The RG correspondent celebrated the 205th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica with penguins there

Old Man Drake

“Antarctica?! It’s so far away!” – my friends and colleagues were surprised. Yes, it’s not close. My route to the starting point: Khabarovsk – Moscow – Addis Ababa – Sao Paulo – Buenos Aires – Ushuaia. 32.5 hours in the air.

But this is not much if compared with the expedition of Faddey Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The sloops “Vostok” and “Mirny” sailed from Kronstadt in July 1819, and reached South Georgia only in mid-December.

The passage through the ever stormy Drake Passage – which separates South America and Antarctica – usually takes up to two days. But here old Drake relaxed for some reason, and we slipped through its quiet waters in a day. “It’s just a miracle!” – admitted the leader of our expedition and gave the go-ahead for an unplanned landing on the South Shetland Islands.

But on the way back the menacing strait made up for lost time: day and night the ship was lashed by six-meter waves. “I allow you to tell everyone that the waves were ten meters,” the captain allowed those who were not overcome by seasickness. Only six people climbed out onto the icy deck to look at Cape Horn.

I imagined even more clearly the feat of the Russian sailors who sailed in these furious waters on wooden shells under sails that were torn by the merciless wind. By the way, the Vostok was 39.5 meters long and 9.9 meters wide, the Mirny – 36.5 and 9.1 meters respectively. Our Sea Spirit is more impressive: 90 by 15 meters. And its engine has 4782 “horses”. But in the Antarctic bays, next to the huge icebergs and rocky cliffs reaching into the sky, the ship seemed so tiny.

Antarctic International

“The ship was built in Italy, and it has an Italian character,” the captain said. “In general, it is like a horse: it knows where to go.”

On the Sea Spirit, Portuguese law is in accordance with the flag. On board are 118 people from 19 countries – tourists and scientists, because our throw into the Southern Ocean is not a pleasure trip, but an expedition tour. 12 landings, evacuation training, drills and every day two or three lectures – ornithologists, marine biologists, geographers, historians shared their knowledge.

The crew is also international. Captain Yaroslav Gonta is from Ukraine, expedition leader Sergey Shirokiy is from Russia, the hotel director is from the Philippines, the restaurant director is from Serbia, the landing director is from China, the ship’s doctor is from Colombia (she immediately announced that she would provide free assistance only for colds, covid and injuries). The guys at the reception are from Chelyabinsk, the guys in the engine room are from Odessa. In total, a company from 11 countries gathered.

There were four working languages ​​on board: English, Chinese, German and Russian. But English was the most commonly heard language.

I open my eyes – a seal has settled down five meters away. We dozed next to it, exchanging glances, until the morning.

My roommates in the spacious cabin are British Vivienne Darbon with a gray braid and a colored tattoo all over her back, and Swiss Monica Wescott. Monica’s American husband Gary is in the cabin opposite with two Germans. The Wescott couple usually travel in a motorhome, and in the winter of 1996 they landed in Magadan, traveled around the Far East, and in 11 months crossed Russia from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. “In Yakutia, we even visited a city with a gangster name. Monica, Zhigansk?”

The expedition is an expedition, but the life on board is more than comfortable: the cabins are at the level of a 4* and 5* hotel, and the food is at the level of a luxury restaurant. And also international: every day, in addition to the usual extensive selection, they prepared dishes of some national cuisine. On “Russian day” there was borscht.

This is certainly not the rations on the ships of Bellingshausen and Lazarev. They took 20.5 tons of dried peas, 7 tons of oats and buckwheat, 28 tons of corned beef, 65.8 tons of crackers, a lot of sauerkraut in barrels, 196 kilos of sugar and 3926 liters of vodka. There was no time for the roast piglet that we were served in honor of crossing the Southern Polar Circle.

With a seal by my side

The main happiness is, of course, landing on the Antarctic shores and boat cruises among the icebergs. Equipment is quite a labor: two or three times a day to put on and take off four layers from thermal underwear to insulated rubber boots and an arctic jacket.

You wash your boots, trample around in a disinfectant solution – and only then get into a black Zodiac. (These durable boats were created for the military, but they also came in handy in extreme tourism.) Precautions are not superfluous: in 2023, bird flu reached Antarctica, which is why South Georgia is closed. And who knows what kind of misfortune can accidentally be brought from the ship and harm the fragile ecosystem of the isolated continent. Upon returning on board – also a thorough wash.

Once again, the instructions sound: “Don’t feed, don’t pet, don’t hug. Don’t wake the seal. If a penguin is coming toward you, back off.” There are two types of penguins: white, if they’re coming toward you, and black, if they’re going away. And if we don’t go by the local joke, the Antarctic Peninsula is inhabited by five species of these birds. They’re not afraid of people at all. And the most curious ones wouldn’t mind getting to know them. One such brave fellow jumped into our “Zodiac”, stamped his feet on the side, and slowly slid into the water.

Penguin colonies are noisy, smelly and… pink. The trampled snow is brownish-pink from, let’s say, waste products, since krill makes up a considerable portion of the birds’ menu. The same color are the “penguin highways” – long, sometimes hundreds of meters long, paths from the sea to the colony, polished, very similar to a bobsled track.

We had to walk on virgin soil, sinking knee-deep every now and then. The snow was unusual – sticky, wet, creaky, not made of delicate snowflakes, but of smooth ice floes.

An unforgettable night in the open air. In the evening, 20 of us daredevils were put ashore and given… a shovel each. No tents. Dig a hole for yourself, make a breastwork to keep the wind from blowing in from the sea, climb into a red sleeping bag – and you are alone with Antarctica. The water and the mountains are thousands of shades of white and gray. The feeling of global loneliness sets you up for thoughts about the universe and space. The silence is so thick that it seems you can cut it with a knife. But from time to time – bang! and whoosh: another ice floe has broken away from the continental layer and slid into the ocean.

In my sleep I hear – splash-splash, slap-slap. I open my eyes – five meters away a seal has settled down comfortably. So we dozed nearby, exchanging glances with him every now and then, until the morning.

Antarctica allowed us to try itself out. We broke off a piece of iceberg and melted it in the bar. Some drank cocktails, some drank it neat. What was it like? I will answer with the words of Bellingshausen: “As an experiment, I ordered, without telling the officers, to make water for tea from the melted ice; everyone found it excellent and the tea tasty. This encouraged us that during the voyage between the ice we would always have good water.”