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The Great White Continent and the Great White
Dessert are two names of Antarctica, a land of extremes
and the most inhospitable continent in the world, but
you will find life here too!
 The
fascinating great white continent of Antarctica is
located 60 degrees below S latitude. It is the most
distant continent, with the nearest land being South
America at a distance of 965 km and India (Goa, from
where the Indian expedition generally begins) at more
than 11,000 km. We left India for Frankfurt, by
Lufthansa Airlines, which takes about 9 hours travel
time…After having spent an entire day in Frankfurt, we
took our connecting 12 hour flight to Brazil where we
spent some days enjoying the Amazon jungles and then we
were off to Santiago, Chile (6 hours flight) where we
met our co-passengers (mainly of U.S. and German
nationality) for the Antarctic expedition.
The Amazon is truly the “Lung of the world.” The
green belt spreads over a 2,030,000 square mile
ecosystem that includes the Amazon River and Amazon
Forest (the largest and most dense rainforest in the
world having about five million animal species)…It’s
here where the Rio Negro flows into the muddy Amazon.
For many miles, the black and white waters flow side by
side in separate, clearly defined streams before they
finally intermingle…Though there are a 170 odd Indian
cultural groups living in the Amazon, they add up to
only 2,00,000 population as of today.
 From
Santiago, the expedition agents had organised a
chartered flight (LAN Chile at 8.30 am) to Ushuaia,
Argentina (arrival – 12.20 pm), (flight duration
4hrs)…Ushuaia is the primary embarking port for ships
heading to Western Antarctica.The tour ended at Ushuaia
pier where we found our ship – ‘The World Discoverer’
and her 100 crewmembers busy, preparing for our
expedition.
Journey through the Antarctic Current
The second day was onboard, wherein experts made
presentations on seabirds and the marine mammals of
Antarctic waters, whilst sharing their current
researches. One of the talks on ‘Plate tectonics-or how
earth works’ was the most interesting of them all and is
the current hot favourite of every geologist. Due to the
cold Antarctic summer, the southern hemisphere
circulation is meteorologically stronger than that of
the Northern hemisphere and the Southern Circumpolar
Westerly winds remain strong throughout the year.
This creates the “Brave Westerlies” as known in sailing
terminology and lying between the “roaring” 40-degree,
“furious” 50-degree and the “screaming” 60-degree S
latitude. While passing through these latitudes (called
the Drake Passage) to reach Antarctica, one often gets
seasick inspite of the several medicines, acupressure
wristband and medicated patch behind the ear (the effect
of a
patch lasts for 3-4 days), as the sea is very rough.
The Drake Passage is approximately 600 miles in length
and it marks the convergence of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans…Fifteen to
twenty feet (5-6 feet) waves are considered “gentle” in
the Drake Passage. It is not really a recommended
itinerary for the “weak
hearted” (or those with “weak stomach” like me). Because
of the rough sea, utmost care was taken to avoid any
damage and casualties in the ship.
The tables and chairs are all tightly fixed to the
floor. The crockery was placed on a wet tablecloth to
avoid sliding. There were handrails in the passages and
toilets, without which we would have surely bruised
ourselves.
At times the ship would sway to such an extent, that
while seated in the restaurant, one could see the ocean
from one side of the window and the sky on the opposite
side. The four days spent to navigate through the Drake
Passage, while traveling to and returning from
Antarctica, were no less than a nightmare. Sometimes
during the night, the shutters of the wardrobe in our
rooms (although perfectly shut) would open with a bang
and all our belongings would be scattered.
It was like a scene straight out of a horror film. If
you happened to walk without support during a big swell
in the ocean, you would definitely resemble a drunkard.
On our third day we woke up to the spectacular scenery
of huge tabular icebergs (almost 10-15 storey high) all
around the ship. An iceberg is a floating mass of
freshwater ice that breaks from the seaward end of a
glacier or a polar ice sheet. Broken by winds and tide,
the icebergs drift for years, gradually changing in
shape, until they finally melt in warmer water, further
north. They form mostly during
the spring and summer. An iceberg can weigh from 20 lac
tonnes to 4 crore tonnes. The blue colour is due to the
compressed ice,
which is often thousands of years old. And the blue
range of sunlight is thus reflected, instead of
absorbed...
Excerpted from Artic And Antarctic, Journeys To The
Extremities Of The Earth by Urmi Popat and is published
by Manas
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