On February 8th we embarked on the adventure of our lives, a 20 day trip to the Peninsula of Antarctica. We never imagined that we’d be able to make it and even less on a sailboat! Don’t you need an icebreaker for that?? Well, not in summer!

Any concerns we may have had vanished after 5 minutes onboard the Icebird. Cath, our experienced captain, and Olly, the first mate, gave us the brief of this beautiful sailboat and we stocked the «supermarket» (a cold hatch dedicated to keep fruit & veggies cold) with enough food to survive for months. Special mention to “Lambie”, a whole Patagonian lamb that we took and was slowly salt-soaked with Antarctic spray – it was pretty amazing.

Our first navigation took us from Ushuaia (Argentina) to Puerto Williams (Chile), via the astonishing Beagle Channel. With all due respects to Ushuaia, we believe that the most Austral town claim should go to Puerto Williams, nestled in the Dientes de Navariño. If we hadn’t had to part the morning after to go to Antarctica, Sal and I would have happily stayed there for a week!

We were facing 4 full days to sail the feared Drake Passage (cruiseships usually take 1.5 days), so we farewelled the American continent in style, having a party at the Micalvi bar, an old steamer sunk by the land and full of flags and sailor memorabilia where we had a few more piscos than we should have had with the locals.

From then on, the real stuff started. We set-up rosters for cooking, cleaning toilets and cabins and also for the 3hr watch (followed by 6hr rest). Sailing continuously – mostly on autopilot – we had to keep an eye out for other boats, wind speeds and direction, the barometer, our position aaaand, after crossing the 60º latitude and officially entering Antarctic waters, keep an eye out for icebergs! You don’t want to end up making the news or inspiring a sequel for Titanic…

The 1st day was especially challenging for those not used to sailing. While the waves of the Drake Passage could have been worse, 3-4 metres were enough to keep us rocking and made us seasick despite the tablets we took. On the second day the winds stopped and we had to motor most of the way… grey sky, waves, rain, spray and a few birds were the only things we saw. By the 3rd day we had recovered our appetites and continued killing the time reading, chatting, making teas and, in my case, carving wood.

This last hobby I started in Puerto Williams. While the rest of the crew were showering and completing paperwork at customs, I spent close to 45min sweating and sawing a nice chunk of wood with my swiss army knife.

For almost a week after, I spent the time on watch and other spare time carving a ring to propose to Sal!

Travelling with a real ring for almost a year would have been just silly but I didn’t want to propose empty handed…

so I thought that Patagonian wood, a pearl I almost swallowed eating seafood in Chiloé and a volcanic rock from Antarctica would do the job. Then, I just had to find the right time to bend the knee…

In the meantime we had finally arrived to Antarctica! Olly land hoed 15min before us.. we were trying hard to see something in the horizon…but we only had to look up to over 2,000m where the peaks of the mountains raised over the clouds, way more mountainous than we had imagined.

It was a beautiful day with blue skies and the first sight of the contrast between the silky waters, snowy peaks and glaciers and clear sky is a memory that we will never forget. We entered the Antarctica Peninsula sailing near the Melchior Islands.

Antarctica has 97% of the world’s fresh water. Put all the rivers, lakes and snowy mountains in the world and that only adds up to 3%!!

Our first mooring in Antarctica was in Paradise Harbour (I was so excited that I started singing along and versioned Guns ‘Roses’ Paradise City). The name makes justice to the place and Sal and I couldn’t help but jump in the kayaks to start exploring the area.

Among our duties, we also had to help with the lines when mooring or anchoring. Winds can change direction and force unexpectedly so we usually set 3 to 4 lines to ensure a quiet night… later on you’ll see how 4 lines are not even enough sometimes!

Once in the kayaks, the first thing we looked for were penguins and seals and let me tell you, there were plenty! After humans, they are the most populated species in the world. Seals are fat and cute, usually napping on a little iceberg and barely disturbed by our curious eyes.

Penguins were loud and stinky! Sooo stinky. Forget the majestuous and spotless images from National Geographic, the babies sleep on their own poo.

On the way back to the boat we made sure to bring some iceberg ice with us. The gin tonics tasted much better with it!!

