Jun 25th, 2009 at 8:30AM: Ever had the urge to visit the Antarctic? Do you have a knack for writing interesting, inspiring, blog posts? Then check out the latest contest from Quark Expeditions, an adventure travel company that specializes in journeys to both polar icecaps. Quark has launched the aptly named BlogYourWayToAntarctica.com and has invited adventurous travelers to register to the site and write a 300 word blog ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Antarctica posts
Write a blog, go to Antarctica!
Jun 25th, 2009 at 8:30AM: Ever had the urge to visit the Antarctic? Do you have a knack for writing interesting, inspiring, blog posts? Then check out the latest contest from Quark Expeditions, an adventure travel company that specializes in journeys to both polar icecaps. Quark has launched the aptly named BlogYourWayToAntarctica.com and has invited adventurous travelers to register to the site and write a 300 word blog ...Visiting Every Country On Earth
Apr 24th, 2009 at 8:30AM: Most travelers have a "life list". That is to say, a list of travel destinations that are amongst their "must see", such as the Great Pyramids or Machu Picchu. Others set goals to visit certain countries, selecting ones that appeal to them on some level. That's exactly what Chris Guillebeau did when he was 22 and working in Africa for an international charity group. At the time, Guillebeau says, ...U.S. Calls for Limits on Antarctic Tourism
Apr 17th, 2009 at 1:30PM: Following in the wake of the report released earlier this week that an "inexperienced and over confident" captain caused an Antarctic cruise ship to sink, the U.S. is calling for tighter restrictions on tourism to the Southern Ocean, and the continent itself. According to this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is asking for limitations to the size of cruise ...Inexperinced Captain Blamed for Antarctic Cruise Ship Sinking
Apr 17th, 2009 at 8:00AM: Back in November of 2007 a cruise ship, called the Explorer, owned and operated by GAP Adventures, a well known and respected adventure travel operator, went down in the Southern Ocean. Fortunately, none of the 154 people on board were killed, or even injured for that matter, and rescue ships were on the scene within hours. But many were left to wonder how such an accident could happen. Eighteen ...Chimu Adventures revenue pops 300% for South America, Antarctica tours
Apr 3rd, 2009 at 12:00PM: Chimu Adventures, which operates tours in South America and Antarctica, seems to have found a winning formula for these trying economic times. For the first quarter of 2009, revenue shot 310 percent higher relative to the same quarter last year. These types of excursion aren't cheap, so why are travelers still shelling out their hard-earned cash for such high-end experiences? Company directors ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Grytviken, South Georgia
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Mar 10th, 2009 at 11:00AM: In the whaling museum here the most fascinating thing to me – after the touch-me-feel-me penguin skin – are the trophies and sports uniforms worn by the different South Georgia whaling station teams which competed against each other in rugby, track and field, ski jumping and more during the heyday of whale killing here. Grytviken was South Georgia's first whaling station/factory, set ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- In the Footsteps of Shackleton
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Mar 2nd, 2009 at 11:00AM: Fortuna Bay, South Georgia Ernest Shackleton had an intimate relationship with South Georgia. He stopped here for a month in 1914 before sailing the "Endurance" to its crushing fate in Antarctica; a year and a half later with five others he sailed the gerry-rigged lifeboat "James Caird" 800 miles across the Scotia Sea to King Haarkon Bay, arriving on May 9, 1916; and in 1922 he returned, died and ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- St Andrews Bay, South Georgia
Feb 23rd, 2009 at 11:00AM: I miswrote. The other day I suggested that South Georgia was like some kind of Magic Kingdom envisioned by Disney. Today I'm revising that; it's more like something old Walt might have created after a visit while ingesting heavily of magic mushrooms. Late this afternoon I found myself crossing a wide, six-inch deep pond on St. Andrews ringed by a portion of the 300,000 King penguin colony that ...Antarctic Cruise Ship Freed by High Tides
Feb 19th, 2009 at 12:30PM: The Antarctic cruise ship M/V Ocean Nova, the ship that ran aground yesterday, has been freed from the rocks by the high tide, and is now steaming back to Ushuaia, Argentina for inspection. High winds and pushed the vessel, which was carrying 106 passengers and crew, onto the rocks in Marguerite Bay, off the Antarctic Peninsula. Before departing the area, divers inspected the Ocean Nova and found ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Cooper Bay, South Georgia Island
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Feb 19th, 2009 at 11:00AM: I saw South Georgia Island for the first time from about ten miles out, on a gusty, windy, blue-sky morning. Though we'd just sailed eight hundred miles east and north from the tip of Antarctica, giant tabular icebergs greeted us, nearly blocking the entryway to Cooper Bay. These big icebergs had broken off the Larsen Ice Shelf since 2002 and slowly made their way here, where they now sit ...Antarctic Cruise Ship Runs Aground
