Luck in Antarctica, Is it bad luck? Or is it good luck? We learned you have to be very fortunate to successfully travel to this unique and remote place!

As our expedition leader Michael Callaghan wakes us announcing the bad news on the loudspeaker. Conditions are poor and we should standby as the captain and expedition consult and decide what’s “operationally possible” my heart sinks. Another day of “enrichment lectures” aboard the Silver Cloud looms as the days we’ll be here with the possibility to explore on shore or in zodiac boats dwindles. Is this bad luck? No, I can’t say it is.

A day spent cruising the A23a Iceberg in the Southern Ocean- more than twice the size of London! This huge piece of ice cleaved off of Antarctica and moved along the bottom of the ocean for years, until recently, and is now moving northward.

One of those many entertaining and educational enrichment lectures was a story by historian John French about a voyage during the so called Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration in the early 20th century. A ship of explorers made its way to Antarctica with a group of men who planned to winter there, while the ship itself would leave the region and return for them in spring. This expedition from Sweden set up a nice fully stocked station and built a fine winter shelter for the men who stayed. A small group of those men went off exploring on foot, only to be marooned when the ice melted enough that they could no longer make their way back to the fully stocked camp. Stuck, they set up a makeshift shelter and prepared to stay until there was enough ice to make the crossing back. The men on the ship returning to Argentina got caught in the ice on the way back and the ship sunk, the men were marooned with just the clothes on their backs and whatever they could create for shelter out of ice and furs on a remote island north of the original group.

Penguin colonies at Brown Bluff

The group on the ship was lost without any way for anyone to know where they were or that they weren’t coming back, the group that went off on foot knew that people knew where they went but not that they had no way to get back, and the first group was expecting the ship to come back in spring, unaware that it was wrecked and would never return. It may seem like these men were very unlucky. But in fact they were VERY lucky, because they all managed to find each other, like needles in a haystack, just by walking back towards the original camp and because they’d brought an Argentinian man on the voyage, an Argentinian ship came in the spring to rescue them by heading towards the place where they knew the expedition had planned to spend the winter. All of the men survived the voyage (save one man who was ill when they left)…which was very lucky indeed!

A parent Gentoo penguin feeds it’s chick…click any image to enlarge

All of the stories of these incredible explorers made me think about how lucky we were to have the experiences we did; walking (with a 5 meter buffer) among massive penguin colonies, kayaking in bays with hump back whales, riding in zodiac boats around dramatic blue glacial ice and having a warm comfortable ship to explore from, with modern communications, wind, weather and ice forecasting technology to avoid danger and communicate last minute changes.

Humpback whales in Antarctica

As I started to ruminate in my disappointment about how “unlucky” we are to take a 2 week trip with only few days left and “only getting” two landings so far (only one day left!) I had to check my disappointment and remember all the things that had to go right, how much luck we had to be here at all!

We had to stay healthy and wait out an historic global pandemic

This trip was meant to happen in 2020 0r 2021, we all know how that went. to read more about that see our post here: Antarctica: Our White Whale

All our love ones had to stay healthy enough for us to go

Whenever we travel, we always get travel insurance, mostly because even though we’ve been fortunate to be healthy, if a loved one falls ill, we would want to cut our trip short and Antarctica is a big investment. But even with trip insurance, we needed our loved ones to be healthy and not need us during our trip in order to be able to leave and be off the grid for as long as we were.

We had to have the time and resources to make a journey

Speaking of investments, a trip to the end of the world is a BIG investment of time and money to gain an experience that less than 100,000 people a year get to do. We had saved to take this trip until we could afford to take both the time and resources to do it. Which only made the stakes even higher.

All of the 400 passengers and crew had to remain healthy

We would be traveling to a place that has only marginally more support and development than the one the Shackleton sailed into. No hospitals, no air strips for tourist to come and go (except for the King George Island) In order to experience the place all of the 200 passengers and more than 200 crew had to remain healthy with no life threatening illnesses or injuries that would require everyone aboard to return to port.

Weather had to be calm enough to safely navigate

Several people we know have attempted to fly to King Georges islands or other places in Antarctica and had many hours and days of delays due to weather. Weather can prevent landings and excursions, and the weather can change quickly. In a two week voyage, between weather delays and planned sea days, we only had activities off the ship about 7 days.

Seals and birds of Antarctica

In the end it’s a miracle of good luck that we got to Antarctica at all! I think about the experiences we DID get to have, I got kayak in the southern ocean, land on my 7th continent, take a plunge into the icy southern ocean, witness the incredible natural beauty of the sometimes comic and and superbly adapted animals here and witness some of the ferocity of the wind and weather that is completely unique to this place. And I got to do all that with my best friend and partner, on an extremely luxurious ship with new friends and attentive crew. I feel very lucky indeed!