Antarctic Guide Blog
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 12
I’m writing this as our ship, One Ocean’s Akademik Ioffe, holds position off Point Wild, Elephant Island. The whole island is a lump of rock in the middle of the Drake Passage and, as expected, the swell running is far too big to even attempt to launch a Zodiac. But the fog that was around […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 11
Another full day at sea. And the sea isn’t letting us go lightly. It was snowing this morning and we have some Australians on board who have never seen snowfall before. There were talks through the day and David, our resident artist, taught a large group of enthusiasts how to draw penguins at afternoon tea […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 10
Apparently those who have been in it describe war as long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of great excitement. Reverse those ratios to great periods of excitement and some sea days and you have a description of the long Antarctic cruise that includes the Falklands and South Georgia. There’s a sea day to the […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 9
People travel for very different reasons. On an Antarctic voyage the majority of people are here for the wildlife, specifically penguins but they’ll take as many albatross, whales and seals as we can deliver. Then there are the history buffs and those seeking the ice. Finally we have the few who don’t care about Antarctica […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 8 – Press Release
Antarctic legend laid to rest In a moving ceremony in the tiny Lutheran chapel and white-picketed graveyard in the now-derelict Grytviken Whaling Station the ashes of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trusted lieutenant Frank Wild were finally laid to rest alongside The Boss today. Wild sailed to Antarctica four times with Shackleton between 1902 and 1922 on […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 7
In a moving ceremony in the tiny Lutheran chapel and white-picketed graveyard in the now-derelict Grytviken Whaling Station the ashes of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trusted lieutenant Frank Wild were finally laid to rest alongside The Boss today. Wild sailed to Antarctica four times with Shackleton between 1902 and 1922 on the Discovery, the Nimrod, the […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 6
I had a drink with Frank Wild tonight. There were a few of us there, old shipmates and new. It was in the Ioffe’s expedition room with the whole staff of One Ocean, the six members of the Wild family onboard, Alexandra Shackleton, Ron Naveen from Oceanites, Angie Butler and Rev Richard and his wife. […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 5
Today was a big day for the voyage. For today, the instigator of the whole Wild project (if a reburial can be called that) spoke on her quest. And seven years work was very clearly a quest or an obsession. Angie Butler has revealed all but the very last steps of her search in her […]
The Last Voyage of the Heroic Age – Day 4
Several of the ship’s company were guests of honour at Government House today. With our need to sail for South Georgia by mid-afternoon, morning tea (with scones, jam and cream) was provided in the quite impressive reception hall. It was hosted by acting Governor, Mr Ric Nye and attended by Richard McKee, South Georgia’s Executive […]
Heroic Age Closure voyage – Day 3
Today I was on West Point Island in the Falklands, down at the Devil’s Nose where a bare patch of rock and dirt is noisily cohabited by a profusion of rockhopper penguins and black-browed albatross. It’s a remarkable sight, particularly when a clumsy albatross flight path clips a few yellow penguin crests or a penguin […]