WARNING – PARENTAL WARNING – WARNING
Proceed with caution, as this post, unlike others, is particularly heartbreaking!
Today we started preparing our personal effects – clothing, backpacks, etc. – that we will take with us to Antarctica. Small seeds can get stuck in velcro, seams & cuffs of clothing, in the bottom of bags, etc. Since preventing non-native species from making their way to the continent is a major concern, we had to vacuum everything we were taking, with the exception being anything brand new that hadn’t been used, such as our snow pants.
Late-afternoon was a mandatory “Landing Briefing”, as we were approaching the Shetland Islands which was to be our first landing in Antarctica. All passengers had to go through this briefing before being allowed to set foot on Antarctica. Topics included how to exit/enter the Zodiacs, where to walk/not walk, always give wildlife the right of way, never sit down nor set you backpack down, and what distance we are required to keep between us and wildlife.
It also included the briefings on where we would be landing in the morning. Because we hadn’t been able to stop at Cape Horn, we were 8 to 12 hours ahead of schedule. So that you know, all landings are heavily regulated (only 100 people can go ashore at any time), and the various tour operators therefore must carefully coordinate the various appropriate landing locations.
A landing called Half Moon Bay was going to be our first target to sneak into. We say sneak, as another expedition ship was scheduled to arrive at and “have” Half Moon Bay at 1:00 pm the next day. Therefore our Expedition leader said we’d drop anchor in the bay early in the morning, allowing the expedition team to prep the landing, and then we’d all go over in roughly 1-hour increments which would get us out of the bay before 1:00 when the scheduled ship would arrive.
Excitement on a scale of 1 to 10 was roughly 42. We would be on our 6th continent the next morning… it was very giddy and surreal.
And then about 9:00 or so… The Captain came on the intercom.
That’s usually not good news. (The last time he did an unscheduled announcement, it was to indicate a single passenger was found to have Covid.)
It was even worse than that.
Someone aboard the ship had a ‘severe medical issue’ and the person needed to get medical attention quickly. Our captain indicated they were looking at many different possible avenues to address the problem. The primary (or first) option was working with one of Hurtigruten’s sister ships – the Fram – who was on their way north back to Ushuaia, to see if they would meet us halfway (they were approximately 80 miles from us), perform a ship to ship sea transfer, and then take the passenger to the mainland while we continued to head south.
Fast forward two hours…. And the Captain came back on, indicating that we could not meet the sister ship halfway due to the excessively turbulent conditions in the Drake Passage and it was unsafe to put a boat in the water for transfer. A secondary option was to see if they could get a plane down to the only runway in this area of Antarctica, on an Argentinian base on Antarctica. Sadly after talking to both the base and the pilots back on the mainland, it was determined that this was not feasible either, as the runway hadn’t been cleared yet for summer. Therefore a plane could not safely land. Another option, a helicopter life flight, didn’t have enough range to make it to Antarctica and back.
We are fully confident the captain tried every possible solution, but it was still heartbreaking to get an update at 11 pm that we were heading back to South America and that we would NOT be going to Antarctica.
While we are thankful that the captain was conscientious about ensuring the passenger gets medical attention quickly, and we are sure he made the right decision, it was still a disheartening blow after having this trip postponed for two years due to the pandemic.
Tomorrow, on our way back to land, the captain will provide updates on what will happen for the remainder of the trip. Stay tuned??