If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then by my calculations, I will have to write at least a million words to accurately describe my experience in Antarctica, since I took over a thousand pictures. I know, it sounds outrageous, but it's true. It was absolutely unbelievable.

So since I don't actually KNOW a million words, there is no way that my description or the pictures will even come close to doing it justice, but since this is my travelblog and all, it seems appropriate that I actually write about it, right? So here goes...

I only had one thing to do on my last morning in Ushuaia, which was to mail a package home. The post office didn't accept credit cards so I had to go find cash. I tried every ATM in Ushuaia (i.e.. 4 ATMs) and none of them were working. So I had to just leave my package at the hostel to mail when I got back. I finally boarded the Lubov Orlova around 4pm and checked into my room. I had two roommates, Carol from New Zealand, and Louise from Scotland. The room was fairly simple, but more than adequate. It had a closet for each of us, (when was the last time I put my stuff in a closet?) a porthole and a bathroom. I wasn't planning to spend much time in the room anyway.

We left port at 6pm, and had an emergency drill where we put on our life jackets and had to make sure we knew the location of our assigned lifeboats. Pretty standard, I assume. The expedition staff also introduced themselves to us. They were a pretty impressive group of experts...

The expedition leader, Laurie Dexter, was born in Scotland but has lived in Canada most of his life. After reading his bio and listening to his list of hobbies and accomplishments, the only way I can describe him is... nuts. I was most impressed by his 91 day ski journey from Russia to Canada via the North Pole. He has skiied to the South Pole and across different Antarctic and Arctic islands as well as ran 10 marathons in 10 days. See what I mean? Nuts.

We also had an array of experts of different disciplines - marine biologists Kara from Alaska and Fiona from Tasmania, orinthologist Delphin from France, geologist Malcolm from New Zealand, naturalist Tim from Colorado, and historian Jonathan from Ireland. Incidentally, Jonathan, whose last name is Shackleton, is the second cousin of the famous Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton. Pretty neat, huh?

Several of the staff have spent months and months in Antarctica doing research, both in summer and winter. They all have an unrelenting passion and excitement for their areas of expertise which was shared with us through their lectures on board and during our landings on the continent.

After the introduction of the staff and Russain crew, we had dinner and set off for the Drake Passage, the which some say can be the roughest stretch of water in the world. Not long after leaving Ushuaia, we were surrounded by open seas in every direction, with seabirds flying around in our wake.

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