Team: The expedition is made up of 4 crew members for 2 rowing positions. The team will rotate, rowing 2 hours on / 2 hours off for 24 hours a day.

Boat Shape: Unlike traditional rowboats, the rowing vessel is built with the latest in rowing technology. The team will have two watertight cabins – one is for sleeping and the other is for gear and food.

Glorious GearPosted by Trinity on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Nearly four months and over one thousand kilometers on the trail, we can tell you the good (our packs), the bad (Steripen), and the ugly (Sarah's t-shirt) with regard to our gear. We could write a short book on the pros, cons, modifications, and I-wish-it-could-do-this-ideas for our gear. For now, we'll stick to what we've left behind, added along the way, what's wearing out the fastest, and a few of our favorite items. For more detail (you gearheads), check out the redlined gear lists on our edited gear page.

Port Lockroy — If there is a human population center along the Antarctic Peninsula, this is it. While there may be hundreds of thousands of penguins, tens of thousands of seals, whales and sea birds that call this remote stretch home, few people do.

But at the height of the austral summer season — December-February — more people congregate in the protected harbor here at the former ‘Camp A’ of the British Antarctic Survey than anywhere else for many thousands of miles, if temporarily. (The next most populated place in Antarctica would be the American base at McMurdo, home to 1,200 scientists and support crew during the summer months, but located on the opposite side of the continent.)

Whale Tail

The former refuge hut has been turned into a mini-museum and gift shop, demanding a mostly volunteer staff to run it and keep the small island relatively tidy (it is surrounded by breeding Gentoo penguins, everywhere …) for the tourist boats that arrive, often twice a day.

When we go ashore at Goudier Island we find an all-women staff of four plus a visiting guide from one of the tourist ships who’s spending ten days here helping out. The two men are here temporarily, installing video cameras around the hut so the penguin colonies can be monitored remotely during the eight months no humans live here.

I had a slightly selfish interest for pulling into Lockroy; a pair of kayaks I’d asked to be dropped off by theNational Geographic Explorer had been stashed alongside the residents’ Quonset hut a few weeks ago. We find them, bright red and yellow polyeurethane wrapped in plastic badly deteriorated by the ozone-free sun that shines brightly here during the summer thanks to the still-present hole in the atmosphere that grows over the deep, deep south this time of year.

The even-more-temporary residents of Lockroy are those that arrive by private sailboat, a growing phenomenon, seeking well-known shelter from Antarctica’s fiercest winds. Twenty years ago, it would be rare to see a sailboat here, maybe one or two during a complete summer season. Today there are almost always five or six boats at anchor in this bay alone.

Skip Novak, the owner of the Pelagic Australis that I’ve chartered, has been coming to the Peninsula by small boat since 1988 and is one of a the charter members in a very small (3 or 4?) club of pioneers. He is on board with us and regales us nightly with stories of those early days when they used to tap into the fuel deposits left behind at abandoned science bases, debauched nights in Ushuaia’s lone strip club (the Tropicana, still there) at trip’s end and the always odd and colorful characters who initially came here in small boats against the advice of virtually everyone.

We anchor at Lockroy for three nights, filming in the iceberg-studded bays nearby, diving under icebergs and photographing the whalebones left on the sea floor by rapacious oil barons of a century ago. During those days a half-dozen sailboats anchor nearby:

An Italian couple on their private boat pull in, crewed by a staff of six sailors. The report from its skipper, who used to work for Skip, is that they are already bored by the penguins and ice and will most likely cut an anticipated 30 day trip short by two weeks. A Brit in a plastic sailboat carrying four friends comes and goes from the anchorage on day trips. Daily they return with a slightly fearful look in their eye and worried tone in their details; their boat is certainly not cut out for bashing through ice and this season there is a lot of still-frozen sea ice out there in the passes.

