We had two more days of adventure ahead of
us, and they were just as full of wondrous sights and sounds as the
first.
We saw thousands of penguins on Wiencke and Cuverville Islands. We
got to talk to British researchers there studying the effects of tourists
on penguin behavior and reproduction. A humpback whale surfaced not
15 feet in front of my eyes. I saw crabeater, leopard, Weddell, elephant
and Antarctic fur seals.
One night Valeri, Leonid, and their mate Alex
made shish kabobs for the group of us who were in their cabin before.
Alex was an electronics/acoustics expert. (We all wondered whether
this ship was originally built to hunt for U.S. submarines, but we
never got any confirmation on this theory.) Alex's opinion on the
situation in the republics was that not much would change until people
were allowed to own land, and that might take years. You could tell
they all felt deeply about their country. During our meal I found
out that Alex had frequented the same drinking establishments that
I have on Cape Cod, where I now live. Here I was, closer to the South
Pole than New York is to Denver, eating and drinking with Russian
sailors who care as much about their country as I do about mine, and
I realized how small the world really is. Finally our Russian friends
had to return to their duties, so they toasted us and told us how
glad they were to have met us. The feeling, we said, was mutual.
While we couldn't make our last planned landing
because of bad weather, we had made six out of seven. We also had
two days of sun. Given that Antarctica may only get 30 days of sun
in a year, we knew how fortunate we were. The Drake Passage did not
disappoint us on the trip back to South America. Waves crashing against
the bow sprayed the windows on the bridge, five decks above the waterline.
While forced inside because of the elements, we still kept busy. There
was singing and guitar playing in the lounge, there was laughing and
the exchanging of stories, and there was a party for the ship's anniversary.
The last night the captain hosted a Russian dinner complete with borscht,
shish kabobs, stuffed cabbage, and of course vodka.
My vacation was not quite over. There was
still the tour of the southernmost ranch in the world, a tour of the
National Park of Tierra del Fuego, and more free time in Ushuaia and
Buenos Aires. All of which I enjoyed. But I'll never forget the feeling
I had when I left the Akademik Ioffe and said goodbye to the friends
I had made. The interactions with those people remains as much a treasured
part of the experience as the icebergs, the whales, and the penguins. |
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