Antarctica

January 2005

It’s the Last Continent, the Great White Continent, the last frontier, and I’ve got to visit it, because it’s there. And since everyone is now going to Alaska, going to Antarctica is the last exotic thing to do. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and soon, space will be the next frontier. But for now, it’s got to be Antarctica.
It is very white. Glaciers and ice mountains and sea ice and floating icebergs as far as the eye can see. But if you look closer on a clear day and snippets of sunrays can come through the perpetual clouds blanketing the continent, there are subtleties of color that you can discern. Blue ice shimmering in the landscape, cascading and disappearing into turquoise waters with a faint suggestion of emeralds as the waves lap against white monuments that seem to float out of the sea. And the landscape is vast, overwhelming, and for the early heroic explorers, inhospitable and tragic. The pristine mountains forbid trespassing, the certain outcome is death. But we are adventurers in the tourist age, and we arrived in Antarctica in a sturdy Finnish built expedition cruise ship, the first of its kind, our “little red ship” the Explorer. It’s small enough to navigate around the ice and get us close to shore so we can land in our jaunty 10-man rubber Zodiak boats. Compared to large cruise ships who now also troll the area, we can explore the land indeed and get our feet on terra firma in the continent, as compared to merely sightseeing and watching the scenery through binoculars. In our zodiacs following the whales we came so close to feel the shower spray from their breathing holes and then smell their really bad breath.
To get to Antarctica we had to fly from all over the planet in commercial jets to get to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in the province of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. These names are all too familiar to us with our history of conquest by Spain, as the Magellan Strait is in these parts, and not far away is Cape Horn. Without the discovery of these waterways that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, our destiny as a country may have been very different.
To get to Ushuaia from Atlanta, you fly to Miami (1 ½ hours), then to Buenos Aires (8 ½ hours), then to Ushuaia (3 ½ hours). Can you imagine the flying hours and routes of those coming from Australia, Korea and India and Norway? The Southern hemisphere is 2 hours later than EST, and the seasons are reversed as you know. So it’s summertime in Antarctica and its 29-35 degrees F and it’s sizzling!
We were told that we had been very fortunate to have fantastic weather during our sailing. It takes 2 days and 3 nights to get out of the Beagle Channel and get onto the Drake Passage then cross the Antarctic Convergence and then finally be in Antarctic waters. In fantastic weather with hardly any wind our little red ship was rocking and see-sawing in
billowing waves as big as our ship itself. Everyone had drug loaded little round band-aids stuck behind their ears or swallowing Dramamine by the fistful. I prided myself as an old salt, having grown up in Pasacao, with a fisherman for a grandfather, so I refused drugs, but yielded to an afternoon in bed to prevent me from shaming myself. The Drake Passage is open sea and notorious for turbulence. There is no scenery, there’s nothing to focus on except the lapping of waves against the hull of the ship. But behold an albatross! It came from nowhere. It followed the ship and carried the wind to take us to Antarctica. Pumped up with tales about the albatross and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner, the tour staff, at the conclusion of our voyage, had no problem raising $2700 from the passengers in an auction to save the albatross. The Scot, who owns a sailboat, bid $1000 on the ship captain’s map of our journey.
And finally, land! Er, Ice! We are in Antarctica.
We are told nobody owns Antarctica, that there’s a treaty between the countries to ensure that is so, but Argentinian and Chilean children are shown from the first day of school onwards, their country’s map with Antarctica as part of it. Go figure what will happen a generation from now. There are no living things in Antarctica except cellular organisms. The living is in the waters around it, the penguins that inhabit the shores and the seals and whales and seabirds. I saw Chinstrap penguins, Gentoo penguins, Adelie penguins, Macaroni Penguins, leopard seals, weddell seal, elephant seals, minke whales, and orcas. On the continent we made landings on Paradise Harbor, Neko Harbor,Wilhelmina Bay, Aicho, and the Lemaire Channel. The flora and fauna had more variety in the subantarctic islands, such as the South Shetland Islands with moss vegetation, and seabirds such as kelp gull and skuas. They were very interesting to learn about, but after you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, and though the penguins were very amusing and a joy to watch, you can only watch their limited behavior repertoire so much. Besides the rookery stinks to high heaven, a fishy, decomposing odor not unlike bad bagoong. You can’t tell that from the neat, elegant photos taken of these birds.
