Cañada de la Virgen's Inspire Antarctic Expedition 2008

Well it’s been an awesome couple of days. So much to say, and I’m not lying here, no words to describe the experiences I have had over the last two days. I will try my best, here we go. At 6:30 in the morning team Inspire finally gets to touch ground. This was a moment I will remember forever. One because I finally touched the 7th continent and the end of the world, but also, if you know me this will put a smile on your face, its was -6 C, plus with a 25 mph wind chill that makes it -15 C. It’s ok to laugh now… done? Great, moving on! That was a very cool day, pun intended. The e-base was so interesting that I’m thinking about speaking with Robert to maybe do a stay in Antarctica for a month or two at the e-base. We will see. The next day the sun comes out and ill let my pictures paint you guys the view. Words just won’t do it justice. It’s the most unique landscape I have ever seen. You guys have to come down here. Anyway we spend a full day on the Antarctic Peninsula walking and talking and even have a leadership seminar outside. It’s hard to focus on the teacher with the view behind him constantly diverting your attention. The people on the “team inspire” are really interesting people. It’s not very often in life where one gets to spend two whole weeks with very intelligent, like minded, business minded, sensitive leaders. Tomorrow we get to camp outside on Antarctica and from what I understand, they just keep repeating threes words over and over again… Layers, Layers, Layers…!!! I will heed their wisdom. Wish me luck…. Till next time.

We have been sailing across the drake’s passage for the last two days, mother nature, the sea, winds and the crew have all welcomed us for this short visit. Saw the first iceberg just shortly before finishing lunch today when Peter (team leader) mentioned to our table that there was a reason why we were sitting still. Immediately, I jumped out of my chair and rushed outside to take a good amount of pictures. I did not even finish desert. I came back to the dining room and had a nice chat with Paulina, one of our friendly waitresses, who said it will be one of the very many we would get to see during our journey. Thank goodness for digital cameras, as I may need to delete quite a few pictures to make more room in the memory stick for future icebergs. King George’s island is just a couple of miles ahead, can’t wait to get on shore and start to make friends with the penguins (from 5 meters away).

Well WoW! So many experiences on so many levels have happened in just the first couple of day. If this keeps up I might just be living a lifetime in 2 weeks. Ushuaia was amazingly beautiful, especially the sunrises, and not no so cold. We have left on the boat to cross the Drake Passage. I believe that the collective intention of everyone on the ship has blessed this expedition with a very, very rare calm crossing of the Drake Passage. I hope we can be this lucky on the return trip. We saw a couple of pods of Fin Whales, about 10 to 15, today. It’s really wonderful to see 20 meters size whales blowing out of the water. Also today we ran across our first iceberg. Now while this is not my first iceberg, it was impressive. The colours within the iceberg were like a rainbow of the blue spectrum. Incredibly beautiful! As I write down this blog, we have had our first land sighting of King George Island. So it’s official, we have survived the first trip across the Drake Passage. Everyone, including me, is very eager to get on land and off this ship that we have been on for two days straight. I will tell you all about our first landing on the next instalment of my blog. Till then, keep sending the warms thoughts, because it’s very cold down here at the end of the world.

Paola’s initial thoughts on climate change…

[…] learn more about it - first learn, and identify my strengths and future involvement level to promote and help spread the word; [then] take action.