We had some moderately rough seas as we exited out of the Beagle Channel and passed Cape Horn on the National Geographic Explorer around 3am this morning (10-12 foot swells according to the crew). Things have calmed noticeably in the few hours (since mid-afternoon). We have another day or so left before we get near land.

GPS track for our voyage so far is below. We’ve traveled from the top of the map to the bottom, and continue in a southward direction. The last spot sampled (southern-most point) is from around 4:30pm local time (GMT-3).

Yesterday morning, Thursday, February 11, 2010, was really the start of our Antarctic expedition with Lindblad Expeditions aboard their vessel, the National Geographic Explorer.

We're in the right line for our flight from Santiago to Ushuaia

Approximately 140 of us set forth from our hotel in Santiago, Chile to catch a LAN Chile charter plane to Ushuaia, Argentina. “Ushuaia” is pronounced “Ush-why-ah”, in case you were curious.

It was a nearly four hour flight, taking us past incredible views of the Andes mountain range for most of the flight. I should add that all of our worries about the 17.6 pound carry-on limit appeared to be completely unfounded, resulting in needless stress and grey hair for me. Since the flight was a charter flight the carry-on weight limit was ignored, but a few bags were checked for size. Overheads were overflowing however.

Glacial lakes seen from our plane - photo by fellow passenger Bob Reichart

Volcano peak in the Andes seen from our plane

Regarding Ushuaia, it is the southern most town in South America, never mind Argentina, and located on an island in the Tierra del Fuego (Lands of Fire – based on early explorers seeing Indian-made fires and smoke on the cliffs) archipelago. The locals refer to Ushuaia as the “Fin del Mundo” or “End of the Earth”. Ushuaia is also one of the key embarkation points for cruises to the Antarctic, which is why we were heading there – to meet up with our ship.

The view from the Ushuaia international airport - beautiful mountain scapes

The town of Ushuaia has a whopping 70,000 inhabitants, many of whom are there to take advantage of extremely high salaries (triple the going rate elsewhere in Argentina) which the Argentinean government subsidizes (along with very favorable tax savings for large employers and manufacturers) to encourage settlement in this remote area. Buenos Aires and Santiago are both about four hours away by plane, and driving to Buenos Aires is a four or five day effort across roads that aren’t always that great.

The region is incredibly mountainous, but at the same time surrounded by ocean, creating some incredible vistas, mostly forested with several different species of native beech trees.

We learned that over the years the government has tried to introduce various species of animals to the area in order to generate both food and revenue sources. Among the introduced species were rabbits, reindeer, and beavers. Rabbits have thrived, while reindeers were eaten by the humans to the point of eradication.

One of several introduced species to the area - a rabbit

The beaver introduction is interesting. Apparently Canadian beavers were introduced in the hopes of creating a thriving beaver fur industry, but not enough research was done on how beaver fur gets lush. It turns out that beaver fur grows best in climates where it gets very cold in the winter and temperate in the summer. But in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago it does not get cold enough to encourage heavy pelt growth, so the beaver pelts they harvested here were of mediocre quality at best, and not particularly sellable. However, by the time they discovered this, the beavers had gotten firmly entrenched and now are responsible for destruction of countless beech trees which cannot survive in the flooded plains the beaver dams create.

Bas and Linda on a footbridge in the national park

Upon our arrival at the Ushuaia airport, we were whisked away in three buses to the Tierra del Fuego National Park. After a scenic, guided ride through the park where the history of Ushuaia and the ecology of the area was explained, we got off for a short walk to board a couple of large motor powered catamarans for lunch and a cruise on the Beagle Channel, named after the Beagle – the ship in which Charles Darwin first visited these waters.

A nature moment in Tierra del Fuego

Krystyana about to board the catamaran for our afternoon water tour

We encounter amazing views, saw the virtual boundary between Chile and Argentina, and even had our first aquatic wildlife sightings along the way, all accompanied by very brisk, cold air (relative to Santiago, anyhow).

An Antarctic Sea Lion with a seagull near Ushuaia

A flock of Antarctic cormorants with some gulls near Ushuaia

Our journey ended in the harbor of Ushuaia, where we came upon our home for the next three weeks – the National Geographic Explorer, owned and operated by Lindblad Expeditions.

Three freighters at dock behind the National Geographic Explorer in Ushuaia

We spot the National Geographic Explorer for the first time - our home for the next three weeks

It should be mentioned that Lars-Eric Lindblad, the founder of Lindblad Expeditions, was the first person to run commercial tourism expeditions to the Antarctic region, around a half century ago (1964), and his son Sven-Olof has continued with such expedition efforts, ever improving the adventure while at the same time working to preserve the ecology of areas visited.

