About Our Blog

Hi Everyone!

As most of you know, my classmate Kate and I will be sailing aboard the Maersk Peary to Antarctica this winter. We are both very excited for our trip and cannot wait to see what this adventure has in store for us. We will try to update this blog as much as possible, so check back and see what's new. Hopefully, we'll have some pictures of penguins eventually!

Friday, January 31, 2014

Antarctica Part 1

We made it! Well, we've actually already been there and left, but I'm just now getting the time to write this post so, oh well. We arrived at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on the evening of January 26. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at, we did not have to travel through any ice to get to the station. As a result, the passage through the Ross Sea and to McMurdo was very uneventful, but we did get to see some cool stuff. As would be expected for this area of the world, we did get to see icebergs on our trip down.







We were even fortunate enough to see penguins on a few of these icebergs!









We also some awesome mountains and some pretty cool birds on the way into McMurdo too.








As we neared McMurdo, we were joined by our icebreaker escort, the USCG Polar Star, though we didn't really need her because there was no ice.



Soon, we arrived at the destination we had all been waiting for so long, McMurdo Station, Antarctica.


When we arrived, there were groups of volunteers there to help us tie the ship up at the ice pier. There were also two penguins there to greet us!




So, upon arrival in McMurdo, we were told that we would be departing Antarctica on the afternoon of January 29th. This meant that we had roughly 3 days to see everything that McMurdo had to offer. As such, the engine cadets made a command decision that sleep was not really important and that we would get going as soon as possible. We were the first ones to step foot in Antarctica when the gangway was lowered, and we immediately took a walk through the town to reach Observation Hill.



As you can see, Observation hill is a pretty good hike, but it was totally worth it because the view from the top is incredible.






From Observation Hill, we went back to the town and just walked around for a while to try and learn our way around. Afterwards we went back to the ship to get a snack, get something to drink, and use the bathroom. We then decided that we would wake a walk out to Hut Point and up to see the Caged Mary on the hill.





We got back to the ship around 3AM and decided we would try and catch a few hours of sleep so that we were ready to go tomorrow. I think that's enough for one post. I will keep working on it and hopefully I'll have another post ready to go for tomorrow. That's all for now!

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Almost There

Well, we are now only three days away from our arrival at McMurdo. It turns out that despite the news about the Russian icebreaker stuck in the ice, our route is unusually ice free. We should be able to sail straight down to the base with no help from an icebreaker whatsoever. As such, we are due to arrive in McMurdo on the afternoon of January 26. We are currently 18 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so that would make it sometime on the evening of the 25th for those of you back home.

Well, Murphy's Law found me even all the way down here in the Southern Ocean. My Nikon D60 is nothing special, but it's a decent little DSLR. Two nights ago I decided to go out and take some pictures of the beautiful sunset (also cool because it was 9:45 PM and the sun was just setting.) After about five pictures, the shutter mechanism locked up, rendering the camera useless. After six years of use with no issues, the camera decided to break down when I am days away from a once in a lifetime experience on the most remote continent on Earth. Well, I fortunately had my point and shoot camera with me at the time, so I still got pictures of the beautiful sunset.



After a night spent thinking about the stupid camera, I decided that I had nothing to lose at this point, so I took the camera apart. Yes, I decided to disassemble my camera. So, 35 little tiny eyeglass screws and several hours later, I had the camera apart. Somehow, I managed not to break anything in the process. So, I lubricated all the little tiny plastic wheels for the shutter mechanism, and the camera seemed to be working again. I put the entire thing back together, and miraculously, it seems to be working fine. Hopefully the repair will hold until we're done in Antarctica!

For the past week or so, we have had some interesting birds following the ship as we get closer to land. I decided that photographing these birds would be a good test for my newly repaired camera, so I went out last night and spent some time taking pictures of the birds. And, after 500 shots, the camera was still going strong, so I'm pretty happy.





Last night was the last night that the sun will actually set until we head north again. So naturally, I had to take some photos of the sunset. It's probably the only time I'll ever see a sunset at 10:45 PM!



So, like I said, we are getting close to Antarctica. Even though there isn't a lot of pack ice this year, there are still some icebergs out there! We saw our first two icebergs today, and I'm told that they will become more plentiful as we get closer. The first iceberg was five miles away from the ship, and the second was about two miles away. Below are some of the pictures that I was able to get. For those of you who are my friends on Facebook, I have shared the photos that the Chief Engineer took of the icebergs. He has a really nice camera with a huge telephoto lens so he was able to get some incredible pictures. 





Well, I think that about covers it for now. Hopefully we will see some more icebergs and other cool stuff tomorrow so I can post some pictures of that! In case any of you are interested, I have posted a link on the blog from McMurdo. They have a webcam pointed at the ice pier, so you should be able to see when we arrive!