Day Three: March 20: South Shetland Islands

DAY 3 (Sunday)

Two firsts this a.m.  We sighted land for the first time – the South Shetland Islands.  We are going through a passage to the other side where they say it will be calm. Second, within minutes of seeing land, we saw a pod of whales off the starboard side.  Cold, gray and rainy so far, but looks like we will pile into the Zodiacs this afternoon and go ashore.

So, a little bit about this expedition.  Sir Robert was the speaker a few years ago at a Leadership Council dinner of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).  I was a founding board member of ACORE and am now on the Advisory Board (as is Robert).  Swan has been traveling the world to raise awareness of the need to preserve Antarctica.  In 2041 (hence the name of his organization) the current Antarctic Treaty will expire.  That treaty, signed by nearly every country on earth, ensures that no one can own any part of the continent and certainly that there can be no drilling or other exploitation.  This is where the renewable energy connection comes in.  Sir Robert believes (and I agree) that if we as a planet are still addicted to fossil fuels, that there might be great pressure after 2041 to come down here and look for oil and natural gas.  If we have successfully switched to renewable energy, that pressure will not be there.

On the ship, in addition to the crew and the expedition guides, are about 25 people from various nations.  Some are with big energy companies, renewable energy companies, consulting firms, film makers and other corporate types.  My job is to develop and lead an educational program on renewable energy, climate change and corporate sustainability.  We want to help produce a team of leaders who will then make a difference through their jobs in accelerating the use of sustainable energy.

Robert is going to take this a step further.  Next year he is leading another expedition to the South Pole – using nothing but renewable energy.  No camp stoves, no generators to run communications equipment and, I believe, he will use a sailing ship to reach and leave Antarctica when his expedition is over.  Lockheed Martin is well represented on this trip.  They are helping develop the equipment for his expedition – which they think is very similar to what will need to be done to power a trip to Mars in the future.

We went ashore this afternoon to Half Moon Island – actually in the South Shetlands, not the continent proper.  We climbed to the top of the mountain on the island, dodging angry fur seals and inquisitive penguins – Gentoos and Chin Straps.   Great day, but since we cannot leave anything on land (including pee) it was touch and go by the end.  It felt great to get into the Zodiac and head back to the ship.

We are now through the peninsula and heading south. We are now in iceberg territory.  We saw a couple of Titanic-sinking types go by. Amazing.  We also passed where a tour ship sank two years ago. They made the mistake of trying to turn around too close to sea ice and hit it sideways; not good.  But no one died.  They made it to a base not far away in life boats.  We were warned tonight that we will feel bumps with sea ice; as long as we hit it straight on, the ship is designed to get through it. Weather report for tomorrow is great.  So we are to be on deck at 7 a.m. to see ice bergs and we will be going on shore right after breakfast.

DAY 2 March 19: Cape Horn

DAY 2: Saturday March 19

Unfortunately, I was asleep when we passed Cape Horn around midnight.  I’m told it looked like a towering mountain of rock in the moonlight.  We are now about halfway through the Drake Passage.  I’m told that so far (11 a.m.) this is about as good as the weather gets in the Drake.  Stormy and gray and the ship is rocking steadily – but the guides say that this is “Drake Lake”; on it’s best behavior.

Albatrosses are zooming around the ship.   But there is no perspective so it’s hard to believe these birds have a 10 foot wingspan.  They stay aloft for almost year at a time.  Landing only to breed.

Sir Robert pointed out the significance of where we are right now, heading south.  If you took off perpendicular from the ship in either direction, the next thing you would bump into is the other side of this very ship.  Again, nowhere else in the world could you do that.

If the weather stays this “good”, we should reach Antarctica by tomorrow afternoon.

Evening update: we will pass 60 degrees south at about midnight. That means we are technically in Antarctica.   We are also about an hour from the “Antarctic Convergence”; this is where the freezing cold southern ocean and the Pacific and Atlantic crash together.  Might be a bit bumpy.  Weather has picked up and more people are getting sick.   Also, we are told that we will be hit with a major storm in about two days.  Great.

