OT: Vacation Pix - Antarctica

How fabulous!!!!!!!!! My friends all thought me mad but Antarctica has always been a dream destination for me.

Did you go in from the coast at all? How was the weather for you?

The one trip I really wanted to do and never was allowed on in the RAAF was the "winter" resupply flight to Antarctica (it was considered "tactical" and fragile little ladies could not do "tactical" back then - sigh). I think it was about 20hours round trip from Hobart 'cos they didn't land down south.

[snip]

Most civilian trips still only allow coastal zodiak landings. We had a half day at Cape Denison and a zodiak cruise around the French base,

90 n.m. west. Landings are totally dependent on weather conditions. Cape Denison is the windiest place on planet Earth and we were blessed with blue skies and little wind. We had five landings including the Sub-Antarctic Islands in good weather which again was miraculous according to our expedition leaders. An Orion trip last southern summer only had one landing in total. The privilege to see these places which have such restricted access was not lost on us. It was five days' sailing from Hobart to Commonwealth Bay, but the trip back was easier with visits to Macquarie Is, Enderby Is and Snares Is. We had some 50 knot winds at sea (with one 25deg. roll) but no storms. The trip was a dream come true for us! Bronnie

Bronnie

I will sleep tonight dreaming of your trip!!

OH my! Thank you for sharing those! Your pictures are fabulous, as was the whole trip, I'm sure. You are quite the adventurers! Thanks again....I'll book mark those and visit them again.

wonderful pictures!

a friend of mine is on the "same" trip as we speak! and as there is internet access on the ship we have been getting updates on a regular basis :-)

Bronnie they were great! My fvorite was the King Penguin ultra closeup!

Melissa in NJ

Oh Bronnie, words fail me. To see such wonderful animals and birds at such close quarters; and the ship looks amazing. The photos are full of atmosphere - I could almost smell that penguin colony! Wonderful photos. You look terrific and F. looks pretty good >g<

(The only thumbnail I didn't enlarge was the skua - I hate them with a passion).

Thanks for sharing this once in a lifetime experience. . In message , Bronnie writes

I hope you don't mind that I had to download several of the pictures. Those penguin pix were awesome! I never knew icebergs could be square. I wonder if seal pups always look sad.

Very cool pictures! Debra in VA See my quilts at

Oh my, Bronwyn! Those pictures are *wonderful*! Which ones are you thinking of using for your quilt(s)? I was hard-pressed to decide which were my favorites, but I loved the king penguins (especially the close-up) and the seal pup. Were you all dressed alike because the ship provided your gear? I can't imagine how gorgeous your quilt(s) will be

-- you do such amazing work, and this subject is just popping with possibilities.

Howdy!

Ah...going to Antarctica: I've heard of it! ;-D

Fabulous pics, Bronnie. Thanks, again.

Ragmop/Sandy--impressed that she was thinking "quilt!" during her expedition and picture-taking ;->

Linda PATCHogue, NY

WOW, Bronnie, those are amazing pictures. The penguins are gorgeous. Can't wait to see the quilt that comes from these pictures!!

Wonderful pictures. What a fun vacation!! Loved the penguins, espcially. I'm a big fan of penguins, and even collect stuffed ones.

Wow! I am just blown away! May I please print some of the penguin pictures to show a friend?

[snip]

Hi girls, morning here now in Oz, so can respond to your questions! The red thermal jackets were provided by Orion for us to keep. A method in their madness so they can keep an eye on us all in the white landscape. We had to individually kit up for the rest of the thermal clothes which took me about a year to accumulate seeing we live in sub- tropics. As the trip transpired, we had very mild weather (1 or 2 deg below 0C) - it was far colder in Minnesota last month!! But one has to be prepared for all possibilities. There were only 100 passengers, mostly Aussies, few NZ couples, 1 Canad.couple and 2 US couples. On board were about 10 expedition team members - scientists, conservationists, historians etc. About 20 lectures were held over the period. Glad you all like the pix - they are my favourite out of about 380. There are only so many ways to photograph a penguin but they were fascinating and we saw about 8 species out of total 17 species worldwide, some rare, some endangered (Southern hemisphere only). Any of you are free to print out and use photos as subject matters for quilting! I purposely took close ups of the Kings because their colouring is so interesting -- thinking quilt subject . The seal pups only look sad when they are waiting in the 'pup creche' for their mamas to return from fishing! They were really cute.

Hugs, Bronnie

Ditto -- I had the same reactions. I always thought of icebergs as peaked-mountain shaped.

I have some penguin fabric. It's amazing how realistic I now realize it is. I too saved a couple of pictures for future reference.

We'll all be making penguin quilts to live vicariously through your trip!

Thank you so much for posting these. I sent the link to my sisters and one sent it on to her daughter's class at school. All the kids were blown away. They asked me to pass along a BIG THANK YOU.

Shannon

G'day Shannon thanks so much for sending on the kid's thanks! I'm sure glad so many people are getting pleasure out of these snaps. These are best of the best pix - I chose the best 100 out of 380 for an album and the 21 on the website are my favourites out of that

100! Incidently, I used Adobe Photoshop to crop zoom in on them.

-- Cheers Bronnie