After checking out of our cozy apartment in Ushuaia we made the long walk to town. It was lightly drizzling but not too cold. Once downtown we met up with an old coworker of mine, Keith, from Australia. He works as a photographer for one of the Antarctica tourist ships and gets about 3 hours on land in Ushuaia every 10 days so it was incredibly lucky our schedules overlapped. We all ate some chorizo sandwiches from a food truck near the pier, and some dulce de leche churros from a bakery. It was a great catch up with just as good food. After, we managed to find some insulated water proof pants for me and some cheap gloves for both Nick and I for our upcoming journey. It was trickier than we thought it would be since most of the stores were closed for lunch.

It was a great productive start to the day, but we were ready for some relaxing time. A short taxi ride and we made it to Arakur Resort & Spa, a hotel we would normally not stay at during this trip, but had one night provided as part of our Antarctica trip. The hotel had rooms facing the ocean or the forest. We somehow managed to get a room with a view of the driveway, which was pretty funny. The hotel had some outdoor pools overlooking the harbor and town, indoor pools, gym, and sauna. We enjoyed the pools all to ourselves for sometime and got ready for dinner once they got busy.

The hotel restaurant had great views and even better food. Nick and I shared some salmon carpaccio, crab ravioli, and lamb three ways. The crab ravioli was definitely the star of dinner. Dessert was a rhubarb tart and a berry pavlova. I’m not sure what caused it, but I had started getting sore gums that evening so the tart was extremely difficult to eat as it was so acidic. Besides that, the meal was great, though.

All passengers for our ship had a morning and afternoon free to explore Ushuaia before departure time. After a breakfast of waffles, pancakes, bacon, etc we opted to use the time productively as we had spent the last 5 days exploring the nearby attractions already. For lunch we tried a lamb empanada from the hotel bar and a crab one, too. Holy smokes! The crab one was out of this world. Little did I know it at the time but that lunch would be the start of nonstop incredible meals for the next 10 days. At 3:00pm our bus picked us up to take all the passengers down to the pier.

After giving our passports over we checked in to our cute little porthole room and then attended a safety briefing. The room was adorable and felt surprisingly spacious. There were two porthole windows next to each other. At the start of the trip our views were of Ushuaia and the coastline of the Beagle Channel. We had a small couch, desk, two single beds next to each other, and a bathroom with a shower. Everything we could possibly need. I’ll admit I definitely abused the free mini bar. It was fantastic having so much storage space and to be in one spot for so long. We got the opportunity to really unpack and feel at home.

At some point after checking in we headed up to deck 7 (the uppermost level inside) and got our red shell jackets and exchanged our puff jackets for better sizes. The ship gave us the shells and the heavy duty waterproof boots to borrow and the puffer coat to keep. Our safety briefing was just a drill where we all had to pile onto our designated lifeboat boarding zones with our life jackets on. They also served a lot of small cakes and treats; I enjoyed a mango mousse, which was nice with my inflamed gums.

The first dinner on board was such an exciting experience. Nick and I had never been on a cruise before so we went in completely blind. To be honest I was expecting a mediocre buffet, boy was I wrong. If we had known ahead of time how good the food was going to be I would’ve wanted us to weigh ourselves before just to see how much we gained in the 10 days onboard. Dinner was a menu with multiple options to choose from for appetizers, soup, main course, and dessert. A dangerous discovery was that we could order as many from any category as we pleased, as well as get ice cream with any meal. The first night Nick got Cobb salad for his appetizer and I went with the vegetable carpaccio. Potatoe and leak soup, haddock with champagne sauce and vegetables, and dulce de leche ice cream completed the meal. My gums were still hurting so my white wine sat untouched sadly. The ice cream was nice, though.

The drake passage is notorious for having rough seas. It’s the open ocean between South America and Antarctica. The first night I did take some time to adjust to the swells, but overall was able to get a decent night of sleep. In the morning we had our first breakfast on board. Breakfast was served buffet style, with a changing daily special. That day’s special was eggs benedict, which was delicious. I got hit with some feelings of sea sickness very suddenly when having our breakfast, Nick was my hero and fetched some Dramamine for me from the room. We stood on the deck afterwards just watching the open ocean, which also helped.

During our entire trip there were many lectures held on deck 7 by various expedition team members. Each team member had different specialities and backgrounds, all experts in their various fields. It was amazing to have such a wealth of knowledge onboard. The first one we attended was all about sea birds (that could fly). Nick then joined everyone on the outside of deck 7 to do some sea bird observations. He said it was cool to be out there with so many bird enthusiasts as they saw and pointed out way more than he saw on his own and then he could learn what they were.

