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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 ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
antarctica posts
Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Cooper Bay, South Georgia Island
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 ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Science in Antarctica
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Jan 14th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
Thanks to the 1959 treaty that governs Antarctica, the entire continent is supposed to be devoted to science (rather than military exercise, national claims or mineral exploitation). And no one does science with more conviviality than the Ukrainians at their base in the Argentine Islands called Vernadsky. I stopped in yesterday for a visit with the thirteen scientists and support crew who have ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Grand Dider Channel, Antarctic Peninsula
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Jan 8th, 2009 at 11:00AM:
I first came to Antarctica twenty years ago, as part of an international team intent on dog sledding across the continent. Since then, I've been back more than a dozen times; last season for nearly three months, much of that time traveling the length of the six hundred mile long Peninsula by sailboat and kayak, the rocky finger jutting into the Southern Ocean from the continent. Unlike many of ...Bowermaster's Antarctica -- Greetings from Antarctica!
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Jan 5th, 2009 at 10:00AM:
Hello ... from ... Antarctica! More specifically, it's Peninsula, which juts like a 600-mile-long finger from the seventh continent, stretching towards the southern tip of the Americas. Surrounded on either side by frozen sea ice and open ocean, this is the most dynamic, the most changing region of Antarctica and a place I have been coming to for nearly twenty years. My first experience? With ...First flight to Antarctica
Dec 23rd, 2007 at 1:00PM: Antarctica is one of the most difficult places on this planet to visit for the simple reason that planes do not fly there.
Well, that was the truth until last week when the first ever airline touched down on the frozen Arctic surface just four hours after leaving Australia. A beautiful video capturing the historic occasion can be seen here.
So what does this mean for tourism?
Not much, ...TODAY Show team travels to the Ends of the Earth
Nov 4th, 2007 at 7:01AM: About this time tomorrow, the ever-adventurous TODAY Show team will take part in a historic first-ever live simultaneous broadcast from the top, bottom and middle of the earth's surface. As part of NBC's "Green Is Universal" initiative, the news anchors have been dispatched to the Ends of the Earth to report on climate extremes, wildlife and the limits of human exploration. It's the very first ...Protecting Antarctica from Tourists
Jan 22nd, 2007 at 12:11PM: Chinese government officials have asked Chinese citizens to avoid Antarctica as a travel destination. Officials cited the fragility of the continent's ecosystem as the driving force behind the request. The country has not made this an official travel restriction, but the government has plans to regulate its travel agencies if South Pole tourism continues. The number of all vacationing travelers ...Cruising Antarctica
Sep 21st, 2006 at 8:50AM: It used to be that people who wanted to get away from it all went to their summer homes. Today, they go to Antarctica. I suppose there are not many places left on this planet where you could experience the ultimate emptiness. Not many that could be reached via cruise ship anyway.
Several cruise companies offer the so-called adventurous trip to Antarctica, yet conveniently experienced in the ...