The day after we were on a mission to take Ronda (Steph’s Honda that she’s travelling the world with) to land. Using the boom as a crane, we moved the bike to the dingy and landed on a small beach.

It wasn’t a long ride, but Steph is probably the first woman to ride a bike on Antarctica, congrats! If you want to see some of her adventures, check out her blog.

The day after we were invited to visit the Gonzalez Videla Chilean Base. While the Antarctic Treaty prohibits military operations in Antarctica, Argentina and Chile have a few navy bases around, which are justified in case there’s an emergency.

The guys there spend 6 months in Antarctica by themselves so you can imagine how well they received us… especially the girls. The Chileans were really nice, they had us for lunch, showed us around the base and shared great pictures and their knowledge.

The day went by and we ended up having them for BBQ dinner on our boat… and more drinks. Steph even managed to get the name badges from two officials after daring to mast-dance in the cold cold night.

Interestingly, on these human bases penguins have found a safe spot from predators, so their population keeps increasing. While the bases look very nice, the penguin stench is powerful and even impregnated our clothes for a few days. Most of the penguins we saw were gentoos… however, every now and then we spotted the classy chinstraps. Sadly, Emperor penguin colonies are only found further into the south pole.

The days went by spotting more seals, humpback whales and even a family of orcas (you can recognise the dad by the huge dorsal fin).

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The kayak trips were epic, it’s really cool to see the penguins porpoising towards you. After a few mechanical issues that the Chileans helped to fix, we started making our way towards Vernadsky, the Ukrainian base.

On the way there we passed the jawdropping Lemaire Channel, with big black snow covered mountains on either side and icebergs in the water.

Sal and I were on kitchen duties, so we had a full Spanish themed day with sangria, paella, tortilla and tapas.

That afternoon we went for a hike to Peterson Island, where we found the sneaky Adelie Penguins.

Sal, Olly and I climbed to the top, we had a great view of the Pleneau Bay, which we also visited by zodiac the next day.

The day we reached the Vernadsky Base we kayaked in the morning and visited the Wordie House in the afternoon, an old British Base that has been well kept and maintains the decorations and materials from the old times (coffee tins, sunlight soap, typewriters, weather gauges, dog cards, gas mask, etc).

On the other hand, there are plenty of abandoned bases… which goes against the Antarctic Treaty (countries are responsible for removing them if they’re not being used), but you can imagine the costs involved. We also took a couple of tobogans to the top of the hill and had pretty close races. Heaps of fun.

Close to dinner time, we went to Vernadsky base. Cath told us about the sauna that the Ukranians had built there so, after asking for permission, Olly, Sal and I took a few beers and had a great time there. Our challenge was to beat the 5 rounds between sauna and Antarctic waters (1ºC)… so we took our time and raised the bar to 7 rounds.

I’ll never complain again about cold water in the Mediterranean or Australia. After a shower, we felt 20 years younger.

The Ukranian scientists were quite impressed so, in a gesture of caramaderie, gave us a round of home-made shots for every round of Sauna/icy water that we had done. Luckily, they had also prepared a traditional Ukranian dinner that helped to digest (special mention to the smoked-cured meat, so good!).

The Ukranian scientists taught us a few things that night, from some of their marine biologist projects, to some contorsionist tricks that involved twisting your body around a chair and trying to grab your drink just using your mouth without touching the floor.

As you can imagine, lots of us ended on the (carpeted) floor. Similarly to the Chilean base, there’s some serious work going on in Antarctica.

We followed our adventure sailing to Port Lockroy, a famous spot were the British have a wonderful base that serves both as a museum and a post office. They make an absolute fortune selling postcards and stamps!

Time was ticking and there hadn’t been a single suitable time to propose. Determination kicked in and I confided the secret plans to Cath, who allowed me to make a quick call to Sal’s parents. As you can imagine, the satellite communication from a sailboat to Australia wasn’t particularly clean, but it was enough to share the plans, a few laughs, and secure the approval from the headquarters ;)

We arrived to Cuverville Island, where our fellow travellers felt lazy and preferred to stay having tea on the boat.