Lunch on the ship was also buffet style, similar to breakfast. In addition to the lunch buffet there was always a lighter special lunch option on a different deck that I never ended up trying. The first lunch was John Dory fish, braised pork knuckle, vegetables, pasta, and potatoes. We were pretty exhausted and enjoyed a long siesta afterwards. We were awoken by the announcement for a zodiac briefing where we learned about how to enter and exit the boats we would be using for our excursions. Once that was done we did the ‘biohazard’ party where we cleaned all of our outerwear and backpacks thoroughly to prevent spreading any dirt, seeds, etc to Antarctica. There were mini picks, vacuums, and sanitation liquid used.

The gym on board was closed during our time on the Drake Passage for safety, although the crew described it as a ‘Drake Lake’ due to the relative calmness. I ended up just doing some leg exercises in the hallway instead. For dinner we ordered salmon tartar, beef medallions and potatoes, and calafate berry ice cream. Calafate is a local berry, blue in color, but not very similar to blueberries. It was a good second day onboard getting done with all the briefings necessary in order to start experiencing Antarctica the next day.

Typically the Drake Passage takes two full days. However, due to the winds being favorable and the seas being calm, we made it there in 1.5 days instead. That meant that I got to see Antarctica on my 31st birthday! Breakfast that day was avocado toast with the usual buffet options. We started to see the South Shetland Islands by 8:45am, which was a great way to start the day. Penguins were porpoising out of the water in large groups heading out to open sea for a group fishing session. We got to see it more on our trip but that was the first time. They were so adorable, like tiny dolphins. Besides penguin adoration, our morning had a briefing on camping and another one on kayaking. We learned about the dos and don’ts and what to expect when we (if we) got to do those activities.

Nick was trying to take a job interview over the phone, but the ship kept doing loud announcements. His solution was to bend over and take his phone call in between the couch cushions, resulting in an absolutely hilarious photo. After that, we anchored in front of Half Moon Island. There were stunning views of rocks, ice, and glaciers. For lunch we had sweet and sour chicken from the buffet and of course some ice cream. The boat was divided into groups of 20 people per group; we were in Group 1. Although we were first up for kayaking, the winds were too strong (they are super sensitive about that for safety reasons) so we did a landing instead. The 20 knots of wind made it a refreshing day to say the least.

A landing is when we take a zodiac to shore and get to explore freely (within the marked flagged zones). Nick and I were shocked at how much freedom we got. Of course we all got briefed on distances to keep from animals, not to sit down, and more, so it felt reasonable to be able to walk around on our own. There were usually paths we could follow, path being a generous term. One of the things we saw on land were some whale bones. We loved the deep dark fog/clouds that clung in the sky, it gave a cool vibe to the walk.

On the island we spent 1.5 hours walking around and taking in all the amazing views. That ended up being the coldest day we had in Antarctica, but it wasn’t that bad at all with the right layers on. We saw an old whaling ship on shore, where many chinstrap penguins were hanging out. We saw chinstrap penguin nests, 3 weddell seals, and a female elephant seal. The elephant seal was relaxing and scratching herself while the weddell seals were all napping. There was 1 gentoo penguin who was curious about all the people watching the elephant seal and came over to investigate us. One woman lost her phone in some penguin poop, which luckily for her I found and was able to return to her. It was pretty gross having to pick that up, though.

The time on our landing flew by and soon it was time to get back on a zodiac (10 people at a time) and return to the ship. Once onboard there was a sanitization process for our boots. We stood one by one, getting the bottom of each boot sprayed down with a pressure washer, then walked through rotating bristles that went on the bottom and each side of our legs. The final step was walking through a sanitization liquid, the same one we had to walk through in order to get on the zodiac to start our outing. I liked how thoroughly they take the precautions to protect the wildlife in Antarctica. Each time we left the boat we also get scanned (using an ID card) off and scanned back on so that they could keep track of if anyone was not back on the ship yet.

Since we were no longer on the Drake Passage the on board gym was open so I took advantage and did a little workout. I can say that doing kettlebell swings on a moving ship takes next level coordination. In the evening before dinner we had a “Meet the Captain” cocktail hour. The captain introduced himself and his leadership crew. He was charming and had the whole room laughing. I enjoyed the free champagne. We sailed past an amazing iceberg with many penguins on it, so cool!

For dinner we tried pumpkin soup, tempura shrimp, and Shanghai style ribs. We choose stracciatella ice cream and pudding cake for dessert. Since we could choose however many dishes we wanted I picked two main courses. Part way through dessert there was a big commotion. The waitstaff all marched in line banging pots and cheering coming towards our table. Then the birthday cake was revealed along with the dining room singing happy birthday. It was a fun surprise and I handed out slices of cake to people at neighboring tables.