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Antarctica and Back to Ushuaia

Posted by Jim St. George on February 11, 2026

Posted in: Antarctica. Leave a Comment

Here we are at Damoy Point on Weincke Island. The hut in back of us was once the southernmost air terminal waiting room, used by researchers coming and going though it is no longer in use. And note the snow falling. Here we are in the middle of the southern summer and we were regularly getting these beautiful light snowfalls.

We had two more days along the Antarctic peninsula and then two days across the infamous Drake Passage to finish this 17-day loop in the deep south. The scenery has been simply spectacular, unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before. We would just be in awe over and over again as one iceberg or glacier-clad mountain would pass by. The beauty of this region has been everything we could have hoped for.

The weather has been pretty great too. The expedition crew tell us that it’s really unusual to not have a single excursion canceled because of bad weather but we’ve been able to make every landing that was planned. Over these last two days there were two real highlights. First was something over an hour of sea kayaking. You dress in a pretty intensive wet suit – flipping in a kayak is always a possibility – and then off you go, maybe 14 of us with a couple guides. Just being that close to the water and ice was very cool. And no, neither we nor any of our ship mates flipped though I was a little intimidated by just how unstable we were out there.

Here we are trying desperately not to capsize

The other highlight was a zodiac tour we did in some strait between Antarctic islands. There were a bunch of interesting icebergs, a bunch of penguins, and even a few seals. The area was just teaming with whales though. For most of the hour-plus we were out you’d see a whale here and there, sometimes swimming with maybe their back showing, occasionally going into a deep dive and showing its fluke.

As we were heading back to the ship, though, seemingly done with the adventure, the back of a whale suddenly appeared just a little in front of us, closer than we’d ever been to a whale; the driver immediately cut the engine. The whale disappeared for a couple of seconds but then leaped out of the water – breaching, it’s called. And then he (she?) repeated it two or three more times though the later ones were somewhat further from our zodiac. Truly awe inspiring. Even our zodiac driver, who spends most of his life in polar regions, said he’s never been so close to a breaching whale.

This was simply amazing, awe inspiring in the best way. It’s worth noting that while I caught the breaching whale on my camera this shot was taken by Lloyd, our Australian friend. He just captured it perfectly.

The final challenge for the cruise was the Drake Passage, the 500-mile waterway that separates Antarctica from South America. It is often considered the most treacherous passage on earth, with waves sometimes reaching 40 feet; when it’s rough it’s known as the Drake Shake. But it can be calm and then is known as the Drake Lake. Well, our crossing wasn’t exactly a lake but it was way closer to that than the monster seas that are possible here. On balance I suppose that’s a good thing, though I have to admit I was looking forward to a little excitement.

What Antarctic blog would be complete without pictures of penguins? Our whale-watching zodiac cruise included a little intermission entertainment, watching this cute penguin leaping out of the water trying to get up on the iceberg with his friends. This leap failed but he did eventually make it.

And thus ends our Antarctica cruise. Good food, lots of time to read, some great expeditions, stunning scenery, more whales than I’d dreamed of seeing, and a LOT of penguins. I’m ready to be back on dry land again though and particularly eager to not listen to the captain’s announcements any more – Mark & I just find him super annoying. To say the least, he’s not nearly as amusing as he thinks he is.

From here now it’s off to Explora El Chaltén for six nights of hiking and whatever else you do in Patagonia.

Water, ice, rocks. A lot of that down here.

Gorgeous shapes and colors

I thought this looked like a dog’s head but the Australians said it was a kangaroo

Mile after mile looking like this

And this

The blue ice was pretty impressive too

In case you don’t recognize him, that’s Mark in the front of the kayak with water and ice all around us

More kayaking

Our kayaks being readied for us

A very hazy sun peaking through. This is what qualifies as really good weather down here.

Fiona and Lloyd. He’s taken several of the best pictures of us (and the whale…).

Me and Fiona

Lloyd, Mark, Fiona, & Jim

Me and Mark on the zodiac

Looks like he’s skiing but those are just hiking poles. Decidedly useful when going down steep, icy hills.

A penguin! And snow!

More penguins, more iceberg. Note the bird standing watch at the top of that column.

And another penguin trying – and failing – to leap onto the iceberg

Two whales there, one diving and showing its fluke

This was mostly what we saw of the whales

This was my somewhat inferior shot

Le Lyrial at rest while we’re out watching whales

And finally, Lloyd’s portrait of me!

South Georgia, Part II

Posted by Jim St. George on February 4, 2026

Posted in: South Georgia, United Kingdom. Leave a Comment

Mark at Saint Andrew’s Bay

We spent two more days on South Georgia Island, making two landings each day along the northern coast of the island to see more penguins and more seals. We have now seen a lot of king penguins and learned how to scare away fur seals that want to get a little too close.

