Introducing 'BLOGGEROONI'

Introducing..........BLOGGEROONI!! As only I can!

Hi everyone, and welcome to, what I'm hoping will be, a much more user friendly and far less 'email unfriendly' way of accessing my latest news and photos. If all goes well, and I can actually drive this, I'll post reasonably regularly. Not into Facebook y'see!

The first thing is to post the 'Antarctic missives' I've written so far, with the photos of course. Some of you may already have this, but I do know that many of the 'antarctic' recipients had gaps where they didn't receive certain missive sections. So without further ado, fasten your seat belts, here we go!!

The Crossing

Set sail from Ushuaia, Argentinean Patagonia, about 8pm on New Years Eve. Felt really excited, but still couldn't believe that this was actually happening! Something I'd talked about doing for 3 or 4 years was finally here! The expedition leader, Brendan, told us we were very lucky, as the Drake Passage, the huge expanse of ocean between us and Antarctica, was going to be the 'Drake Lake' - a rare occurrence in one of most notoriously rough ocean crossings in the world. To be brief, it was as flat as a tack, and spectacular the whole way. The first two photos below show how beautiful it was. I reckon the first pic could have been taken in the Bahamas or Greek islands, but no, this was taken on New Years Day, 2010. What a breathtaking and invigorating start to the new decade!

These windless and flat conditions made it great for whale spotting, but bad for bird spotting as the huge sea birds didn't have enough 'up draft' to cruise too well behind the ship. Nevertheless, we did see various types of albatross, petrels and other 'tweeties' (that don't really go tweet!!), and the ornithologist (Michael) on board kept us informed of the bird action. We also had a marine biologist on board(Jim), who educated us on how to identify whale species by the shape and height of their blows, the way they would surface and dive, the shape and size of their fins and general behaviour! Mostly we saw Minke whales and Fin whales during the crossing, and the Jim, kept a tally the whole way through the voyage. All the Expedition Leaders doubled up as knowledgeable about something, and the two day crossing was a great way to pass time listening to their lectures about the ice, the environment, the human activity and explorers and the wildlife, as well as find your sea legs and get to know the other passengers.

Our ship, the Ocean Nova, could take about 73 passengers, and we had about 68 on board. Many of the Expedition leaders said the Ocean Nova was one of their favourites as it wasn't too big, had a shallow hull (both these features meant it can get into smaller areas that bigger ships can't) and had a really good communal area - the Panorama lounge, with windows all around access to the decks, a bar and good equipment etc for presentations/slide shows.

OK, so it's NYE, and the Expedition leaders put a mammoth effort into getting a bunch of people who didn't know each other, and half of whom were seriously jet lagged, into some semblance of 'party mode'. We were given complimentary 'welcome champers' and introduced to the majestic figure of our Captain - 'Mad Alexi' from Russia! Known as such for his willingness to 'see what the ship can really do'! All our expedition leaders were introduced, as well as some of the fabulous Phillipeano/a crew (who were brilliant I must say - they did everything! Cooked our meals, served our tables, cleaned our rooms, launched our zodiacs, played music and sang,wore silly hats (and togas, but that's another story) and were always smiling - really made for an excellent trip!). One of the expedition leaders said that it's the crew that make all the difference, as when he's worked with Russian crews, there's not a lot of smiling going on! To cut a long story short, the expedition leaders and the crew complemented each other perfectly, and there was a feeling of total professionalism but casualness for the whole trip. We then played some games, then most people flaked out just after welcoming in the New Year, and new decade! Just quickly, before I move on, we had a wide range of nationalities on board - most of the expedition leaders were Canadian, and passengers, again, a lot ofCanadians, and some Americans, Brazilians, Brits, Aussies, Japanese, and Italians, one Israeli, one Sri Lankan, one Dane, one Irishwoman, but strangely, no Kiwis....so, a mixed bunch. Lots of people there to celebrate a 'big birthday' - 40ths (me included), 50ths and 60ths. A couple of people were on their second or third trip to the Frozen Continent, and we were lucky enough to have a professional wildlife and nature photographer on board (a passenger), who was a great bloke and really generous with the other passengerswith sharing tips and showing us some of his work - unreal. Must say, there was some serious photography equipment on board, from many of the passengers. You can't really go wrong down there though for quality material and subject matter.

How I natter eh? Ok, moving on, even with these incredibly calm conditions, it was still about a 36 hour crossing before we saw land. The next 4 photos are of the South Shetland Islands - part of an Antarctic archaepelego (please don't expect me to be able to spell that - I can't even say it right!! You know, string of islands...!)

We'd seen our first iceberg way before the land sighting, and boy was I excited!! It's funny now, cos I took stacks of pictures of icebergs way in the distance in the early sightings, and when I look back at the photos of what was to come, they were pretty poxy! I'm looking forward to the missive about the icebergs - they'll blow you away!! My highlight for sure! I've digressed again.... the last photo here was at about 8.45 pm, 2nd of jan, not long before we did our first landing...on Desolation Island, Latitude 60 degrees 55'S, and Longitude 60 degrees 21'W. We'd made it unscathed, with sensory overload to come...

Next instalment soon!

Lib

by the way, none of my photos have been edited/photoshop-ed/altered in any way - this is how it looked folks.