Antarctica alone would have been amazing, but the fun folks on the boat made it even better. Of the people working on the boat, I guess I´d divide the crew into three main groups: 1) the crew who actually drive the boat, maintain the boat, etc. 2) the "hotel" staff--housekeeping, cooks, waiters, waitresses, bartender, receptionist and 3) the expedition leaders/tour guides--the guys who would take us out on the zodiacs and give lectures on wildlife etc. The crew was, almost entirely Chilean, and really great fun. The waiters and Nicole, the lone female waitress, were incredible. The boat would really be tossing and it was so hard to walk and they´d come out with their huge trays of drinks, meals, etc. and balance them amazingly and only very rarely did they drop anything. A couple of them were clearly not doing well with the seasickness but they motored on with their jobs. Hugo, the bartender, was wise to my water drinking habit and would send me off everynight with a huge bottle of water (everyone else got little ones). The expedition leaders, or guides, were really kind of the heart and soul of the ship. They were, for the most part, young and funny guys who know a lot about Antarctica. The second day when we made a landing, the Captain called them back to the ship early due to changing weather conditions, and it was then that I really learned to trust and respect these guys. The ice started to freeze up, the snow and wind were so strong that visibility was really tough yet they expertly got us through the ice. We were the second to last zodiac to return but had to go back to help the last one ...to guide them out. These guys (Pablo, Rodrigo, Maxi, Jordi, and the others) were great. Pablo was the leader and the one who generally made daily announcements, etc. They were the ones who we had the most contact with as they had their meals with us, took us on the excursions, etc. The crew was great too. I´d sometimes hang out with them up in the bridge, especially early in the morings before breakfast, and it was great fun. The worthy Captain merits a few paragraphs all his own which will follow in a future post.
So, we had quite an array of passengers...about 65 in all. We had the Chilean film crew, headed up by Celine, Jacques Cousteau´s granddaughter. They are filiming a 12 part series for Chilean TV about the oceans around Chile. They were fun and would share a lot with us about what they were doing. They did a lot of scuba diving in the below freezing temperature water. Commrade Olga was my roommate...she is Russian and in addition to running a travel agency is a free lance journalist writing mainly travel articles. She was allegedly writing a piece for Russian National Geographic about this trip. She had approximately 100 pounds of cameras, computers, recording devices, etc. ALthough she was nice,I did not enjoy her setting the alarm daily at 6:15 a.m. which, evidently alarmed only me as she slept until 9. She stayed in bed the first 3 days and the last 3 during the crossing of the sometimes choppy Drake passage. I don´t think there was a time that I was ever alone in the cabin but alas, the early morning wake ups enabled me to hang out with the a.m. shift on the bridge as there was nothing else happening at that hour. My crowd mainly consisted of the New York criminal defense attorney (who brought a Snoopy snow cone maker to make snow cones with glacial ice. Sadly,what with her departure date so close to Halloween she was unable to procure the full sized penguin costume as it was out of stock. She had hoped to wear it on the landings to greet the penguins. Her two friends were with her, a couple, also from New York who are free lance writers on year 4 of an adventure through North, Central and South America. THey too were great fun. Wacky Ian, British guy who lives in Germany was also in our crowd along with several others to include Julie from Arlington who I will be meeting up with upon return home. We also had a few fun Australians. There were several passengers from Holland, some from Spain, Britain. OH, and we spent quite a bit of time with the ¨ship´s doctor¨and his wife. He is an OB/GYN from Chile and his wife did all of the paper work for him to be assigned to the boat so that she could go too. THey were great fun.
Of course, our crowd was selected to make the end of trip slide show presentation which was quite funny. Also, when the guides lost the "Crossing the Antarctic Convergence" contest results, they came to me the last day to tell me that they would just announce that I had won and to act surprised and then upon receiving my gift of a bottle of champagne, I could share it with them.
It was a really fun group and I miss them. I might meet up with Ian in Buenos Aires before each of us departs which would be fun and, I think, I might run into some of the others elsewhere in Argentina as well. We have already sent loads of email back and forth...alas not the hard working crew who went out for another 11 day trip the same evening that we returned and are without phone/internet access.
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