In a few days time Heidi, Bill and I will be heading off on an amazing trip to Antarctica. This trip has been in the planning stages for a couple of years now. Heidi found out that the friend that we travelled in Nepal with - David Sinclair had started up his own company called Islands and Ice Travel. David is also a keen and accomplished photographer, has had extensive experience in taking tours to many interesting and amazing places such as Antarctica. So we are fortunate to be going off on his inaugural trip to Antarctica aboard the Icebreaker 'Polar Pioneer'
Having signed up and paid the deposit for this trip we decided that it would be crazy to head all the way over there without experiencing parts of South America. The next year has been spent researching and booking places that we will be traveling in. Most of this has been done by Heidi our amazing in-house travel consultant. We will also be accompanied by Tejal, who, like us, when she heard about our plans for Antarctica wanted to be included.
I am not sure how much of this blog I will be able to add to on the way but hope to at least be able to maintain a record of each days activities
13 Jan First full day on the Polar Pioneer
Each night Martin would write on the whiteboard - which was conveniently outside our room - a schedule of the next morning. This was what he had written before hearing the news ... When we got up we noticed that the boat wasn’t moving. We soon found out why. One of the engines wasn’t functioning. After breakfast we gathered in the lounge for a briefing. A very serious briefing, explaining that we could not proceed with our journey due to the engine fault. There were not many dry eyes amongst us but everyone was accepting and remained stoic. From then on for most of the rest of the day we spent trying to work out what to do next, checking our insurance cover, deciding if we could pick up a berth on another vessel going to Antartica and wandering aimlessly around the boat trying to come to terms with what we had just heard. We did spend some worthwhile time enjoying the environment, bird spotting etc Cormorants This tiny dot is a seal jumping out of the water Black-Browed Albatross Tejal...
Have a wonderful trip. Looking forward to living vicariously :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on getting your blog up Linda. Please post lots of photos. Cheers,Laurie
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