Ushuaia to the South Shetlands

Boarding day breakfast was spent staring down admiringly at our little ship, dwarfed by a giant cruise ship beside it at the dock. We had a few hours to kill around town so we wandered among the piles of very obvious tourists off the big boat playing "Guess who's on our boat". This game was easily adapted to the Bar Ideal over a very long lunch (there's only so much wandering you can do in Ushuaia) with an added "Guess who's going to come in here for lunch". Accuracy rates were low by the way.

And then it was time to meet the boat! MV Ortelius.

After pretty lax and disorganised dock security (if anyone's in trouble with the law and looking to stow away, this is your port) we got aboard, found our lovely cabin, unpacked and settled in. Our home for a month. Most exciting is our three windows – one pointing forward, one pointing to port and the en-suite window (unexpected bonus) also to port. So we don't have to fight over the views, though it's a little disconcerting to be able to see people wandering past your window as they stroll on the bow while you're naked. We've tested it, you can't see in.

Karl test-drives the relaxy corner

The serious clothes and boots corner

The navigation centre (yes, we are nerds, we brought charts, we are plotting our positions)

Then we set sail, yay. And watched Ushuaia disappear behind us feeling slightly strange that we won't be ending up here at the end of the cruise, but on the other side of the world. Later in the evening we had the Captain's Welcome Cocktails in the bar where we met the expedition crew (basically, our guides) who were all very excited about the cruise because it goes to the Ross Sea where hardly anyone ever goes. Which made us even more excited! In the evening we stopped at Puerto Williams, the southernmost town in the world (Argentina claims the southernmost city with Ushuaia but Chile have outfoxed them by building a town further south), to pick up our helicopters. We were just finishing dinner when they announced the imminent arrival so we were left in the unusual position of deciding between dessert or helicopters. We compromised – a quick dessert and missing the first of the three helicopters. Very cool to watch them come in and land on the deck at the back of the ship.

The next couple of days were spent travelling across the Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica and settling into life aboard. First thing in the morning there's a wake up announcement from the expedition leader in her best yoga/meditation voice "Good morning, it's Sunday the 15t^th of January, the outside temperature is 4 degrees, the sea temperature is 3 degrees and we have 30 knots of wind" and then going on to run through our schedule for the day. A little later (I've mastered the art of having made a coffee and gotten back into bed with it by this stage) the hotel manager announces in more of a Good Morning Vietnam voice, "Be-ute-iful Good Morning!",  that it's breakfast time and the dining room is open. Then we have breakfast, entertain ourselves with reading, visiting the bridge (bothering the officers and peering at their screens), wandering on deck and going to whatever lecture is on. Then lunch, then repeat. Then pre-dinner drinks (officially called "daily recap and briefing for the next day") in the bar. Then dinner. All the time meeting lots of interesting people who all seem to have been to Antarctica several times and probably the North Pole as well and most places in between.

The third officer at the helm trying to pretend he doesn't know he's being watched.

The expedition crew manage to keep us entertained/educated with genuinely interesting lectures. The first couple of days focus on bird watching 'cause really there's not anything else out here to see. Sea, and birds, and us. Karl, alas, has really taken to the birdwatching/photography. I helped by imitating a swooping bird so he could practice his technique

Surprisingly, bird watching is actually quite interesting. But maybe only in a situation where there's nothing else to watch. We saw two Wandering Albatross straight off so we may have peaked early.

They also show films to keep us out of mischief and I highly recommend a short documentary about the sailing ship the Pekin. It uses film taken in the 30s by a sailor on board whom the film-makers tracked down in the 80s and had him narrate the film. It's by Mystic films in Mystic CT, google it.

After a nice gentle first day in the Southern Ocean (in the furious fifties) on day two she decided to show us what she's made of (when we got to the screaming sixties) and we got a gale, 50 knots of wind, 6 metre waves, bloody fantastic. After reading so many stories of the single-handed yachtsmen who sail down here and following the current Vendee Globe race (round the world, non-stop, single handed yacht race), and so knowing there are four of the sailors around this neck of woods at the moment, it is just incredible to experience (in a tiny way) the conditions they are willing to face. It is vicious. Biting wind. Howling wind so you can't hear a thing. Breaking waves sending spray flying. Freeeeeeeezing cold. Wonderful to experience from the deck of a nice safe ship where you have the option to retreat to a cosy warm cabin. And it makes the breakfast and lunch self-service buffet more interesting. We were demoted though from stemmed wineglasses with dinner to more secure tumblers. Unbelievable how people have faced these conditions and worse in more precarious and exposed craft.

Land ahoy! The South Shetland Islands. Our first glimpse of Antarctica. Unfortunately the gale is still blowing so we can't go ashore but we do sail around the island that we were going to visit – Half Moon Island off Livingston Island. We were too far away to see the penguin rookery but I could smell it!

In the afternoon we were able to make our planned landing at Deception Island which is the caldera of a volcano, so shaped like a doughnut with one bite taken to let you into the middle – a perfect natural harbour.

Approaching the entrance – like Sydney heads but narrower.

First trip ashore!!! We'd had the mandatory briefing about disinfecting everything before going ashore and on the return, not bringing anything that might blow away (tissues), not bringing any food, we had spent a jolly afternoon vacuuming the clothes we would be wearing ashore to make sure we weren't bringing in any foreign seeds etc., we had chosen our trusty rubber boots to wear and were ready for off. First a layer of thermals, then thick woolly socks, a fleece, waterproof trousers, waterproof jackets, scarf, small gloves and big mittens, hat, sunglasses and suncream. Done.

Chances of losing me are slim.

Deception Island had an old Norwegian whaling station from the early 20^th century and a British research station from the mid 20^th century. Following a few volcanic eruptions in the late 60s it was finally abandoned. Interestingly one of our expedition guides had overwintered (there's a new word for ya) there in (I think) 1967, working as a meteorologist, and was there for one of the eruptions.

The research hut.

A tractor in the wrong place when the volcano erupted.

Old oil storage from the whaling station which looks just beautiful in its old age – there's a sculpture just like this in the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Oh. And there are penguins. They're very cute.

Because of the volcano there's some heating of the water near the beach (which apparently Lonely Planet called "Hot Springs") so some fools went for a dip. They seemed to immediately regret it when they hit the 1 degree water.......even Karl was able to resist the temptation.

Next stop: somewhere else. Have to wait for the daily recap and briefing to find out!