I began to watch the clock for the next meal. The gourmet meals on board are prepared by a young German cook who had been to Cebu and other parts of the Philippines to recruit kitchen workers. He likes their work ethics and attitude. The ship crew consists of 30-some Pinoys out of a crew of 50’ish. There are few 2nd level officers, and ship engineers. I got to know most of them, with 2 from Naga City, and several from Bicol. I spent a night playing mahjong with them and got beat, but they refused to accept my money, so I didn’t join them when they invited me back for tong-it. But they had calderetta one night and to me that was a welcome culinary break from the gourmet fare in the dining room.
I began to entertain myself getting to know the passengers. We are a broad sample of tourists, mainly Caucasians from Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Scotland, Belgium, USA, a large tour group from Portugal, an Indian couple from Bombay, a Korean couple from Pasadena, and myself the lone Filipino passenger. One of the Pinoy crew said to me, “Ikinararangal po namin na pasahero rin kayo”. It makes me wonder how they feel about themselves being forced by economic realities in the Philippines to work in a service occupation and be separated from their families for years. There are 5 young women in the crew. They feel that they are treated fairly, but they work long hours. It seems the Pinoys are well liked in the industry because they are efficient, hard workers, and docile.
But to go back to the passengers. There are a lot of 20-somethings in this group, who are taking a break from life to find themselves by traveling all over South America for months with their backpacks and shoestring budgets. It was a splurge for them to be in this Antarctic cruise, as it is for me too, for this itinerary is still limited and the cost remains a premium. Some have quit school, others are in between jobs because they quit the job they didn’t like, or have been laid off, and others just can’t find jobs and don’t know what they want to do. Then there’s a group of young couples who have jobs and mortgages but are traveling before the children arrive. There’s hardly any in the middle ages, a few in the 50’s, and a large group of fit and able seniors in their 70’s with the oldest at 81. I felt out of place, neither considering myself as a young one or a senior but that didn’t stop me from amusing myself. I jumped in the icy waters with the young ones, sang with Michael, the tour staff pianist, in the lounge, told dirty jokes with the solo traveling guys, talked about the children with the women, and sat at the bar stool to shoot the breeze with anyone until the bar closed. Deischa, the Pinay bartender got a big tip from me at the end of the cruise, because she took good care of me at the bar. The tour staff hung out at the bar and I got to know intimately their motives and rationale for working in the business. It’s amazing how a little wine or distilled spirit can loosen the tongue, but I wasn’t working so I steered the topic away when they got serious. They’re not about to get an analysis from me, after all they’re not in my health insurance reimbursement plan. The Scot runs away with the most flamboyant designation in the group. He walks around indoors in his shorts, and in our Zodiak landings, he’d come down to the ice in his knickers and plaid kilt. I asked him if he’s wearing any special garment under his skirt. He said , “It shrinks”. What did he mean by that? The Odd Couple are lovely people, but they stand out like Mutt and Jeff. The guy must be 300 lbs and 7 feet tall and the woman has the stigmata of an achondroplastic dwarf and barely passes the 4 feet mark. He is all arms and legs flailing while getting in and out of the Zodiak, he doesn’t have any idea how to do it. I thought he was going to crash down into the rocks. He was all contorted trying to find a footing on the boulders while taking pictures of the penguins. And he tried to be gallant by letting everybody climb into the zodiac first while he holds it steady, but mama mia, he was trying to put his legs first into the boat and standing rather than do the proper technique of sitting on the side and easing into the boat, with a low fulcrum of gravity. So the Zodiak is unbalanced and he’s there teetering on one leg and was about to fall so he catches himself and puts his foot on wherever. And it was in a hole on the bow where the rubber connects to the rigid stepping platform, and his leg is caught and he couldn’t extricate it and he’s there all 300 lbs sprawled and flailing. It was so hilarious and I was shaking so bad from controlling myself from bursting into laughter. No one was laughing. I can’t believe no one was reacting. This group of 108 very different people is like that, very polite, very proper, very rule-abiding, very constipated! And his wife so sweetly helps him and suggests he take off his leg from the boots so he can extricate himself, then she asks if he got the shot of the penguin and acts like he’s not making a big spectacle. Then there’s the GP from Chicago who also runs an addiction inpatient program, who takes notes at all the lectures and reviews them and underlines them later, and asks clarifying questions, then endlessly talks about the subject long after the session. Whew! And what about The Vamp from hell, which at first I