Port Lockroy -- If there is a human population center along the Antarctic Peninsula, this is it. While there may be hundreds of thousands of penguins, tens of thousands of seals, whales and sea birds that call this remote stretch home, few people do. But at the height of the austral summer season -- December-February -- more people congregate in the protected harbor here at the former ‘Camp A’ of the British Antarctic Survey than anywhere else for many thousands of miles, if temporarily. (The next most populated place in Antarctica would be the American base at McMurdo, home to 1,200 scientists and support crew during the summer months, but located on the opposite side of the continent.) The former refuge hut ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

Paradise Harbor -- Its common knowledge among Antarctic veterans that no two days here look or feel alike. Ever. The reality is that no quarter hour looks alike. Or can be predicted, no matter how many months or years you’ve spent here. We spent the night in a small, protected bay about 400 miles down the coastline of the Antarctic Peninsula. The tricky thing about sailing a small yacht here (the aluminum-hulled Pelagic Australis is 74 feet) is that there are very few truly protected anchorages; it reminds me often of the coast of Maine, with its thousands of small islands, where ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

We woke tied-off to the rusted hulk of a half-sunken Norwegian whaling ship. Its story is legend along the Peninsula for having caught fire a century ago during a sail-away party, its stores of whale oil afire lighting up the sky for several days. Now it is just another ruined reminder of those boom days when Antarctica’s whales were one of the world’s biggest producers of oil for lighting and heat. Today is one of those days down here that you wish you could be sitting by some kind of warm fire, whether in the comfort of your living room or ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

The black volcanic sand beach carries a heavy history, of an efficient if somewhat desperate past, in evidence from the cemetery where British whalers are buried to the abandoned and rusted pumps and storage tanks that line the shore, once filled with the oil of thousands of whales killed here each during a 25 year run. From 1904 to 1931 this bay was home to one of the Southern Ocean’s boomtowns. As many as 15 big processing boats and another 35 “catcher” boats worked this beach at one time, most from Norway and the U.K. With a sun rare ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

Ever since sailing men first proved the world was not flat they have been cursing the weather conditions at Cape Horn and the Drake Passage that lies below, separating South America from Antarctica. Everyone from Sir Francis Drake, for whom the windy passage is named, to Captain Bligh, who fought into the winds for 100 days before giving in, turning around and sailing to Tahiti the long way, no one in their right mind has looked forward to these seas. I’ve crossed the Drake a couple dozen times now and include myself on the long list of those who live with a ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

From Ushuaia, at the very southern tip of Argentina, we can access pretty good weather forecasts looking 3-5 days ahead; our biggest concern has been the winds in the Drake Passage, notoriously one of the windiest places on earth. As we leave Ushuaia the predictions are that it won't blow above 30 mph for the next three days, which is optimistic. In fact, it is glassy and calm when we pull away from the dock ...

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Posted in Antarctica, Wild Antarctica 3D

Kunahadhoo Island — On a very hot, very typical, mid-morning in the Maldives, I walked the streets of this tiny island just north of the equator. Most of its 800 residents had gathered at the shoreline to greet visitors from a nearby island. While they focused on a first-of-a-kind beach cleanup along the rocky coast, accompanied by a drum band and dancing, I took a small walking tour looking for something the Maldives doesn’t have much of: drinking water. (A late morning visit to its elementary school provided another interesting glimpse into island life. While most of the students raised their hands ...

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Posted in Clean Water, Maldives, Six Senses