Day One March 18: Ushuaia

Antarctica 2011.

Pretty remarkable start to the trip.  Boarded the ship out of Ushuaia (the southern most city in the world) about 430.  After numerous safety briefings and meeting our Russian captain, we did an abandon ship drill.  We each have full body suits that sustain life in freezing water (don’t expect we’ll need them). 

Sir Robert Swan kicked things off with a presentation on leadership.  He earlier had introduced himself at the hotel.  He told us about an expedition rule called “Bronco 5”.  Our morning meeting was to start at 10.  People wandered in a few minutes late.  Sir Robert – the first person ever to walk unassisted to both the north and south poles – told us a story about his dear friend, named “ Bronco”.  Bronco summitted Mt. Everest.   But he dawdled on the summit and could not make it down to Camp 5.  He did the highest bivouac in history near the summit. He lost all of his toes and then his oxygen froze.  The only way to turn his oxygen back on was to take off his gloves – which would mean losing his fingers.  He did it and survived, but lost all of his fingers as well.  Had he left the summit 5 minutes earlier, he would have made it.  This expedition has a “Bronco 5” rule:  when we need to be somewhere, be there five minutes early.  Punctuality matters.  No one has been late to a meeting yet.

Robert gave a presentation on his expedition across Antarctica.  It took seven years to plan and raise money.  There were some funny stories about how it all began, which is in his book.  I won’t describe it all but he and two others made to the south pole on foot.  The entire expedition took over one year.  He lost 70 pounds and his brown eyes turned to a haunting gray color, which they retain to this day.  The ship that was to take him back sank and it was an incredible story of how they finally made it back – and how they fulfilled his commitment to retrieve every bit of debris they left on the continent.  Incredible.  You have to read the book.  One person asked him how he kept sane dragging a sled everyday for three months in complete whiteness.  This was extraordinary.  He said he learned how to access memories – exact, perfect recall of any event from his life back to a memory of being one-year old (later confirmed by his mother).  He said his brain became like a video warehouse.  He could turn on anything at any time and watch it.  He retains a photographic memory.

We are about to leave the Beagle channel (Darwin came through here on the Beagle when he was only in his 20’s) into the Drake Passage.  “the Drake” is the nastiest piece of ocean in the world.  600 miles between tip of South America and Antarctica.  It is 10:30 at night an am beginning to feel this big ship rock.  We have all applied our patches or taken our dramamine.  Weather travels west to east, of course, and west of the Drake is 9000 miles of nothing.  The longest stretch of open ocean on earth.  50 ft waves can occur at any time – while hurricanes in the south Atlantic or Nor-easters in the northern atlantic occur seasonally, such weather can happen anytime without warning here.  Sailors say that “below 40 degrees south, there is no law; below 50 degrees there is no God”.  We are going to almost 70.  He also pointed out that we are the last expedition of the season (it is now fall down here).  There are no other ships out here.

This is the ocean where Shackelton spent his epic two years of survival in the early 20th century.  Robert recounted the exploits of Shackelton and Scott and Amundson.  These were the bravest most intrepid explorers in history – though the stories of Magellan and Drake were simply less well chronicled but even more extraordinary in that they did it in the 16th century with relatively small wooden boats and no modern navigation.  And they did not actually go around the Horn; they went through the Straits of Magellan (hundreds of miles north of where we are).  Drake got blown off course to Cape Horn. 

It will take us two days to cross the Drake – maybe less, since our ship – the Sea Spirit – is quite fast and very comfortable.  But no ship is immune from the magnitude of the ocean down here.  As Robert said, “than Drake and the Antarctic wants to kill you; we are fighting against that every day”.  Probably a little overly dramatic, but this is pretty damn remote and pretty damn serious.  I am counting on my ear patch.  On the top deck, where my cabin is, things are already swaying hard and we are not yet into the open ocean.  We were told to “Drake proof” our cabin – meaning nothing unsecured; everything on the floor or tied down. With that, it’s off to bed.  If I’m not too sick, will report tomorrow from the middle of the Drake.