didn’t recognize as such. I didn’t have accommodations in Ushuaia, all the hotels were booked by the time I tried to reserve one. So I was gonna wing it and this young woman was inquiring before me at the airport about accommodations, and she’s part of the cruise. So we agreed to team up and share a room. The tourist desk found us an expensive hotel room but she requested a hostel because she’s trying to save money. It was fine with me. I’ve never stayed in a hostel so I was curious. What we got was very nice with 2 beds and a private bath. After dinner I had no objections to bar hopping for a while. I had no idea she was hunting for prey when I went to the Irish Pub with her for a drink. When I realized she was hunting I left her to return to the hostel and told her I’ll leave the door unlocked for her. Shuffling sounds and a strong odor woke me up as daylight was breaking and I opened my eyes to see her having sexual intercourse in the next bed. It was a small room and enclosed and the odor of undeodorized and unbathed male body is making me nauseated. I yelled at her to ask the obvious, what she’s doing and how dare she bring this man into our room and she should leave right now and do it elsewhere. The 2 left quickly and without protest but the reeking smell hung in the air permanently. So much for her. I avoided her like the plague in the ship. The Hostess, is this kind lady who is so nice, she takes care of everyone in her table wherever she happens to sit for dinner, inquires about everyone, and includes everyone in the conversation, and is very accomplished with this task. She’d be a bore saying all the right things but she’s genuine and very sincere, she remembers all the names, and next day she’d greet you with your name. At the end she sought me out to say goodbye, to reassure me that things will get better. She lost her husband 9 years ago and now she has remarried 4 years ago and happy again. She pried it out of me that I just had a similar loss, when in fact I had planned not to talk about this in this cruise. She made me cry, but it reminded me that what I’m doing is trying to bear the loss. I’m nowhere near things getting better.
So like the little red ship that has to reposition in the ice and set our course around the Great White Continent, I have to do the same. I have a lot in common after all with the young ones in this tour. They too are trying to find their position and mapping the course of their journey.
The return trip seemed endless. The Drake Passage crossing was real bumpy, and this time for a change, we rounded Cape Horn, and that was being like in a martini shaker. Everyone took to bed early, even the party-going contingent of Portuguese tourists. This group is 30-some strong. They took over the lounge every night and partied, but they didn’t mingle much. They spoke Portuguese among themselves and it seems only a few speak English. They came from all over Portugal, put together by this travel agent who brought a TV crew to film their entire experience for travel marketing. They had a popular talk show host with them. She interviewed the tour staff and ship crew, made commentaries on what she’s observing, and her cameraman was all over the place, even practically stepping over the penguins. Some of the passengers were not fond of them. I got to chat with a woman in the group who is a diplomat and who is serving as president of the UN Committee on Women’s Rights. Her husband painstakingly harpooned each pea on his plate and set them aside, because he does not eat peas. His mama never taught him, I guess. Quite a few from this group took the dare to jump in the ice. The talk show host’s assistant interviewed me after I emerged from the freezing Antarctic and I told her that the experience was exhilarating and that everyone should do it before they die. So who knows, I may still be shown on Portuguese TV. On our way back to the ship after the icy dip, and we’re all shivering in the Zodiak, a fantastic thing happened. The ice mountain in front of us was sliding in very slow motion, and right before our eyes the wall of ice fell into the sea gracefully like a penguin entering the water. It was calving. It was silent. We were mesmerized and stunned. Then a huge wave swelled and was coming before us, like a tsunami! And in a flash the ocean between us and the ship was littered with huge ice floats. Our Zodiak can’t maneuver through the ice litter. We had to wait for over half an hour until the ship can reposition and make a path for us to get through. It was the wrong moment for us to take that icy dip. But the ship had a sauna, and the brandy later felt warm and soothing.
When we disembarked in Ushuaia very early in the morning I have until 2:30 pm until my flight back to Buenos Aires, then to the States. I was determined to play this golf course there, and had a 9 AM tee time. I played the Juno golf course when I made my Alaskan cruise. That was the northernmost golf course I played, so I just had to play this golf course at the end of the world, 54 degrees, 29’ 52” South Latitude. The Ushuaia golf Club is a 9-hole course at the foot of the glacial mountain of Tierra del Fuego, along the river Pipo. The day was gorgeous. I was so excited to play after having been at sea for 9 days. My first hole was a triple bogey but I finished with a par on 9th, and in between was of no concern.