Holiday in Ice
By Christian Thiele
"If someone goes over board, throw something after them. Preferably a lifebelt." Boarding a German cruise ship for the very first time, we were reassured to hear the pale northern accents of the blond officers, thinking: "These people were raised by the sea-side. They know what they’re talking about." With the security exercise over and the last line let go, Ushuaia, the last town at the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, quickly became just a tiny bright spot behind the stern. The MS Hanseatic was heading south, towards Antarctica, towards the cold. In the coming three weeks, she would steer us through the icy waters that surround the Antarctic Peninsula, on to South Georgia, and finally the Falkland Islands.
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Apart from a wandering albatross gliding effortlessly around the ship there is nothing – only water. The first day is spent at sea, with the Hanseatic steadily pressing its path through the Drake Passage. Although one of the world’s most violent seas, today Neptune is allowing a calm day bar the occasional tender swing that reminds us who is really in charge. Owing to its southerly latitude, this part of the ocean is referred to as the ‘roaring fifties’. Though today you would hardly notice why.
At last, and just in time to accompany the evening’s main course, the captain serves up a decent-sized tabular iceberg. Portside, almost close enough to touch and towering as high as a skyscraper, its rough cliffs shimmering surreptitiously, eerily remind us of images from ‘Titanic’. Broken pieces of ice float around it, jagged parts of a crumbling, three-dimensional puzzle that will never be put together again. The whales too have provided a welcoming committee: two fin-whales lounge ahead in the water, their breathing creating little water fountains in the air.
Photo By: Christian Thiele
‘Paradise Bay’ is announced and the anchor chain rattles as it plunges into the milky green water. Red, thick parkas so as not to freeze, black rubber boots so we don’t get wet and life-saving vests to keep us from drowning. We are fully geared-up to conquer the hostile territory that awaits us. Clambering aboard our rubber-rib zodiac boats, the ice breathes coolly on our faces.
Faithful to its name, the bay is a magnificent display of grayish rock and blue-white ice, home to several majestically gleaming glaciers. Every cloud alters the sea’s color, one minute it’s a Caribbean green, and the next it’s black as a blind mirror. Fresh snow falls onto the ice as the zodiac’s motor swirls through the soupy mixture.
Mountains of ice that have exploded off from much bigger glaciers surround us. They give off a blue shimmer as if possessing some kind of magic power. The years of pressure and cold have sucked oxygen molecules out of the ice leaving only hydrogen, creating the luminous blue now displayed. Before us a huge gate of icy arches is about to carve – here’s a crack, there’s a rip. Finally, surrendering to the weak polar sun’s rays, everything collapses. White thunder and a small tsunami rolls through the bay, rocking our boat as it heads out to sea.
This season, some 30,000 tourists have gone to Antarctica. On ex-Soviet icebreakers; on US monster-cruisers crammed with 2,500 passengers, slot machines and night-time Broadway shows; or on smaller ‘expedition’ vessels such as the Hanseatic . Dietrich Fritzsche, a glaciologist for the German polar institute has spent several winters on the South Pole and occasionally lectures aboard the Hanseatic , says: "I used to have this arrogant scientists’ attitude against tourism. But over the years, I’ve realized that it creates a lot of awareness and interest for the continent."
Photo By: Christian Thiele
The Hanseatic , chartered on a long-term contract by Hapag-Lloyd, has been rated five-stars by the renowned Berlitz Cruise Guide. Carrying at most 184 passengers and 14 zodiacs, the Hanseatic is able to land in relatively small bays and reinforced outside walls allow the captain to maneuver through up to one meter thick packed ice. At night, dressed in suit and tie, you eat seven-course dinners with silver cutlery. Afterwards, you can prop-up the bar and listen to the on-board pianist, or go one deck further down and dance. You can even go to the cabin and watch ‘Casablanca’ from the on-board video system.
Despite an passengers from 13 countries and a bilingual English-German crew, the Hanseatic is unmistakably a German ship, as you can read from the vessel’s passenger manual: "Since we provide a sufficient quantity of deck chairs, we kindly ask you to abstain from reserving them – in the interest of everyone…"
Life at the pole is usually far more spartan than ours, as we learn when visiting a former British research station on Peterman Island. Only a wooden shack with a ceiling falling just above eye level provides shelter. Here pairs of scientists would record the wind, the temperature, the daily hours of sunshine for two and a half years, or until someone came to take their turn.
Leaving the Antarctic Peninsula the next morning, the ship rolls and pitches, passing pale icebergs as it zigzags through the mist. Going on a cruise for the first time, we thought that the pharmaceutical industry had passed seasickness to the medical history books – how wrong we were. Despite anti-vomiting plasters stuck behind our ears, the food just won’t stay where it’s supposed to.
