After all the hoops we had to jump to get to Antarctica (in our previous post), here we finally were. Antarctica!
Like, this took a little while for it to sink in.
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.
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.
We saw ourselves surrounded by icebergs.
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.
Not to mention the spotting of wildlife which had become a lot more frequent now that we were in Antarctica.
Penguins bobbing all around, more seals on icebergs around the ship and the occasional whale in the distance.
We were pretty much bouncing off the walls all morning and then the captain decided to up the ante.
As it turns out, you can go to Antarctica but not get into the Antarctic Circle.
The Antarctic Circle is a lot lower down and very few ships ever make it that far south because of the sea ice.
As you can imagine, the closer it gets to the South Pole, the thicker the sea ice is.
The Ocean Victory ship we took down to Antarctica is actually built to traverse the ice here.
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.
They just don’t bother attempting it.
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.
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.
Turns out, he was right and with that, we were the first sailing of the season to get into the Antarctic Circle!
There were whoops and cheers all around with champagne everywhere to celebrate.
This was a milestone I didn’t even know we needed to meet prior to the sailing but it was amazing. Haha!
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.
It was absolutely amazing and such a…
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