Circle Ahead: Very Far South
Two nautical charts are spread out on the nautical table
. The charts both show these waters have not been surveyed.
Using depth soundings, our captain charts a safe and steady course. This channel is new to him, though he's sailed the Antarctic many, many times.
A wet snow starts to fall as dusk settles in. Visibility is severely reduced. The icebergs that impeded the channel are harder to see as the huge snowflakes stick to the bridge windows.
We can rely on the radar to clearly show the floating impediments that loom ahead. The monitor clearly shows each berg in blaring orange.
One gigantic orange mass emanates from the screen. Three kilometers separate the ship from the mass.
Waiting until the one kilometer mark, the captain whispers his order. The helmsman silently moves the wheel and the ship alters course.
Through the falling snow and deep fog, we glimpse a tabular iceberg. This kind of berg can only be seen in the southern ocean.
Sporting straight sides that rise rapidly into the air, this berg is over one hundred feet tall. The top is very flat and very wide.
The sheer magnitude of Antarctica has dumbfounded me again. Attempting to reach the Antarctic Circle, we have been cruising aboard a polar-class vessel.
We hope to reach that imaginary vortex on the bottom of the globe. We'd passed extremely removed areas of land and some of the least life-filled places on the planet.
Even after being found in 1820, it took another 79 years before a human would live on it during winter. Explorers were quick to search for the South Pole, but soon perished.
Scientist came next. Now you don't have to be an independently-wealthy individual to travel to Antarctica.
Prices have fallen. You can cruise to Antarctica for about the same cost as visiting a Caribbean island.
The shape of Antarctica is similar to a manta ray with a curved tail. The manta ray's tail extends to within 500 miles of South America.
Home to the worst seas on the planet, this space is known as the Drake Passage. Passing through these waters, which have also been called the Slobbering Jaws of Hell? is a stiff price to pay to reach Antarctica.
One motherly passenger told us all to stow everything before going to bed, and to make sure that our cabin portholes were securely locked.
We left Ushuaia, the Argentine city on Tierra del Fuego, and crossed the calm waters of the Beagle Channel.
It's open ocean after that. We didn't see land for the next two days as we were tossed in rough water.
Extremely strong winds constantly blew. As waves broke over the bow, ocean spray shot up beyond my fourth deck window.
Passengers saw swells that were somewhere between 15 and 40 feet, though observers tended to see taller swells as their seasickness grew worse.
Two days out of South America, we found the Southern Ocean. A coastal sanctuary was my first view the next morning.
The land seemed to have a calming affect on the rough waters. The peaks of extremely tall mountains were covered in misty clouds.
The smooth, white glaciers showed stark contrast from the dark, angular mountains that stuck through them. The ice reaching the sea, is chopped and cracked.
It is full of fissures and falls into the water in frozen slabs. These mountains, which could have been in Everest's range, looked out of place sticking up out of the water.
Our Antarctic cruise reminded one passenger of the labor of childbirth. Of all the continents on earth, Antarctica averages the coldest, windiest, highest and driest statistics.
Though the surface holds seventy percent of the world's freshwater in reserve, Death Valley gets the same amount of precipitation as its polar plateau.
No animal makes Antarctica its year-round home, nor is it owned by humans. It doesn't even have a primordial human population.
To ensure safety, shore landings and sailing routes must be altered according to the day's weather. Though we've been counseled by the guides to remain flexible, our original shore landing becomes reality.
Those groups to which we've been assigned meet on deck. I climb into an inflatable boat with the nine other people in my group.
My group of ten nears the trip's zenith as the driver powers the boat towards land. After one small step, I become one of the few people who have actually stood on Antarctica.
by: John Chambers
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