Two Backpacks One Couple

We were sad to be leaving Antarctica, but the ship kept us busy and distracted. It was snowing outside for part of the day, which some people were excited about. Breakfast was basic, with toast, bacon, omelette, etc. I’m happy they did different food every meal every day, but that also meant some meals were better than others. Nick and I attended several lectures onboard. The first one was about marine animals that live in Antarctica and featured more information about the animals we had seen. Nick attended the cloud observation and sea bird identification sessions while I worked on the blog.

Lunch was some pasta followed by hazelnut ice cream. I felt bad skipping so many of the lectures, but it was great to feel like I was also able to catch up on several todo items. People said the history of Antarctica lecture was interesting, though. What I did join for was the bridge tour, which was so fun. They did it in groups so that the bridge would only have a few people up there at a time. We were the last group of the day and instead of the allotted 8 minute time window we ended up getting to stay there for 30 minutes chatting with the captain. We got to hear several stories from his career including an attempted mutiny during Covid when everyone had to be quarantined on board and they couldn’t dock anywhere. Nick and I had joked throughout the duration of the cruise that the captain had a BBQ on each side of the bridge outside. There were two white things that looked exactly like BBQs. I asked the captain about those and he thought that was hilarious and showed us the control panels that were actually underneath the covers. We heard from a group that toured the bridge the next day that the first mate made the joke, ‘Here we have our BBQs’ when showing the panels.

The next lecture was on climate change in Antarctica. It was a lot of familiar topics for me given my background in sustainability, but it was nice to see how it all specifically tied into Antarctica. During the evening pre-dinner debrief the staff did several funny demonstrations to showcase facts that they wanted us to know. They included hilarious demonstrations of different levels of weather and how penguins mate. Dinner that evening was ratatouille wrapped around provolone, french onion soup, salad with bacon and beets, shrimp with rice, mango mousse cake, and chocolate cake. It was the first evening we both thought that the desserts were just okay.

The next morning was the worst sea sickness I had felt the entire journey. Hard to say if it was from the bottle of wine or the large swells, but if I had to guess it was both. Anyone who knows me knows breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and I often wake up starving. I was so seasick I had to SKIP breakfast. That’s how bad I was feeling. Nick, as usual, was perfectly fine. In the late morning I and my paper bag slowly made our way up to the 7th floor to listen to a lecture I felt like I couldn’t miss. A Canadian named Scott who we had befriended on the ship was going to talk about his expeditions in Antarctica. He was another guest and not working on the ship, but had previously guided on the tallest mountain on the continent and trekked to the South Pole a few times. His presentation was incredibly inspiring and interesting and he had many questions from the audience.

I did reluctantly decide to get lunch after the lecture to see if it would help my stomach. Nick did a burger station on deck 5 while I stuck with the buffet. I had pork schnitzel, pasta, and strawberry ice cream. After a solid post-lunch nap I was feeling much better, thank god. In the afternoon we all gathered on deck 5 in the lounge for a series of events. The first one was the charity auction that raised money for various causes like the crew fund, whales, and other related organizations. The onboard photographer showed us the slideshow he put together of the 10 day adventure, which was so cute. Next was the photo contest, where 3 top picks were shown in each category and the crowd’s applause decided the winner. People won prizes such as buffs and tote bags. Fun & Creative winner was a 360° photo of our snowshoe group, the winner for Birds was our friend Kayleigh’s photo that I used for the cover photo of the last blog, Other Animals was a photo of a whale fluking right in front of a zodiac boat, and I cannot remember what photo won the People category. For Landscapes the winner was a sunset photo from the Drake Passage with an iceberg, but I did get second place with my iceberg photo that I shared in the last blog. Unfortunately there were no prizes for second place.

Before dinner the last thing we did in the lounge was listen to the final thank you and goodbye from the expedition staff. I was very distracted, though, because as they did that a Dusky dolphin started jumping along the ship right by our window. It was so tiny and adorable! Dinner was one of my favorites that evening. We had Caesar salad, shrimp fried with fruit, pea soup, lobster risotto, and pistachio ice cream. We enjoyed some time taking in the beauty of the Beagle Channel before heading to bed for the final night onboard.

Our final breakfast onboard was pancakes, hash browns, and hot cocoa. We were already at the dock by the time we had breakfast, with crew preparing for disembarkation. We were the last people to be let off the ship, the group that was being dropped off at hotels. We were dropped back at the same apartment we stayed in at the start of our time in Ushuaia. We enjoyed some burgers for dinner and had an early night. Although we were sad our trip to Antarctica was over, we were also excited to be back because the next day we would take a bus to meet Nick’s family for a Christmas vacation.