Sam and Lee's big adventure

Way Down South

An Epic Adventure to The Ice

Antarctica. The White Continent. The 7^th Continent. The Frozen Continent. Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Southern Land). The Ice. Antarctica is known by many different names, the above are just some. But I really like ‘The Ice’. To me this evokes a lot of the characteristics that make Antarctica such an amazing place to visit. Cold and beautiful, remote and desolate, disconnected from civilization and a wildlife haven, a land frozen in time both figuratively and literally.

Along with fellow Epic guide Lee Fuller, we headed down almost as far south as you can go, on a fly cruise to Antarctica with our partners who run a tight ship of an operation. The idea is that you make your way to Punta Arenas, close to Chiles’ southern most tip, in time for a pre-trip briefing and dinner to meet your fellow travellers. After a fun afternoon and evening, there is a short 2 hour charter flight across the Drake Passage to King George Island. This cuts out the need to sail across the Drake, which takes about 2 days, and gets you straight into the calmer waters surrounding the Antarctic peninsula. The result is that you can maximize your time in the wildlife and scenery rich areas of The Ice without the hassle of having to sail down there. For us, this is a big benefit.

Now you have arrived. Icebergs drift past the island, snow and rock abounds and some friendly gentoo penguins form a welcome party as you head to the beach, past the Chilean and Russian Antarctic bases to board the impressive Magellan Explorer. This small, state of the art, ship has been purpose built for Antarctica and specifically these fly in cruises we were on. The glazed observation lounge means you can spot whales while ordering your G&T at the bar. The specific lecture room allows you to delve deeper into the specifics of The Ice and the wildlife you will be seeing as portrayed by the excellent expedition team. And the gym and sauna are a couple of creature comforts that add to your overall experience, just to name a few.

Once aboard you can quickly settle into a routine of two planned excursions a day, interspersed by three fantastic meals that will make you eat more than you probably wanted too. This is supplemented by interactive lectures and talks about various facets of Antarctica; mammals, birds, krill (very important) and the southern ocean currents, Antarctic history and a macro vision of how Antarctica influences the rest of the world, just to name a few. But of course, the excursions are a highlight. Saying this, we got some fantastic photos from the bow of the ship with whales coming close by, rafts of penguins drifting past, the occasional seal resting on one of the countless icebergs that drifted by.. My biggest piece of advice to anyone going or considering going, is to always be on the lookout for interesting things, as there are very often amazing things to see as you sail by! And if it’s exceptional, such as orcas, you may even stop the ship for an impromptu excursion in the zodiacs!

We had too many amazing excursions to run through them all, so I will focus on one day that was filled to the brim with fun, laughter, amazing landscapes, incredible wildlife encounters and topped off with a plunge into the icy polar waters. It started with us cruising through the famous Lemaire Channel at sunrise. This spectacular area gave us unparalleled up-close  views of icebergs and steep sided glaciers with the warm sunrise making them glow. There were many humpback and minke whales in the channel and we passed a couple of gentoo penguin colonies.

While having breakfast snaking through the channel, I spotted something on an iceberg which turned out to be a leopard seal resting after a kill. Unfortunately, I had seen it late (distracted by another delicious breakfast) and we were too far past it to get any decent photos. Luckily my chance would return later. It was time to get into the Zodiacs after breakfast, I assembled our ‘team’ of similarly thinking adventurous travellers and we headed out with our fearless photographic expedition guide, Anais. The sun was shining and we headed out through some pancake ice (sea ice that is starting to form as winter arrives) underneath a vivid blue sky painted with wispy cirrus clouds.

We skirted icebergs and push through various forms of sea ice (there’s a theme here!) as we entered a bay that is (was) literally uncharted on the map. The Magellan Explorer was mapping the seabed with its sonar to be uploaded and provide other ships with an idea of depth and rocks etc. We were literally somewhere that no one had been before and contributing to the charting of it. I found that really cool! While we were cruising around taking in the sheer beauty of the Ice, I spotted a Weddell seal resting on a rock, from quite a way away, thanks to my trusty Swarovski binoculars! No one else believed me, but I insisted and we went over to take a look. As we got closer, there was indeed a Weddell seal posing nicely on a rock and a lone gentoo penguin close by. This was a bit strange as all the penguins we had seen so far, and there had been a lot, we in large groups ashore or rafts of 10s swimming in the ocean. So one on its own did puzzle us. We took some photos of both the seal and the penguin and then started to look for a route back to the ship, as our exploring had taken us around some large icebergs and through a lot of sea ice. We were exploring as a pair of zodiacs, as is the rule, when suddenly between us, the otherwise calm water boiled and we quickly knew why the penguin was alone and out on dry land. A leopard seal, one of the apex predators down here, had come over to investigate us.

The seal disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and it had all of us peering over the edge of our boat into the inky-blue abyss trying to catch a glimpse of this animal we all so badly wanted to see. Anais, our guide, looked over the stern of the zodiac once we had stopped and got the fright of her life as she can face to face, within inches, of the curious leopard seal who had stuck his head out of the water to get a better look at us! We then had about half an hour of the seal playfully swimming around and between the boats and giving us all a real show. Lee, my fellow Epic guide, managed to film him showcasing his incredible speed and agility underwater as he swam figure of 8 loops right in front of us. He then rewarded me with an unforgettable moment when he surfaced and came face to face with me. Something I will never forget. We were now very late to get back to the ship, but no one cared having had the most incredible leopard seal sighting any of us could have dreamed of.

On our way back, we collectively decided the way to celebrate and top off this amazing wildlife sighting would be to grab some of the purest Antarctic ice we could find and bring it back to enhance our celebratory whiskies and G&Ts. We found a great piece of roughly 120,000 year old ice that would make our drinks taste just that little bit sweeter. But little did we know, we had one more experience to toast to at the end of the day.

If you had the opportunity to jump into polar waters, just for the sake of saying you did it and didn’t pass up the chance, would you do it? I answered that question for myself with a resounding YES! That afternoon, Lee, myself and about half the ship stripped down to our swimmers (I had shorts with a chameleon on, a little nod to Africa) and braved the 1°C, frigid water that was forming ice to push ourselves and partake in a polar plunge at the point furthest south that we reached (65°S,64°W). Standing and waiting in my shorts for others to go first (how chivalrous, I know) was plenty cold enough, and I tried not to think too much about the actual plunge. When it was my turn, they tied a rope around me, just in case, I said ‘I think this may be cold’ and in I jumped. It was cold. It was salty. It was an experience. But most of all, it was exhilarating! I felt amazing just afterwards and that persisted for the rest of the afternoon and evening, helped somewhat by the vodka shot straight after and then the whiskies on Antarctica rocks while we all celebrated what was, a truly amazing and unforgettable experience.

In all, just another Epic day in Antarctica.

Lee was quick enough to record this amazing interaction with a leopard seal checking us out in the zodiac.

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Photography:Sam Wallace and Lee Fuller