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Antarctica ©2008– by J. David Levy

Edited by James Morrissey

Towards the end of January, 2008 my wife, Lucy, and I embarked on a trip that we have been anticipating for over a decade – a journey to the end of the earth, the “Fin del Mundo”. We traveled to Antarctica.

Antarctica, the seventh continent, is owned by no nation, has no government, no infrastructure, no passport control and no internal boundaries or borders.

It contains close to 70% of the planet's fresh water in the form of massive glaciers, several miles thick, which cover most of the continent and, in the wintertime, it is the most inhospitable climate known to mankind.

Antarctica is protected by the countries of the world through a series of treaties that make scientific research and peaceful use the primary considerations. Less than 35,000 people visit the continent each year. Much fewer of them travel below the Antarctic Circle. We were among those lucky few.

We began our trip by flying from our home in Santa Fe, NM to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a wonderful and exciting city worthy of its own write up. We spent three nights there and then flew to Ushuaia on the tip of Argentina, the southern most port city in the world and our jumping off point. We spent one day there and visited the Tierra del Fuego National Park located just outside the city and at the end of the Pan-American Highway.

David and Lucy Levy at Tierra del Fuego National Park. © 2008 J. David Levy

Tierra del Fuego National Park © 2008 J. David Levy

We then boarded our ship, the Akademic Ioffe, and departed from Ushuaia and spent the next two days crossing the Drake Passage.

Ushuaia © 2008 J. David Levy

© 2008 J. David Levy

The next seven days were filled with two-a-day Zodiac cruises/landings. Two of the landings were on the continent itself. The map shown here represents the stops made along the way:

Our first cruise was made below the Antarctic Circle around Detaile Island.

Adelie penguins make their way to the top of the ridge on Detaile Island. © 2008 J. David Levy

On the way back to the ship that afternoon we spotted an iceberg with some visitors. Turned out that it was a penguin ice skating party!

Gentoo penguins “skating party”. © 2008 J. David Levy

The next day, after motoring north overnight (our normal routine) we anchored our ship off Petermann Island and landed to observe both Gentoo and Adelie penguin rookeries.

Akademik Ioffe © 2008 J. David Levy

The Akademik Ioffe was built in1989 for the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oceanography. It is still used for scientific research, but is exclusively chartered by Perrigrine Shipping (now a part of Quark Expeditions) for trips such as ours. It is manned by a Russian crew of 42 and staffed by Perrigrine with 16 well-trained and very helpful staff that lead the expeditions and prepared and delivered our on-board educational programs.

A Gentoo penguin calls out for her chick. Petermann Island. © 2008 J. David Levy

Gentoo chicks scurry around in a “play group”. © 2008 J. David Levy

Adelie parents care for a chick just beginning to molt its fur-like coat of feathers to reveal its adult coat. © 2008 J. David Levy

The next day found us cruising around the Yalour Islands and landing on Pleneau Island where we observed more Gentoo penguins. We also cruised around Pleneau where the geography of the island and the currents keep many icebergs trapped in the area to form what the crew called the “Iceberg Graveyard”.

So many of the icebergs, like clouds in the sky, formed shapes that reminded us of more earthly shapes. The berg pictured here we called “The Lion”:

© 2008 J. David Levy

We also saw lots of seals, many of them just resting on smaller ice flows. They pretty much ignored us as we approached their resting places. An occasional stare back or a yawn was the most they reacted to our presence. We saw leopard, elephant, Weddell, crab eater and fur seals on this trip.

A crab eater seal gives us a bored look. © 2008 J. David Levy

A Gentoo male adds a rock to the nest on Pleneau Island. © 2008 J. David Levy

If you would like to learn more about J. David Levy, you can visit his website at www.jdavidlevy.com

If you have a story about your own photographic journeys and would like to share please contact us.