Feb 18th, 2009 at 11:00AM: The Antarctic cruise ship the M/V Ocean Nova has run aground in Marguerite Bay, near the Antarctic Peninsula, with 106 passengers and crew aboard. According to this story, from The Guardian, there is no immediate threat to anyone on board the vessel. Quark Expeditions, the tour operator running the Ocean Nova, is posting updates for the press on their website, and reports that ship is not leaking ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Crossing the Scotia Sea
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Feb 16th, 2009 at 11:00AM: When we left Elephant Island midday yesterday we formally left Antarctica behind. I've been to Antarctica many times since 1989 and every time I leave it in my trail, whether by C-130 cargo plane, small sailing boat or expedition ship it is with no small regret. It is a spectacular corner of the world that gets in your blood like no other I've experienced. Remote and foreboding it can also be ...Antarctic Tourism Down
Feb 13th, 2009 at 8:30AM: The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators or IAATO is reporting that the number of tourists visiting Antarctica dropped dramatically in 2008 according to a report from Outside Online. According to the preliminary numbers from 2008, 36,000 people visited the frozen continent, that's down from the record high of 46,000 the year before. The reason for the sharp drop? Like all things ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Elephant Island, South Shetland Islands
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Feb 9th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
Six a.m. and the sea is clouded by a morning mist, making the always mysterious-looking Elephant Island appear evermore ... mysterious. Its sharp rocky peaks climb out of the Southern Ocean in inverted Vs; the tide is high, washing out the few shallow beaches that ring it. Just off Point Wild – named for Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton's right hand man - penguins feed near the surface of ...Irishman Runs Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, in Six Days
Feb 8th, 2009 at 11:00AM: Irish endurance runner Richard Donovan completed an impressive series of runs a few days back when he completed his seventh marathon in just six days. Even more impressive than that however, is that each of those marathons was run on a different continent. The World Marathon Challenge got underway on January 31st when Donvan ran a marathon in Antarctica, covering the 26.2 miles n 4 hours, 39 ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Marguerite Bay
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Feb 5th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
I spent the afternoon walking on a piece of fast ice the size of a small town – floating on the surface, about six feet thick, still attached to the continent – in a fjord known as Beaujoix. Many of the landmarks in the area bear French names, like the big island of Pourquoi Pas, for example, thanks to the early exploits this far south by Frenchman Jean Charcot. Surrounded on three ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Port Lockroy
Feb 2nd, 2009 at 11:00AM:
I spent the afternoon at the small island of Pt. Lockroy, where I've been many times before. We stopped in a couple times last January, during our sea kayak exploration, and hung out on the beaches and its protected bay. When we left Antarctica late that month, we actually left our kayaks tied down to big rocks on the island; they were picked up in February by the "National Geographic ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Neko Harbor
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Jan 26th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
This small cove at the end of a long, glacier-packed bay off the Gerlache Strait is one my favorite corners along the Peninsula. It is surrounded by tall peaks – including, on a brilliant day like today, the tallest along the Peninsula, 9,200-foot-tall Mt. Francais – and long glacier tongues leading to the sea. Standing onshore of continental Antarctica, rather than one of the ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- The Weddell Sea
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Jan 22nd, 2009 at 11:00AM:
We've moved to the other side of the Peninsula, the eastern edge of the five-hundred-mile long finger jutting out of the continent, into the Weddell Sea. We tried to get in here last year, by sailboat and kayak, but were shut out. The winter of 2007 had been a particularly cold one, even by Antarctic standards, and the entry to the Antarctic Sound had been blocked long into summer by a pair of ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Sharp Peak
Jan 19th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
Standing at the foot of Sharp Peak, a 4,000-foot-tall snow-covered granite peak rising straight up from the sea, beneath a 360-degree indigo sky, today just might be the most beautiful I have ever seen in Antarctica. Though even as I write that, I knowingly admit it's impossible to compare days, especially here, since I've witnessed so many beautiful ones here over the past twenty years. But ...
