Team members say

What a surreal day! Our second landing on the Antarctic continent is at Charcot Bay. A beautiful bay where we climb up a small hill. Beautiful sunshine, blue sky, a see without any waves and an incredible view all around. Sitting on the ridge we have another session annex workshop as part of our program “Leadership on the Edge”…And this edge is to be taken litterally this time. In the middle of this workshop, all of a sudden a cracking noise. Is it an avalanche? No, it is the breaking of an iceberg….the iceberg which is close to our ship and has at least twice the size of our ship! What a spectacular view! It never became dangerous for us or for the ship, except for some strong waves, but the event really gave all of us chicken skin. After class, back to the Zodiacs. Not in a normal way, however, but gliding down the snowy hill on our backs, backpack to the front, and off we went, about 50 meters downwards. What a thrill. Then in the afternoon, back on the ship, on our way to the camping site for tonight, we were pleasantly surprised with the presence of a pod of Orca’s, the killer whales. Even for the crew this was an usual happening, as they as well hurried out to the deck with their camarea’s to “catch” these creatures. We are lucky and blessed with the weather and the wildlife that we get to see. Let’s hope it will stay like this for another week. But, for tonight, camping night for half the team, a snowstorm is expcted….

The first time to write a blog during the expedition. I had a good and safe trip from Amsterdam to ultimately Ushuaia, the most southern city of the world (“the end of the world, the beginning of everything”). Ushuaia was the place to meet all other expedition members, to get familiar with each other, and to accommodate to the new circumstances. In addition to the first lectures and training courses of the “Leadership of the Edge” program, I spent a lot of hours in Ushuaia to beat Argentinian bureaucracy. The reason was that the paint that I had sent to Argentina caused quite a bit of confusion with the local authorities, especially the customs. Finally, the paint was delivered to the ship 1 hour before departure. Unfortunately, the painting materials, including nicely prepared testpanels, which were sent with a different courier, were never allowed to leave customes in Buenos Aires_despite the help of our Argentinian colleagues and the chasing done by the guys back in the lab in Sassenheim. Thanks to all!! In the mean time, consequently, I had to go out and buy brushes, wooden panels, nails, etcetera to actually being able to take up the challenge to do some painting at the E-base. Not too easy with my limited, if existing at all, knowledge of the Spanish language. It is now Monday afternoon, and we are almost 48 hours on the ship, on our way to Bellingshausen, Antarctica. The Drake Passage was for a sailor very calm. I had luckily enough no problem at all with seasickness. The rocking and rolling of the boat, though, caused still quite some problems for about a quarter of the people. Today was really exciting: we saw the first humpback whales and our first iceberg: IMPRESSIVE. I look forward to drop the anchor near the shore of the Antarctic peninsula in really calm water, allowing to take a shower without the risk to fall out of the shower cabin.

Eindelijk weer de gelegenheid om een stukje in mijn blog te plaatsen. Een prima reis van Amsterdam, via Frankfurt en Buenos Aires naar Ushuaia: de zuidelijkste stad ter wereld: el fin del mundo! Behalve 2 dagen acclimatiseren was het voor mij ook het duel met de Argentijnse “paarse krokodillen”. Het gevecht moest aangegaan worden met de bureaucratische Argentijnse douane, waarbij het een hoog ‘kastje-muur-kluitje-riet’ gehalte had. Maar, 260 dollar armer, een uur voor vertrek had ik dan toch mijn eigen verf weer in handen. Het pakje met verfspullen en panelen is nooit verder dan Buenos Aires gekomen en wordt daar nu vernietigd, omdat de import van hout (panelen) en textiel (laboratorium jas) niet toegestaan is…. Dan maar wat improviseren en wat spullen gekocht in Ushuaia. We zullen zien of het gaat werken. Zaterdagmiddag zijn we dan eindelijk aan boord gegaan van het schip, de “Ushuaia”, dat ons thuis zal zijn in de komende 12 dagen. De Drake Passage viel alleszins mee. Ik had helemaal nergens last, net als de meesten, hoewel een kwart toch nog behoorlijk ziek is geworden. Kijken maar hoe dat op de terugreis gaat. Vandaag de eerste walvissen (humpbacks) en onze eerste ijsberg. Echt overweldigend!

Frank’s initial thoughts on climate change…

I tend to believe that summer and winter times in the Netherlands are not anymore what they used to be.