First stop was Grytviken, once the foremost whaling station on South Georgia. During the whaling season, typically October to March, up to 400 men along with the families of senior executives lived in the village, while the population shrunk to just a maintenance crew of under 100 in the long, dark winters. Untold thousands of whales were processed here before overfishing made continued operations uneconomical; the station was closed in 1962.

A highlight of our stop in Grytviken was a 4 kilometer hike up to the top of a ridge

In recent years a significant environmental cleanup was undertaken so that it is now safe for tourists like us to disembark and walk around what is essentially a ghost town with some of the old buildings and equipment, along with an abandoned whaling ship, still standing. There is even a little museum and gift store, along with a cemetery to visit. The cemetery is significant as the final resting place of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, whose attempt to cross Antarctica on foot led to disaster when his ship Endurance was trapped in pack ice.

Some of the old equipment and storage tanks rusting away in Grytviken along with a renovated Lutheran church in the background

Next up after a couple hours at sea was Ocean Harbor, another landing with more seals and penguins. The highlight here was the opportunity to go on a small group hike up to a ridge overlooking the harbor. Not that there was anything great to see or anything particularly interesting about the hike but it was more about a chance to stretch your legs a little more than we have typically been doing.

Here I am high above Ocean Harbor enjoying the view and the fabulous weather

The next day two more days of mostly the same – two stops, more penguins and seals. To be honest I probably would have preferred a trip that was one day shorter and just dropped these last two excursions. It’s great to see these massive groups of penguins and fun to watch the fur seals cavorting around (and the elephant seals just lying around) but after a while the shore excursions just started to all look alike. The good news though is that we’ve had really great weather, or at least great compared to what the weather is more typically like down here. Our shore excursions have been almost completely rain-free and the temperatures have been in the mid-40s. Not bad, so far at least.

Meanwhile life on board is relaxing. Lots of time to read (Mark read Alfred Lansing’s classic story about the Shackleton voyage Endurance at the start of this trip and I’m reading it now…), some time at the gym, lots of good meals. The evening entertainment has been fun if not the quality we get in New York but who can complain if it invites a bunch of mostly old people to get out on the dance floor for a while?

Now it’s on to two days at sea before we make landing on the Antarctic Peninsula.

A massive penguin colony at Saint Andrew’s Bay

Another even larger colony at Gold Harbor, this time with a hanging glacier looming above. We were hoping it would calve while we were there but it didn’t cooperate.

Another view of Gold Harbor

A cute little fur seal. The adult seals were sometimes a little aggressive and we had to learn to intimidate them to scare them back.

Elephant seals cuddling at Grytviken

Some penguins on a spit of land separating the ocean from a pool at the bottom of a glacier

A snowy sheathbill hanging out on deck. I was in a lounge reading and the petrels would come up to the floor-to-ceiling windows and just peck, peck, peck at them. Really annoying!

The elephant seals lie around a lot

Every so often though two of them would stir, roar at each other for a few seconds, and then go back to … this

A fur seal chatting with us

Don’t be fooled – that little rise was maybe three or four feet high

Here we are at the top of our climb near Grytviken

Did I mention penguins? In this case the seal and penguins were actually fighting a bit; ultimately the penguins just walked away.

Life at sea

The view from our cabin

And finally, here is Mark with our Aussie friends Lloyd, Guy, Amanda, & Fiona

The Falkland Islands

Posted by Jim St. George on January 29, 2026

Posted in: Falkland Islands, South America, United Kingdom. Leave a Comment

Here we are in our red Ponant parkas on the first excursion to see penguins. We’re confident we’re going to see a lot more of them.

As previously noted, Mark and I are not cruise people. Yet here we are again, on a cruise! In this case it makes more sense though insofar as we are on the Great Austral Loop, an 18-day voyage from Ushuaia to the Falkland Islands, on to the South Georgia Islands, and continuing to Antarctica before crossing the Drake Passage back to Ushuaia. These are, after all, places you can’t really see except on an expedition cruise like this. A very different experience from our Caribbean cruise in December.

Leaving Ushuaia in the Beagle Channel. The weather has been notably variable, sometimes grey and cloudy like this, other times bright and sunny.

First up was the departure from Ushuaia, several hours through the Beagle Channel. The Channel, of course, is named for the HMS Beagle, the famed ship that took Charles Darwin around the world and led to his development of the theory of evolution. He did indeed sail down the east coast of South America, out to the Falklands, and through this very channel on his way around to the Galapagos and ultimately across the Pacific.

One of the things I learned from a lecture onboard was that the captain of the Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, was an interesting guy in his own way. FitzRoy later became Governor of New Zealand, and, on his return to England built a system of barometers at ports around England. Those barometers enabled him to begin the first weather forecasting, and in fact he coined the phrase “weather forecast.” And then he had a religious conversion, became a devout fundamentalist, argued bitterly against Darwin’s theory of evolution, and eventually committed suicide. Strange story.

