Arriving In Antarctica And The Antarctic Circle

in our previous post), here we finally were. Antarctica!

Your clothes are all done in advance of heading down to the boats and the easiest way to describe this is that it’s essentially like they just vacuum your clothes.
We saw ourselves surrounded by icebergs.
Arriving On Land In Antarctica
We’d already come across humpback whales, leopard seals, Weddell seals, Adélie penguins (which are harder to spot than Gentoo or chinstrap penguins) and some incredibly humongous icebergs.
They just don’t bother attempting it.
I didn’t think it was possible to be even more excited than we already were but turns out, it is very possible indeed.

Turns out, he was right and with that, we were the first sailing of the season to get into the Antarctic Circle!

To be honest, just going to Antarctica is a big enough win with or without the cherry on the cake that is sailing into the Antarctic Circle.
That being said, the sea ice on the journey to the Antarctic Circle is just too densely packed and far too thick for most ships to go through so a lot never make it that far south.
That turned out to be a great plan as I found out a few days later when I didn’t take them and started to feel a little seasick while we were sailing around in Antarctica.
You also have to disinfect your regular clothes before you go so you don’t carry contaminants with you.
Suffice to say, there was no need for caffeine that morning. The sun wasn’t shining but it just added all the more to that drama.
Saying that though, I did take one at night. I figured the drowsiness wouldn’t matter too much and that would keep any sea sickness away while sailing at night.

Catch you in the next blog post when we finally set foot on land in Antarctica.

Plus now we could say we’ve been to the Arctic Circle (we did this a few years ago in Norway) and now the Antarctic Circle.
Soon enough, we were called to do down to the mud room. Ready to get suited up, booted up and life-jacket up to get on the zodiac boats.

It was absolutely amazing and such a brilliant way to start the trip.
I remember wanting to visit for like 10 years and then it took lots of planning to finally get to this point and here we were in Antarctica.
As it turns out, you can go to Antarctica but not get into the Antarctic Circle.

Penguins bobbing all around, more seals on icebergs around the ship and the occasional whale in the distance.
Remember it’s summertime in Antarctica when you get to visit then so the sun doesn’t quite set properly then.
There were whoops and cheers all around with champagne everywhere to celebrate.
I remember thinking to pace myself when I got up in the middle of the night for a pee but all those though went off of the figurative window the minute we opened the literal window.

This was a milestone I didn’t even know we needed to meet prior to the sailing but it was amazing. Haha!

We were pretty much bouncing off the walls all morning and then the captain decided to up the ante.
Like, this took a little while for it to sink in.
We finished off with dinner and wine under the Antarctic midnight sun, which to be honest, was behind some clouds but never actually set so it was bright all night long.
The zodiac boat cruise was incredible.

And yeah, that’s how we spent our first day in Antarctica.
The Antarctic Circle is a lot lower down and very few ships ever make it that far south because of the sea ice.

So, having great weather to be able to do a zodiac boat tour felt very much like the big deal that it was. This was especially true as this wasn’t a confirmed plan for the day earlier on.
If we left it a few days more, there’s a chance the weather could change or the sea ice could get thicker and so we just had to make the most of it while the conditions allowed for it.
It was calm enough to make us not bother with the sea sickness tablets. Plus, those make you drowsy so it wasn’t something we wanted to take if we didn’t have to.

The Ocean Victory ship we took down to Antarctica is actually built to traverse the ice here.

Our captain however decided that the weather conditions looked great and the sea ice didn’t look too bad so we would turn our whole itinerary on its head and venture far south into the Antarctic Circle.
Oh, and by the way, the waters were very calm by this point.

It’s not really done for new clothes but for older clothes and shoes, in particular.

Not to mention the spotting of wildlife which had become a lot more frequent now that we were in Antarctica.
Then the head of the expedition team gave us a bit of a surprise announcement by saying that we’d be venturing out on our first zodiac expedition to Antarctica.

You can tell how amazing and how huge some of these icebergs are from afar but it doesn’t compare to when you get close to them.
As you can imagine, the closer it gets to the South Pole, the thicker the sea ice is.
We spent the rest of the day pretty much in awe of everything we could see around us.

Remember, when you’re in Antarctica, your plans are subject to change depending on the weather.

They don’t want you bringing invasive species to Antarctica. So, to help with this, your boots are decontaminated before and after you go on the boat (even if you’re going on land).