#Date taken: December 2017

#Location: Neko Harbor, Antarctica

#5 of 5 #Edition 1/1

Antarctica.

For a long time I had dreamed about visiting this place. At first I assumed it wasn't possible to visit as a tourist, so I kinda gave up on it. But then I found out about expedition cruises and knew I had to go! Before I knew it, I was on the long journey south. From Vancouver, Canada to Ushuaia, Argentina it took me 48 hours in transit, and I was unable to sleep the entire time. The same thing happened to me on the way back. Let's just say I'm envious of people who can sleep on planes!

In Ushuaia I met up with my friends and we explored the city for a couple days. It was fun to be a tourist for a while, trying out different restaurants, going for a day hike and taking a helicopter into the mountains.

But let’s fast forward to boarding day. These are not your typical cruise ships - they are small, about the size of a ferry, and the one I was boarding only takes about 100 passengers. We got settled in and began the next step of our journey: crossing the notorious Drake Passage. By ship it takes 48 hours to cross and is famous for having awful weather, but we got lucky on our initial crossing.

Time flew, and before we knew it, we were in Antarctica. It was like another world down there. Because it was summer and we were so far south, the sun never actually set, which was amazing but not something I ever became used to. It was a particularly strange feeling when we left the ship to go camping on Antarctica itself! The guides took us to a location that was not home to any penguins or other wildlife, and we began setting up our camps. For sleeping, we dug holes in the snow, placing down insulated mats and sleeping bags inside bivvy bags.

Digging the sleeping hole was a surprising amount of effort, and afterwards I took some time for photos and to just take in the surroundings. It was incredible. We were surrounded by mountains, enormous glaciers and icebergs. It didn’t feel real, instead I felt like I was watching someone else’s life. With regularity, glaciers would calve, which was quite eerie because it sounds exactly like thunder. Eventually it was time to sleep, which was quite difficult outside due to how bright it was, and I only managed to sleep for a few hours, eventually waking up to snow falling on my face.

Soon it was time to pack up and get a ride on a zodiac back to the ship!

The zodiacs were one of the best parts of the trip. My friends and I convinced some of the guides to take us out for iceberg photography, and it was a ton of fun zipping around and checking out the various bergs. The ones in a place called Neko Harbor were particularly striking.

I called this piece “Maw of Ice” because I immediately thought it looked like the mouth of a shark, complete with icicles for teeth! I reached as far as I could without falling out of the zodiac and fired off a few shots as fast as I could. The water in Antarctica is nearly -2c, so falling in could have very serious consequences. Getting this close to icebergs is also a bit risky, as pieces could fall off, or worse, the iceberg could suddenly flip. You do not want to be near an iceberg when this happens! There is a reason the saying "the tip of the iceberg" exists. It's because most of the iceberg is underwater, with the top only representing a small part of it.

And speaking of icebergs, those were the small ones. One of the highlights of the trip was a huge, one mile long iceberg. It is hard to describe the scale of those bergs. It truly was enormous. It was like seeing The Wall in Game of Thrones.

There were giant cracks in the iceberg, emitting an otherworldly blue glow.

We were also treated to some dramatic mountain landscapes. In Antarctica, the mountains are quite literally buried in ice. It makes you wonder how life manages to even exist down there. But it doesn't just exist, it thrives! I'm not much of a wildlife photographer, but I knew I had to take some shots of the animals or face huge regret. The penguins were hilarious to watch: sometimes they would waddle, but other times they would get on their bellies and slide around on the snow, propelling themselves with their little feet.

On our way back across the Drake Passage, sailing was smooth for the first day. But on day two, we were literally woken up by getting rolled out of our beds. The ocean was angry, with 32 foot tall waves. Not many people came out of their rooms that morning, and my friends and I were few of the souls brave enough to go to breakfast!

Before long, it was time for the draining 48 hour journey back home.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy viewing this piece as much as I enjoyed making it! Tristan Todd