The view from a day at sea

Back to our trip. We set off from Ushuaia in the evening and then had a full day at sea before anchoring the next morning off New Island in the Falklands. It’s been a long time – nearly 50 years! – since I spent extended days at sea and so far at least I still like it. Back then of course I was working and now I’m not so this is definitely an improvement. The food and accommodations here are better too. But it still has a similar feel of just being in the middle of nothing, where nothing happens. We have several days at sea on this cruise so Mark & I both have a bunch of books, there’s a small gym onboard, and there will be some hopefully interesting lectures to attend. We’ll see how much we enjoy this forced inactivity after a few more days.

Our first stops then were a couple islands in the Falklands on Day 3 of the cruise. We anchored off New Island on the western edge of the Falklands and took a zodiac ride maybe 10 minutes onto the island, getting a LOT of water on the way; there’s a reason they require you to have waterproof gear. Then it was a 15- or 20-minute walk across to a colony of southern rockhopper penguins. Thousands and thousands of penguins, along with soaring albatrosses and imperial cormorants. As we’d been warned the smell of all those penguins can be overwhelming but it’s fun to watch them … well, do pretty much nothing but stand around most of the time.

There will be a lot of penguin pictures

Back onboard we then sailed up to the northern part of the Islands and in the late afternoon made another landing to see more penguins, this time gentoo penguins. Now there were waves of penguins coming ashore. It was great fun to watch them swimming together, leaping out of the water like dolphins, and then coming in. The little description the ship gives us says that “with some luck” we might see a sea lion waiting for his next meal. Well, we missed it by maybe 30 minutes: a big sea lion had hung around until an unfortunate penguin got closer than it should have and *Bang!* the sea lion grabbed it and ate it. All the excitement was over though by the time we got there. What I didn’t know until we were back onboard was that an Australian Mark & I had met the first day actually captured the whole thing on video. It was just like watching a National Geographic film. Certainly the “graphic” part showing the sea lion walking around with parts of the penguin hanging out of its mouth.

What did I learn about the Falklands? There was an interesting 20- or 30-minute lecture the day before we went ashore (purely voluntary) about the war and its aftermath. During the colonial period there was a lot of back-and-forth between the French, Spanish, English, and Argentinians as to who would control the Falklands and its central position in managing the fisheries in the area. Ultimately the British won and it’s been an overseas possession since the mid-19th century. The population of under 4,000 people is mostly descendants of British settlers and strongly support British sovereignty over the islands.

Yeah, lots of penguin pictures

Argentina though has never accepted British rule and considers the islands – Las Malvinas – illegally occupied territory. So in the early 1980s a U.S.-supported military dictatorship in Argentina wasn’t doing well and in a classic “Wag the Dog” scenario to distract from the “Dirty War” and economic chaos decided to go take the islands back. The Argentine people would love it and the dictator would survive to continue ruling.

After all, would Britain even bother with defending an island with just a couple thousand people 8,000 miles away? Even if they wanted to could they support supply lines at that distance? Reagan had supported the military dictatorship and suggested maybe it was OK to let Argentina take it. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, though, Iron Lady that she was, not so much. It took a couple months but she sent an armada down and kicked a little butt. Argentina’s loss led directly to the collapse of the military regime and the development of a democratic government. The cause, though – recovering Las Malvinas – remains a powerful political issue in Argentina to this day.

Life on board can be decidedly pleasant. I have a suspicion warm sunshine will not be the norm as we head deeper into these remote seas.

Now, as to our experience on the ship? The cruise is run by Ponant, a French luxury cruise line. And while it’s probably way better than a lot of cruise lines, and a guy at our hotel in Buenos Aires who had just been on a Ponant cruise to Antarctica had raved about it … well, this is no Ritz-Carlton. Not to complain too much but the food just hasn’t been as great as we’d hoped on a French boat. Some has been really good, and the wines are pretty good, but some of it has been unimpressive. I mean one day they had steak tartare on the menu and it just wasn’t very good. On a French ship!

And here’s a great little story. On the evening of the first full day onboard the schedule included the Captain’s Gala Evening, welcome cocktails with the Captain and staff. We were annoyed that first there was a long reception line to have your picture taken with the Captain – that we’re never going to see because I’m sure you have to buy the photo package to get it – and then … there were no cocktails! They had champagne, good champagne, but there were no cocktails at a cocktail reception for goodness sakes. Very strange indeed.

Next up, after a few days at sea, the South Georgia Islands.

While there are some misses, sometimes the food is really good. The main restaurant is on the 2nd deck so you get a great close-up view of the rolling waves.