Another small plastic boat, the Paradise, operates out of Ushuaia and specializes in bringing (mostly French) climbers to the Peninsula. In my 20 years coming to this part of the world, on top of the general tourist boom the biggest change has been that the adventuring crowd has finally found ways of getting here. The result is lots of skiers and climbers are chartering small boats and spending their days exploring new peaks and routes. While most of the biggest mountains along the Peninsula have been previously climbed (the tallest is Mt. Francais, at nearly 9,256 feet) there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of smaller ones no one has ever stood atop or ski traversed.

But the number of sailboats we see is down from a few years ago; then we pulled into Lockroy and there were ten boats. Similarly general tourist visits are down; four years ago Lockroy had a record 18,000 visitors by cruise boats, this year they anticipate 13,000. The record high for visitors to the Peninsula was more than 35,000 in 2008; this year it will be just over 20,000. Global economic woes are an explanation for the drop, as is the elimination of most of the giant cruise boat visits thanks to a change in law ruling out the heavy fuels they use from operating along the Peninsula.

One boat we’re keeping our eyes out for left Ushuaia a couple days before we did, stacked with nine British special forces soldiers down here for “drills.” We’d run into a similar group a few years ago — similarly 8 men and 1 woman — and they’d welcomed us into various anchorages along the Peninsula with bagpipes, proper British tea and good Scotch.

More traditionally for Antarctica we meet up with a handful of boats being run by second-generation sailors, who have inherited a passion for the place by essentially growing up here … both a job and lineage no one could have imagined just fifty years ago when the international treaty that governs the continent was written. The word “tourism” is never mentioned in that original agreement.

Port Lockroy — If there is a human population center along the Antarctic Peninsula, this is it. While there may be hundreds of thousands of penguins, tens of thousands of seals, whales and sea birds that call this remote stretch home, few people do.

But at the height of the austral summer season — December-February — more people congregate in the protected harbor here at the former ‘Camp A’ of the British Antarctic Survey than anywhere else for many thousands of miles, if temporarily. (The next most populated place in Antarctica would be the American base at McMurdo, home to 1,200 scientists and support crew during the summer months, but located on the opposite side of the continent.)

Whale Tail

The former refuge hut has been turned into a mini-museum and gift shop, demanding a mostly volunteer staff to run it and keep the small island relatively tidy (it is surrounded by breeding Gentoo penguins, everywhere …) for the tourist boats that arrive, often twice a day.

When we go ashore at Goudier Island we find an all-women staff of four plus a visiting guide from one of the tourist ships who’s spending ten days here helping out. The two men are here temporarily, installing video cameras around the hut so the penguin colonies can be monitored remotely during the eight months no humans live here.

I had a slightly selfish interest for pulling into Lockroy; a pair of kayaks I’d asked to be dropped off by theNational Geographic Explorer had been stashed alongside the residents’ Quonset hut a few weeks ago. We find them, bright red and yellow polyeurethane wrapped in plastic badly deteriorated by the ozone-free sun that shines brightly here during the summer thanks to the still-present hole in the atmosphere that grows over the deep, deep south this time of year.

The even-more-temporary residents of Lockroy are those that arrive by private sailboat, a growing phenomenon, seeking well-known shelter from Antarctica’s fiercest winds. Twenty years ago, it would be rare to see a sailboat here, maybe one or two during a complete summer season. Today there are almost always five or six boats at anchor in this bay alone.

Skip Novak, the owner of the Pelagic Australis that I’ve chartered, has been coming to the Peninsula by small boat since 1988 and is one of a the charter members in a very small (3 or 4?) club of pioneers. He is on board with us and regales us nightly with stories of those early days when they used to tap into the fuel deposits left behind at abandoned science bases, debauched nights in Ushuaia’s lone strip club (the Tropicana, still there) at trip’s end and the always odd and colorful characters who initially came here in small boats against the advice of virtually everyone.

