Hasta La Ideas

After almost 30 hours sailing through The Drake Passage, the Sea Spirit arrived to the Southern Ocean. In the early hours of March 8th, amidst the strong wind and heavy cloud coverage in the sky, we got our first glance at the magic continent: glaciers in the distance as far as the eye could see.

Through the morning we began to see small icebergs as we approached Melchor Island. Since we had arrived earlier than expected, we were in for a treat and took our first zodiac excursion here.

In preparation for our landing we received a briefing about the wildlife on the island as well as instructions on how to conduct ourselves if, say, a leopard seal approached you. In tandem with the precautions we had to take, we were also assigned teams named after Antarctic explorers like Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton. This came after a previous briefing during the crossing of the Drake Passage when we were introduced to the history of these explorers who risked it all.

As we neared Melchor Island, we had to go through a bio-security check to remove all dust, debris and possible seeds from our clothing and make sure every single piece of equipment that we took was clean so that we wouldn’t introduce foreign particles in the pristine environment of Antarctica. All vessels that come to Antarctica have to take strong measures to ensure that no harm is done to the wildlife and the historical sites.

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