The mild wind and waves gently rock the boat; a time to reflect, a time to catch up on editing, a time to sleep after seven full days on the peninsula.
The Antarctic—when you tell your friends you are going there does it beg the response “How cool!” or “Why would you go there?”
Antarctica—one of the most amazing places on the planet (and I am from Buffalo, NY). The ice, the black-and-white tuxedoed gentlemen, the whales, the remoteness, the pristineness, the constant change—any of these could help describe the continent, but in 15 year of traveling here I still cannot put my finger on what touches my soul every time I am here. Every trip—ahhemmm—every day is different here, and brings its own inexplicable uniqueness.
One of the most incredible places in Antarctica that I have ever explored is the underwater world. These are some of the most unexplored ocean bottoms on the planet, and as a dedicated undersea specialist I head below the surface to bring back images for the National Geographic Explorer guests.
Colors and images of one of most inhospitable environments on the planet fill the screen during the nightly Recap: soft corals, anemones, sea stars, sea cucumbers, sun stars, Charcots volute, nudibranches, and sea spiders.
After seven days on the Antarctic Peninsula, we have experienced the some of what the early explorer’s have felt—high winds, ice, and unpredictableness—even with our sophisticated weather charting. But in the same sense we have “touched the naked soul of man” and come away with an great understanding and perspective of the White Continent.
