Austin and I decided to join this Antarctica voyage pretty last minute and looking back, we both are insanely thrilled with our decision!
The trip itself was 22 days from Ushuaia, Argentina to the South Shetland Islands to the Antarctica Peninsula. In that route, we crossed the infamous Drake Passage and gosh, it was rather intense and we had a quite “easy” crossing according to the crew. More on that later though.. There were 31 passengers (us) and 17 full time boat crew. The part we liked about this voyage specifically was we were going to learn a lot about sailing a tall ship (aka a pirate ship). Working on the boat was part of the gig too; we did watches throughout the day and night for half the trip (I spotted the Cape Horn lighthouse light!), steered the helm (big wooden steering wheel), pulled ropes to set sails, tied a variety of knots & made camera and phone “harnesses” from rope, and climbed up in the yards to tie the sails down. It was a very hands on trip and we loved that aspect of it!
Back to Embarkment day…the day we loaded the boat, we needed to find rental gear for the cold since we did not have proper equipment. After running around Ushuaia all day and finding gear, we locked Domino up at our little guesthouse and picked up our final piece of gear (arctic boots, very important!) and headed to load the ship. We timed it well and arrived to load with about 2 minutes to spare.
We rented/bought:
- Arctic knee high Muck boots since we would be walking through icy water
- Water proof pants
- Sailing/heavy duty water proof jackets
- Extra base layers
- Thermal jacket
- Thick wool socks
- Water proof gloves
- Work gloves for pulling ropes on the deck
- A neck gaiter
- Sunglasses
- Sunscreen
- Ample seasickness medicine!!
Once we boarded, we got situated in our little cabins. I was in a 4-person room with 2 of the guides: Camilla and Vicky. Austin was in a 6-person room with Simon (Czech Rep.) and Peter (Slovenia). The moment we met his roommates, Simon pulled out a bottle of Czech liquor and we all passed the bottle, haha. It was a classic Eastern European move and the liquor was way too strong for my liking!
After we were situated in our cabins, we set out to socialize and meet our fellow mates before dinner was served. On the ship, there were people from: Argentina, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Czech Rep., Slovenia, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Colombia, USA, Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand. Memorizing everyone’s names was a bit daunting at first but became natural around day 3 after many reminders.
After dinner, we all went outside on the deck to meet Captain Moritz, he was quite the character. After the meeting, we pulled away from the Ushuaia docks and port and headed into the Beagle Channel towards the open water. We planned to anchor in the Beagle Channel for the night before entering the Drake Passage.
Walking up to load the boat; the ship looked a bit rustier than we expect:
Welcome meeting and meeting the one and only, Captain Moritz (navy blue sweatshirt and blue hat in the left of the photo):
Phil and Vicky (one of my roomies!) untying the ropes so we can leave the port:
My favorite room: the library & maps room:
The sailor’s handbook contained information around the history of the ship (Europa was built in 1911!!), what the ship is equipped with, detailed diagrams of the ship’s sails and corresponding ropes/pin locations, the rules of the boat, lyrics to sailing chants/songs, and so much more!
