The Traveling Widower

Tag: nature

  • Ice Everywhere

    November 24th, 2025

    This is one of those rare trips where the bar just keeps getting set higher every day in terms of how you’ve set your expectations for the potential activities of the day. It just gets better and better. I thought the two penguin colony visits would be hard to beat, but I was way wrong.

    Yesterday (Monday) was the start of our trip back North, eventually heading back through the Drake Passage to Ushuaia. The NatGeo team was hoping to visit two locations this day, both with penguin colonies, each of which offered potential opportunities for getting onshore, hiking, and maybe kayaking as well. The itinerary each day was always filled with “potentials” and “hopefull” activities. And plenty of alternatives.

    I was up early, mostly dressed with the necessary layers of clothing, and headed up for breakfast on the 8th level lounge. The weather was brisk, but clear. As we were eating and conversing, I noticed that the sea was suddenly filled with patches of small chunks of ice (referred to as brash). As we continued on, the brash patches became a continuous sheet, and larger chunks of ice were mixed in (called bergerbits….really). And then the ship started rolling – once they hit patches of ice, they had to pull in the side stabilizers which control rolling. The chunks soon turned into much larger chunks, and soon we were cruising through sizable icebergs. Bigly ones, all shapes and sizes. 

    As we approached our destination, it became obvious that we would not be hiking, penguin watching, kayaking or even Zodiak cruising. Time for Plan B. We did pass by another cruise ship, the first we’ve seen, which had cleared a small patch around the ship, and had a few Zodiacs out in the water. But there was no possible way to approach the shore.

    The Resolution captain helped to design this ship, and is an absolute expert in Antarctic navigation. The Resolution is extremely high-tech – it has four separate engine pods which can turn 360 degrees, plus there are fore and aft thrusters. The ship can literally stop on a dime, turn in any direction and remain in a stationary position using the thrusters. It also has state of the art sounding equipment, and a drone for remote navigation. So, off we went, picking out way through the ice pack, and using the drone to find the best channel out to a rarely visited bay where hopefully, we could get out and enjoy the beautiful day.

    The trip through the ice fields was incredible – most of the passengers were glued to the observation decks or lounge windows, watching the strange shaped icebergs as we slowly worked through the maze of ice. There was a constant bump and grind as ship either ran over or pushed aside the ice. It was a beautiful day to be outside as well – bright and sunny, a bit over freezing and not too much wind. Eventually, we made it to this incredible bay, surrounded by glaciers and peaks, with enough clear water for the ship to stay in position and launch the kayaks and zodiacs. The water was perfectly still..but the icebergs were all moving around. More on that in a bit. 

    I decided, for the second time, to pass on kayaking and just head out on one of the Zodiac boat tours. You see more, go further, and do not have to worry about getting an expensive camera wet. I was lucky for once to get a front seat on the pontoon side, which makes it easier to get unobstructed views for photography – no arms, heads or orange jackets in the way. It was absolutely incredible winding our way though huge icebergs, with all kinds of weird shapes, and eventually making our way to the edge of the glacier. I must have said “Wow” a hundred times. Words just cannot describe some of what we saw. 

    Navigating through this maze was a challenge since most of the icebergs are floating and moving about with the wind, tides and currents. Channels that we moved through on the way in were blocked sometimes, but there was always an alternative path to follow (although one boat was stuck for a while until the ice moved). After an hour of cruising, our boat driver began picking our way back to the ship – and this is when we started finding wildlife. Penguins of course. Some feeding on krill in the water, and a few lazing around on the icebergs.

    We also encountered a crab eater seal (they don’t really eat crabs) lazing away on an ice flow, close to the ship – nice photo op.

    Once everyone was back on board, the real fun started for the captain and bridge crew – finding a way out to the main passage. It was slow going the entire way since there was thick brash, and many larger chunks and icebergs the entire way.

    It was fun being able to stay on the bridge, watching the pilot in the Captain Kirk seat, working the controls, making minute adjustments to point the ship through narrow spaces between the icebergs. Not a good time to make a mistake. They all gave a sigh of relief when we made it to the main channel. This was a big deal for the captain and the crew – we visited an area that was uncharted, and most likely never visited by a commercial cruise liner. 

    What a great day. I’m still having a hard time coming up with the right words to describe how incredibly beautiful this place is. Unfortunately, the trip is almost over, but I’ll have a lot of really special memories engrained in my brain. I needed some recent happy memories – definitely got some from this trip

  • Shackleton Redux

    November 23rd, 2025

    After our visit to Adelie penguins colony, we did in fact find a location with shore-fast ice – that’s sea ice that is still firmly attached to land. The plan was to drive the resolution deep enough into the ice, so that it would be send everyone out to ski or walk around for a while. It sounds dumb, but it was a lot of fun, and how often do you get a chance to walk on water.  Sea ice is frozen sea water, not glacial ice like the big ice shelf’s you read about. (We learned a lot about different icebergs on this trip).

    This is sea ice, but obviously not stable.

    So, off we went in search of a suitable site to play – the crew had found a fjord which appeared to still have what we were looking for, on recent satellite images, and sure enough the ice was still there. It was fun hanging out on the bow overlook as the ship very slowly plowed through the ice until it was fairly deep, and sort of embedded. They dropped a stairway down, and sent a crew out to test the ice, and mark out an area that was safe to play and ski on.

    You can see the stairs lowered to the ice, and a couple of crew members off in the distance, marking the safe area. And a couple of lazy seals as well.

    Once all was safe and set to go, they let two groups go off for a cross-country ski excursion. I had wanted to do this – I used to do back-country skiing all the time in Colorado, and was pretty good a telemarking down mountain passes. But they would only let passengers with recent experience (last year or two) go, and it has been a good ten years for me). I did start to argue the point, but then I heard Jan’s voice in my head ….”you idiot, you have a bad knee that’s hurting…..be safe!!!”. So I went for option 2, which was to take a long stroll out on the ice.  Which turned out to be fun.

    They had marked out a one mile or so track, which circled around the bay and passed by the two seals which ignored everyone. It was funny looking back at the ship and seeing this long ine of orange coats – it looked like we had abandoned ship, which was surrounded by ice. It made me think of the famous Shackleton Endurance voyage saga, hence the title of this post.

    It was not too cold, but still had to bundle up with all our expedition gear including the Muck boots and the hated life vest. We were walking on water after all – there was always the danger of stepping on a weak spot or a seal air hole.

    And they did set up the photo-op of pulling the ship out of the ice. It is a rite of passage for cruising Antarctica

    Other than the seals, and a couple of wayward penguins, this was just a fun outing. It is always great to get off the ship and walk around, and it was even better when you can simply walk off the ship onto a flat, stable surface. No waves, rocks or icy climbs. And the views across the open expanse of ice to the surrounding icy mountains was incredible. It is just so hard to fully describe what this place is like. It’s breathtaking where ever you go.

    As for the wayward penguins, I noticed after I boarded back on the ship, and was watching below from the lounge, that three penguin had magically appeared. I guess they followed the channel created by the ship, and decided to check things out. It was fun watching them – they just scoot forward on their stomachs, keeping their wings out as stabilizers, and push forward with their feet. They look like little black and white snow mobiles, and scoot forward quickly. When they hit a crack in the ice, they stopped, stared at it for a while, then each one hopped forward. When all three were on the other side, off they went again, heading back to open water. I wish I had photographed it all – it was like watching the three stooges.