Sal and I were eager to explore the area as usual, so Cath trusted Sal with the tender… and served me the chance I was looking for on a gold platter. We took the tender ashore and started hiking up the hill, passing a colony of gentoo penguins… one of them performing a courtship dance, very appropiate. At the top we had a great view of the channel and a bit of a sunset. Even the penguins had helped with their dance!

On the way down from the hill we were happily engaged but we realised that the tide had come up. The tender, still tied to the rocks, was just floating on the icy waters.

I started running as fast as I could, passing the horrified colony of penguins right through the middle, until I reached shore. Sal started enjoying her condition of fiancée and sent me off to catch the dingy, the knee high water going into my boots and cooling my legs off after the run. We finally made it back to the boat, one of us shaking, but happy as and with one more anecdote to share.

That night we slept on the boom of the boat in a really warm sleeping bag. We were hoping to see the stars but it started snowing on us so we had to zip up the sail cover.

The day after we motored all the way to Enterprise Island. It was beautifully calm, we had some blue skies and we saw lots of whales along the way. We even saw some that were using bubble circles the trap the krill while they scooped them up.

We ended up tying up to an old whaler shipwreck, kayaked around the area and saw lots of unfriendly fur seals, chinstraps and shags.

The day after we woke up early to prepare the boat for 100 nautical miles sail to Deception Island. 20 knot winds and big swell made it similar to the Drake crossing only with blue sky, sun, icebergs and antarctic coastline in sight. Finally, the wind and waves were getting too strong and the tender was getting damaged by rollers, so we had to give up and moor in the shelter of Trinity Island (uncharted territory).

A few night-watches after, we set-off at 5am and arrived to Deception Island, an old volcano, just after lunch. We anchored at Whalers Bay in the caldera, surounded by hills of volcanic ash, with seals frollicking on the beach and old, derelick abandoned buildings and silos. Sal and I went for a hike with Cath to see the chinstrap colony, but a snowstorm set in and when we got to the highest point it was all grey so we had to return.

That night was the hardest as we had to change the anchorage 3 times. The last time, we were awoken by the boat alarm at around 4am because we had run aground. Sal, Steph and I dressed up quickly and climbed the boom in the middle of a snow storm. Olly swung us out 180 degrees over the icy water to tilt the boat and set us free. The whole thing sounded like a joke… a Welsh, an Aussie and a Spaniard climb the boom in the middle of a snowstorm…

About 15min after we came down and had hot chocolates to warm up. The good news is that the island looked epic the next day after the snowstorm, so we climbed the highest peak for beautiful views of ash covered mountains with snowy veins.

Unfortunately, the next day we had to make our way to King George Island, where a flight was waiting for us in 48hrs. After so much work, Deception Island gifted us this beautiful sunrise as a farewell:

You can find the biggest base in Antarctica (Base Frei) on King George Island, with premises from different countries (Russia, Chile, China and South Korea).

Steph, Olly, Sal and I went for a wander and, on the way to shore, a huge leopard seal came to play with our bubbles. The seal popped its head on the side of the tender a couple of times and it looked as if it wanted to jump in, it was definitely interested in us and playful… but it was also the most terrifying experience of the trip. Leopard seals are huge!

Iván showed us the Chilean base where 8 men stay year round and 23 during summer (November to March). We played Chilean pool (they have everything to keep themselves entertained!); later, Sergio, a 26yo pilot showed us around the airforce base, including a catholic church, residential areas for the families and even a dome gym.

Our flight was cancelled due to the weather conditions, so we got an extra day in Antarctica (wohoo!). The morning after was beautiful and our flight was confirmed, but we still had time to visit the only orthodox church in Antarctica that the Russians built not long ago, where we were welcomed by the long-bearded priests who were singing and ringing the bells.

Shortly after we had to pack and clean up for the next group of travellers joining the boat and a pick-up took us to the landing strip, where a Brasilian Hercules had crashed on the runway a few weeks before.

Our flight to Punta Arenas was smooth and we waved goodbye to Antarctica as we saw the last icebergs and mountains poking through.

Arriving back to Chile felt like waking up from a dream and we had to get used to the backpacker life again quickly. A bus heading to Puerto Natales, our next destination, was passing by as we picked up our bags with just one spare seat, so we made the most of it and rushed to our next destination!

Coming next, the W Trek in Torres del Paine!