We anchor at Lockroy for three nights, filming in the iceberg-studded bays nearby, diving under icebergs and photographing the whalebones left on the sea floor by rapacious oil barons of a century ago. During those days a half-dozen sailboats anchor nearby:

An Italian couple on their private boat pull in, crewed by a staff of six sailors. The report from its skipper, who used to work for Skip, is that they are already bored by the penguins and ice and will most likely cut an anticipated 30 day trip short by two weeks. A Brit in a plastic sailboat carrying four friends comes and goes from the anchorage on day trips. Daily they return with a slightly fearful look in their eye and worried tone in their details; their boat is certainly not cut out for bashing through ice and this season there is a lot of still-frozen sea ice out there in the passes.

Another small plastic boat, the Paradise, operates out of Ushuaia and specializes in bringing (mostly French) climbers to the Peninsula. In my 20 years coming to this part of the world, on top of the general tourist boom the biggest change has been that the adventuring crowd has finally found ways of getting here. The result is lots of skiers and climbers are chartering small boats and spending their days exploring new peaks and routes. While most of the biggest mountains along the Peninsula have been previously climbed (the tallest is Mt. Francais, at nearly 9,256 feet) there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of smaller ones no one has ever stood atop or ski traversed.

But the number of sailboats we see is down from a few years ago; then we pulled into Lockroy and there were ten boats. Similarly general tourist visits are down; four years ago Lockroy had a record 18,000 visitors by cruise boats, this year they anticipate 13,000. The record high for visitors to the Peninsula was more than 35,000 in 2008; this year it will be just over 20,000. Global economic woes are an explanation for the drop, as is the elimination of most of the giant cruise boat visits thanks to a change in law ruling out the heavy fuels they use from operating along the Peninsula.

One boat we’re keeping our eyes out for left Ushuaia a couple days before we did, stacked with nine British special forces soldiers down here for “drills.” We’d run into a similar group a few years ago — similarly 8 men and 1 woman — and they’d welcomed us into various anchorages along the Peninsula with bagpipes, proper British tea and good Scotch.

More traditionally for Antarctica we meet up with a handful of boats being run by second-generation sailors, who have inherited a passion for the place by essentially growing up here … both a job and lineage no one could have imagined just fifty years ago when the international treaty that governs the continent was written. The word “tourism” is never mentioned in that original agreement.

Right on time!Posted by Trinity on Thursday, January 19, 2012We finally have been able to get the pictures from our Villa O'Higgins to Cochrane leg (when we stayed with gaucho Don Rial) on the blog. Check that blog post out here: Thankful for Wine.

While Shelley was sipping "dirty bananas" on the beach at her brother's wedding, Sarah and I spent the last two weeks sipping homebrews throughout the hut ("refugio") system surrounding El Bolson. Along with their many perks (homebrews, homemade bread, tarts, pizza, actual trails) came some unanticipated hurdles such as having to register at each refugio so they can keep tabs on you and abiding by specific hiking schedules. As a result of our recent bouts with flexibility, we've developed a new mantra- as we're taking off on the trail at an unplanned hour, stopping for lunch at 4pm, or waking up at 10am, we'll exclaim, "right on time!".

The following summaries describe our experiences at each refugio along with our objectives and (mostly unrealized) outcomes for each day. In addition, we have included some posted vs. actual time and distance comparisons. Trail distances were not posted for most of the refugios - the established hiking areas we have visited in South America (Torres del Paine, El Chalten) quote times instead of distance.Jan 4 - Puesto (300m total elevation gain)Posted distance / GPS distance: 12km / 8km (okay, so we are hiking animals at this point but if the trail was actually 12km uphill, we'd be trail running!)Posted timing / our time: 4.5hrs / 2.5hrsexcludes distance and timing from Lago Puelo to trailheadObjective: Hike to refugio Motoco from the town Lago PueloOutcome: Hiked to the outpost at the midway point. Started hiking later than anticipated (6:30pm) after troubleshooting Shelley's flight situation.