The course is now set for Elephant Island, whose ice once placed Ernest Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ into a headlock, never to be released. We have to skip the planned landing on the southern shore – too much swell has made it a dangerous venture. Instead we get a zodiac ride to Point Wild, where Shackleton’s deputy and his men had to wait 182 days to be saved. Sheltered beneath boats turned upside down, alone except for the company of seals, rocks and ice. We, however, after barely an hour of dinghy cruising, long for a hot shower and dry clothes.
Photo By: Christian Thiele
A regular cruise liner would normally try to avoid icebergs. Captain Ulf Wolter, however, seems eager to pass as many of these monoliths as possible on our way to South Georgia. To pass them, to go round them – or even, as we suppose, to pack them in, have them wrapped and take them home. Capt. Wolter, his voice pitching high like a boy unwrapping his Christmas presents, announces the icebergs through the ship’s communication system. Now, to the right, it’s a pure white tabular iceberg, with a smooth top, polished by the wind, like a giant gemstone. Then, to the left, there’s one with a dark top, black as a bruise. Frost, sea and sun are competing for the most bizarre twists and turns. This is just all too big, too beautiful, for human comprehension.
Landing in Grytviken Bay, steep, black rocks rise from the waters and are either green with moss or sugar-coated by snow. There’s an old Norwegian whaling and sealing station, and even a little church brought from home. White bars fence a graveyard containing headstones announcing Scandinavian, British, and Argentine names. Remarkably few passed their forties before dying. All the tombs lie east-west, only one is looking south, towards the pole: Sir Ernest Shackleton. This is where he died in 1922, trying – this time aboard the Quest – to reach the pole for the fourth time.
The captain has come along with us carring a bottle of rum. He gives a toast through the snow to the old hero. "Here’s to the boss," Wolter says, pouring a good slug on to the grave, an old sailors’ custom. The next one is for the captain. We get the one after that; and the one after that; and the one after that.
Sea elephants groan on the beach while fur seals play with old whale teeth. "Savage and horrible," James Cook once wrote about the island. "Not a tree or shrub was to be seen, no, not one even big enough to make a tooth pick."
Thousands of croaking king penguins inhabit the island. Even though they sound rather like Italian mofas, they’re incredibly beautiful. With their distinguished, gray bodies and golden-orange marked chests, they are well within their rights to look as arrogant as they do, heads stuck high into the air. Fur seals play about with bits of old whale teeth while the young ones whimper around, waiting to take swimming classes from the older ones.
Finally, the passage to the Falklands. Three times a day we rush down to ‘Darwin Hall’ to get a seat for the lectures – the Hanseatic also acts as a floating classroom. We learn about the breeding season of the Phalacrocorax Atriceps (the blue-eyed cormorant) and about the way Chionis Alba (the snowy sheathbill) builds its nest. We try to figure out the difference between shelf-ice, packed-ice and pancake-ice. (After all, Antarctica is not around the corner, you just don’t get here that often.)
Photo By: Christian Thiele
As we land at the Falklands, Albatrosses are spiraling up and down in the winds, and rockhopper penguins are quarreling about over the best stands to spend the next few weeks moulting.
Whereas South Georgia was wild and ferocious, the Falklands are milder and gentle. Green, yellow and brown are the colors of the season. Little islands covered with tussock grass look as if they had put on green-fur hats. You can only find a handful of people living here, and thousands of sheep.
It is three days more at sea to return to port and the Hanseatic is steering a course northwards, towards the warmth. The sun is heating up the deck chairs and now iced drinks are being served. At night, the crew gives us, swinging and swaying, a few ’shanties’ – old sailors’ songs telling tales of homesickness and wanderlust. After three weeks in the wilderness, we gratefully see land ahead. Buenos Aires, it appears, has turned on all its lights for us. We walk down the gangway and are welcomed back into civilization – blue icebergs and cawing penguins now replaced by bright-red traffic lights and honking taxis.
Travel facts:
Hapag-Lloyd offers Antarctica bilingual (German-English) cruises on two expedition vessels, the MS Hanseatic and the MS Bremen . The season usually lasts from December through to March, with 21 days on the MS Hanseatic starting from Ushuaia costs 9,740 EUR, including meals, excursions etc. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, www.hl-cruises.com , Ballindamm 25, D-20095 Hamburg, telephone +49(0)40 / 3001-4600, Fax +49(0)40 / 3001-4601.
Antarctica facts: A continent of extremes
90% of the world’s ice reserves and 70% of its freshwater reserves are found in Antarctica, a land of superlatives.
Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water and 98% of it is covered by a mighty coat of ice, on average 2km high.
One-and-a-half times the size of the US, Antarctica is the fifth-biggest continent, larger than Europe.
During the polar winter, the ice growth doubles its surface.
Averaging 2,160 metres above sea-level, it is also the highest continent.
And, obviously, the coldest: even in polar summer, only a couple of places get temperatures exceeding -5 centigrade. A record low of -89 centigrade was measured in 1983 on a Soviet research base in Eastern Antarctica.
