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ANTARCTICA

From Ushuaia, Argentina, we cruised 12 days to Antarctica, through Beagle Channel and across the treacherous 400-mile Drake Passage, February 9-20, 2005. My father, my wife, a friend and I explored the frozen Antarctic Peninsula for 6 of the 12 days. Our voyage on the good ship Explorer was run by the excellent value tour company now called G Adventures (formerly GAP). We left winter in Seattle to enjoy summer in Buenos Aires, Patagonia (in Argentina & Chile), and Antarctica from February 3 to March 11, 2005.

Favorite photos from Antarctica


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Antarctica photo tips
  • Don’t approach penguins closer than 15 feet, according to Antarctic tourism rules. But if you lie down on the ground more than 15 feet away, curious Gentoo penguin chicks will often walk over to inspect you closely.
  • For best photography of wildlife and icebergs, get a telephoto lens 300mm or longer (≥450mm in terms of full frame) with optical image stabilization.
  • Bring a good DSLR or mirrorless camera with 11x (or greater) zoom lens as described in the BUY>CAMERAS menu.
Antarctica travel tips
  • Find a cruise ship with the fewest passengers (90-130) to increase your land excursion time. Only 100 people per ship are allowed on land at a given time.
  • The shortest Antarctic Cruise is 10 days, and we went for 12 days. If affordable, extend your cruise (to 22 days) to spectacular South Georgia Island to see vast colonies of Emperor Penguins.
  • Don’t forget a prescription medicine patch to prevent motion sickness on the rough Drake Passage (5 days round trip on treacherous seas)! We were very, very sick for a solid 24 hours until staggering around to find someone on board who was willing to give us the patch cure, which you simply attach to your neck.
After our trip in 2005, the M/S Explorer sank November 23, 2007

Just two and a half years after our successful trip on the M/S Explorer, the ship sank! In telling this harrowing story in November 2007, Reuters News Pictures Service published three of my M/S Explorer images from 2005. The Explorer, owned by Canadian travel company G.A.P. Adventures (renamed to G Adventures in 2011), took on water after hitting ice at 12:24 a.m. EST on Friday November 23, 2007. 154 passengers and crew climbed into lifeboats and drifted some six hours in calm waters. A Norwegian passenger boat picked them up and took them to Chile’s Antarctic Eduardo Frei base. There they were fed, clothed, checked by a doctor, and later flown to Punta Arenas, Chile. The ship sank hours after the passengers and crew were evacuated.

Antarctic wildlife, icebergs, and cruise ship photo show


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Deception Island photo show


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Ushuaia, Argentina photo show


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Global Warming

Since the industrial revolution began in the 1750s, humans have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by 51% (from 280ppm to 425ppm as of 2024) through burning fossil fuels, deforesting land, and grazing livestock.  The world’s climate scientists agree that human-caused carbon-compound gas emissions are accelerating climate change — rapidly melting glaciers and raising ocean levels worldwide. This grand warming experiment affects all life on earth, with an unknown endgame. Climate change may be most dire for subsistence farming societies in Africa and Asia. Industrialized nations have more riches and resources to adapt, if they can overcome political barriers and immigration instabilities.

  • The oceans absorb about 93% of the excess atmospheric warming caused by humans (IUCN 2015). Due to melting of glaciers on land and expansion of warming oceanwater, sea level is currently rising by about 1.3 inches per decade, and accelerating (EPA 2019).
  • Since the industrial revolution began, excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from humans has acidified the oceans by 30%. This change in ocean chemistry is faster than any known in the last 50 million years — with drastic affects likely on shellfish and fisheries. The oceans have absorbed a quarter of human greenhouse gas emissions since 1750, but higher acidity is slowing that absorption, slowing the oceans’ ability to buffer atmospheric CO2 (NOAA 2019).

Industrial nations must quickly replace fossil fuels with solar, wind, hydroelectric, and other renewable energy sources that are carbon neutral. Nuclear energy would be a good solution except for its serious problems with safety and long-term storage of radioactive waste. For example, Japan’s tragic 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami caused expensive nuclear plant meltdowns, forcing long-term evacuations of hundreds of thousands of residents.

A map of southern South America (Patagonia) marks cruise from Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego province of Argentina) across Drake Passage to Vernadsky Base run by Ukraine in Antarctica. Extent of winter and summer ice is indicated.

Climate change in Antarctica

Global warming is measurably highest in the Northern Hemisphere (which has the most land mass) and on the Antarctic Peninsula. The Antarctic Peninsula is a relatively small but climatically important piece of the continent of Antarctica which juts into the westward path of the strongest and fastest of all ocean currents, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC).

Two-thirds of the planet’s freshwater is frozen in Antarctica. Surprisingly, Antarctica is actually a desert in terms of annual precipitation — only 200 mm (8 inches) along the coast and much less inland. Warming deep ocean waters just off Antarctica’s continental shelf may be the biggest threat: if floating Antarctic ice shelves melt too fast over the sea, the pressure of land-based feeder glaciers will send extra ice to melt, thereby accelerating global sea level rise. The extra ice that flows off and melts from Antarctic land will be partly offset by increased snowfall over Antarctica expected as warming climate evaporates extra moisture into Antarctic air masses. Climate scientists are feverishly studying these complex questions:

  • An article in American Scientist Magazine July-August 2008 reports:
    “The average midwinter temperature here [at Palmer Station, on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula] has increased by 6 degrees Celsius since 1950; this is the highest rate of warming anywhere on the planet, five times the global average….Whereas the continent proper has not warmed appreciably in the past century, there has been a 3.4 degree increase in the mean annual temperature along the peninsula….If the trend continues,…[after] the middle of this century… sea ice will not form in most years, leading to a regime change in the ecosystem….We sound an urgent call to mitigate all the factors under human control that are contributing to global climate change.” The three scientists who wrote this speak with the authority of having “spent a collective total of 36 seasons at Palmer.”
  • Suggested reading:  National Geographic Magazine April 2020 and August 2007.

Read more about global warming, climate change, and lifestyle sustainability.

Recommended Patagonia, Argentina, Chile, and Antarctica books and maps

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