• Wicked hot and also hazy from being sandwiched between Volcano Puyehue to the north and the Epuyen fire to the south.
• Sarah puked from eating her rice too fast
• Felt cleansed after dropping a bunch of retired gear with Shelley (down pants, fleece vests among some other small items - stay tuned for a gear post)

We woke tied-off to the rusted hulk of a half-sunken Norwegian whaling ship. Its story is legend along the Peninsula for having caught fire a century ago during a sail-away party, its stores of whale oil afire lighting up the sky for several days. Now it is just another ruined reminder of those boom days when Antarctica’s whales were one of the world’s biggest producers of oil for lighting and heat.

Today is one of those days down here that you wish you could be sitting by some kind of warm fire, whether in the comfort of your living room or a preferably a bonfire. At eight this morning it is thirty-four degrees and raining, conditions which began yesterday and promise to be with us for at least two more. Thanks to satellite imagery we are able to track the weather up to five days in advance, more or less; at the very least we know when high and low pressure systems are on the way and from what direction to expect the winds.

Wet Penguins

Loading into a hypalon Zodiac — Graham Charles, an old friend of mine and great Kiwi explorer, Skip Novak, a longtime sail racer and owner of the “Pelagic Australis” that sailed us to Antarctica and myself — round the southwestern edge of Enterprise Island to have a look at the art show of grounded icebergs that gather in the relatively shallow waters each summer season.

We are not disappointed. Twenty and thirty foot tall icebergs litter the alley. One has a pair of small arches carved through it by wind and waves. Another has a sheer wall, like smooth granite, rising straight out of the cold sea. Another is ridged by undulations carved into its underside over many years before it rolled onto its side.

Graham, who has kayaked the length of the Peninsula and works every season as an expedition leader aboard one of the 30+ tourist ships that come south each season, is almost apologetic for the rain and gray. “It’s so unusual these days to see so many back to back days without sun. We’ve gotten spoiled by weeks recently where there’s been nothing but blue sky and glassy seas.”

Skip, who first sailed to Antarctica in the early 1980s and is one of a small handful of charter boat captains whose boats have returned each season since, agrees. “But even when you say that, I think back to conditions twenty years ago when we had far more wind. And back then, every morning you’d wake up to snow on the boat, which we almost never see now. It’s simply too warm to snow.”

Perhaps the most beautiful part of Antarctica, even on a gray, misty day, is just how much it changes from year to year. I’ve been to this corner of Enterprise more than a dozen times and the ice that surrounds it changes every 15 minutes. Sometimes by the light glancing off it or, like today, the mist that envelops it, or the wind and waves moving it up and down, from side to side, threatening to flip it onto its side.

Without question the biggest change to come to the Peninsula in my 20 years of experience down here is the weather. Today during the austral summer, November to February, each year is warmer and wetter. It’s not just my imagination: Data collected at the various science bases along this stretch of the continent detail that air and sea temperatures have risen dramatically in the past 40 years. During the summer, average temps have risen up 5 to 10 degrees F; year round, the average temps along the Peninsula, including during its long, cold, dark winters, have raised by up to 18 degrees.

The warmer conditions are relevant to us because they deliver more precipitation, i.e. rain. Our hope is that this will be a summer filled with many clear days, in large part because we’re trying to capture Antarctica in 3D … and we don’t want the audience to come away thinking the place is only gray, misty and wet.

Conditions have been making filming tricky during these early days of our exploration. A drop of snow or salty sea spray on the 18” mirror or one of two camera lenses on the Epic 3D rig means lots of stopping and starting, stopping and starting. The result is long days and lots of waiting.

But the delays are worth it. The beauty down here is that when the sun does shine it’s like watching a Disney film on hallucinogens, surrounded everywhere you look by ice in its thousands of forms.

When one or two people tell us we have to do this or that, we note it and see if it fits in. By the time the sixth person told us we have to raft "the Fu" we decided to escape the heat of summer and stop off in Futaleufu to take on the world famous river. Having rafted in the States, we were prepared to take on class IV sections but we were quickly persuaded to join a group for a more intense full day trip. The 20-foot waves and class V sections gave our arms a good workout. Unforgettable!