Getting Ready

Tomorrow my friend Surilda and I will be starting our trip to the deep, deep South.  Tomorrow we will fly from Denver to Santiago Chile to spend a week exploring the area around Chile's capitol city.  Hoping to find some exciting places to visit and of course taste some of Chile's famous wines.  On the 25th we will fly to the Falkland Islands to board our ship, the Polar Pioneer, to start our journey called the "Shackleton Spirit".  We will relive the epic journey of Ernest Shackleton who, in 1916 sailed 800 miles of open ocean in a 22 foot life boat, the "James Caird", with five of his 28 man crew from Elephant Island off the Antarctic Peninsular to a whaling station on South Georgia Island to mount a rescue for the rest of the crew stranded on the island.  

Our journey will follow Shackleton's route in reverse.  The Polar Pioneer will leave Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands on Jan 25th and sail to South Georgia where will view the ruins of the whaling station, visit Shackleton's grave and several other historic and scenic places.  From there we will sail to Elephant Island, with several stops to view the lonely place where Shackleton's crew waited six months for rescue.  We will  also have chances to see the abundant wildlife and magnificent scenery.  From Elephant island we will visit the Antarctic Peninsula, again stopping an making excursions on land and in Zodiac inflatable boats.  We will then sail through the Drake Passage to debark at Ushuaia Argentina.  Ushuaia is purported to be the southern most city in the world.  

Surilda and I will do some more exploring around Ushuaia for several days before flying to Buenos Aires where we will also take some time to explore and a side trip to Uruguay just because.  After Buenos Aires we will then fly back to Denver where I can check another thing off my bucket list. 

Hopefully the Polar Pioneer will not get stuck in the ice of Antarctica like the other Russian ship did recently.  On second thought maybe getting stuck in the ice would enhance our adventure.  Hmmmm.......   I could get a lot of material out of that.  

I'll keep you posted.  Signing off for now.  

Ernie OToole