and a few of my favourite pictures, but thought I would start with this – the return journey.
‘If not the worst Drake crossing, this has certainly been the longest!’ said Julio, the expedition leader, at the debrief last night.
We left our last Antarctic stop at about 1pm on the 18th to head out towards the Drake passage. There were predictions it could be bad – so we had to leave Antarctica eight hours ahead of time. It was bad. 68 hours of crossing, 24 of which we were on lockdown in cabins or the lounge as it was too dangerous to go on deck or even upstairs to the restaurant (can see by the photos below).
It was like being on a rollercoaster you couldn’t get off. Our poor little boat was tossed around on waves up to 15 metres high and there were countless injuries as people rolled across the floor (luckily I just hung on).
I will write a bit more about this from my notes later on – but am back on land.
Would I do it again? Yes! Antarctica was all the superlatives that you have heard – amazing, inspirational, beautiful, captivating, harsh, stunning and more. As everyone says, you can’t describe it, but I will put up lots of pictures – so watch out for my postcards : ) (on here at least).