Lindblad Expeditions was also a founding member of IAATO (International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators), whose purpose is to insure safe, responsible, environmentally sensitive tourism in the fragile ecosystem of Antarctica.

Once settled aboard the National Geographic Explorer – we’re in a spacious stateroom at the stern end of the vessel, while the kids are in a regular stateroom located in the middle of the Explorer – we all participated in a mandatory safety drill in the unlikely event of an emergency onboard.

We also all loaded up on seasickness medicine in anticipation of a potentially tumultuous ride through the roughest waters in the world – the Drake Passage. More on that later, though.

After some more orientation and a pleasant dinner, we retired, enjoying the wonderful view from our balcony.

Our wake as seen from our stateroom on the National Geographic Explorer as we head east out of the Beagle Channel

More photos from this day are at my Flickr photo sharing page. A map showing where the photos were taken can be found here.

I will post

We just finished participating in a one hour “Webinar” put on by Lindblad Expeditions about our upcoming Antarctic trip. Very informative, and the images shown by the staff photographer were breathtaking and inspirational.

What’s troubling us now though is confirmation that our flight between Santiago, Chile and Ushuaia, Argentina has severe luggage restrictions:

Two 33 pound checked bags and one 17.6 pound carry on per person.

Eek! (this coming from the 6′ 3″ person whose clothes weigh a heck of a lot more than those of his 5′ 3-6″ family members – never mind all the photo gear I am taking with me).

We’re going to start staging our luggage and carry-on deployment this weekend to see how we can fit all we need, and trim back the stuff we thought we needed but don’t really need in order to fit the weight limits. Photographers jackets with well-stuffed pockets are part of the plan too.

Photos to follow in a few days, no doubt.

Some of you may be aware that the next expedition for The Traveling Richters is to the southern-most climes of planet Earth. We won’t quite make it to the South Pole, but we’ll be spending a couple of weeks in February in the vicinity of the Antarctic Circle, a week of which we’ll actually be making landings on various parts of the Antarctic Peninsula.

People have been asking us why we’re going there. Simple answer is that we are helping outfit a school for underprivileged penguins and to see the polar bears. Oh, so you say there are no polar bears in the Antarctic? Perhaps that’s because the penguins ate them?

Seriously, though, the Antarctic has been a dream of ours for decades, and with global climate change charging onward without a reversal in sight, we figured we had better pay our respects now before things change too much. Furthermore, even if global climate change does not materially affect the Antarctic in the next 30 years, we’d rather go now when we’re hearty and hale instead of when joint pains and older age potentially inhibit our full exploration and enjoyment of this natural wonder.

We booked our trip with Lindblad Expeditions last summer, to travel with them on their vessel, the National Geographic Explorer. Lindblad started a brilliant partnership with NatGeo several years ago, and the naming of their vessels is part of the deal, as is the inclusion of National Geographic’s experts as docents, photographers, and guides on these journeys.

Of course, being that we live in a tropical climate (the Caribbean island of Bonaire), one of the most interesting challenges has been to gather all the gear we think we will need to stay warm and relatively dry on our Antarctic journey. Lindblad has a list of recommended things to pack (PDF) for the expedition. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s taken us several months to get everything we need down to Bonaire, ensuring it all fits. One complication has been that Bas is a growing 12 year old boy and we’ve had to try and guess how much bigger he might be by mid-February, including how big his feet will be. Just one unexpected growth spurt could leave him buck naked in Antarctica (or wearing my clothes, which would be over-large on him). But we think (or hope) we have it under control.

The other issue we’ve been facing is that several of our flights have restrictions on luggage and carry-ons. Considering we’re planning on taking several computers, several DSLR cameras, a video camera or two, and who knows what else in terms of technological equipment, we’re having a heck of a time trying to figure out how to get it all on a plane with us. We’ll definitely be donning photographer’s vests on the smaller planes, and hoping that we can carry some of the bits and pieces we need that way.

In the next few weeks as we start actually packing, I will post photos here of what all is coming with us, for your amusement. And another project I’m working on is some web-based software which will allow me to upload data from my Garmin Oregon 550 GPS so that our fans can track our path on a daily basis. That of course will be contingent on two things: 1) That GPS satellites are functional that far south; and 2) that we will have a passable Internet connection that far south (there’s on-board satellite Internet on the ship).

In the meantime, we’re reading up on Chile, Easter Island, and the Antarctic, and watching the few documentaries we could find at Amazon.com.