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What is a typical day on an Antarctica cruise? In this vlog I set out to show a typical day but things during the day as plan after plan unravelled and things did not end up as I had expected. Though it does show what to really expect when you go on an Antarctica cruise, where things frequently do not go as expected or planned.
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0:04
so
0:07
[Music]
0:24
so i woke up this morning and there is
0:27
it's quite foggy
0:28
and there's ice everywhere with icebergs
0:30
and that's could affect today because
0:33
ice can be a real enemy because
0:35
uh it affects where the ship can go it
0:37
can block passage into the bays that we
0:39
do to go to
0:40
so it's very beautiful
0:42
but it could be
0:44
a disaster for today
0:54
i have no idea how today is going to pan
0:57
out that's one of the things you learn
0:58
really really quickly on an expedition
1:00
cruise is that no matter what the plans
1:03
are they will probably change the reason
1:05
we're taking on today's trip is we're
1:07
supposed to do two of the big things
1:08
that would normally happen on an
1:09
expedition cruise a zodiac cruise and
1:11
the landing we were briefed on that last
1:14
night
1:15
but
1:16
who knows so let's find out how it all
1:18
plays out
1:20
right so about 15 minutes before i'm due
1:22
to be downstairs because it looks like
1:24
we're running to schedule so it's time
1:26
to get dressed this is one of the things
1:27
that i get asked so many times is about
1:30
packing and what to wear so it's really
1:31
pretty simple
1:32
it gets cold it's like minus seven
1:34
outside today minus seven celsius but if
1:36
you wear layers you don't really feel
1:38
the cold in fact it's my face that that
1:40
feels it the most which is the exposed
1:42
part it's all about layers so you have a
1:44
base layer
1:45
you then have an insulating layer you
1:48
then have an outside layer which is
1:49
waterproof which includes things like
1:50
waterproof trousers and
1:52
a parker now you need to bring most of
1:55
that with you
1:56
depending on the line you're with you
1:58
will get various parts on the ship so
2:00
you'll normally get a parker
2:02
which all the lines give you because
2:03
it's the same color and it means when
2:05
you're out they can spot you very easily
2:08
some will rent you boots now i actually
2:10
have my own boots because all with all
2:12
the hiking stuff i want to wear my own
2:13
boots so don't panic too much about it
2:16
just follow the rules base layer
2:18
insulating layer and an outside
2:20
waterproof layout
2:24
welcome to nico
2:26
there's a lot of ice
2:28
[Music]
2:42
[Music]
2:45
so after picking our way through the ice
2:47
to get to
2:49
land
2:50
we have a briefing
2:52
and they tell you where you can go and
2:54
where you can't go and it's mocked up
2:55
with little red lines and then
2:58
we're sort of exploring
3:06
so we're now here
3:08
in nicaragua it's very snowy so that's
3:11
why i'm kind of walking but tentatively
3:13
you can probably hear the
3:14
penguins it's again two penguins and
3:16
there's a
3:17
huge big glacier over there which has
3:20
carved a couple of times so to be able
3:21
to show you that
3:24
[Music]
3:27
so one of the things i would say with an
3:29
expedition cruise is you do need to be
3:31
pretty fit because you have to climb
3:33
on and off the zodiacs
3:36
uh yes you have to be quite nimble
3:37
because the seat can be moving up and
3:39
down
3:40
and then you have to do things like this
3:42
on the landings you know climb up and
3:44
down be comfortable on your feet on ice
3:46
and snow but it's absolutely remarkable
3:49
i mean just these scenes are absolutely
3:51
incredible and you're learning so much
3:52
about
3:53
the wildlife and the birds and
3:56
history
4:03
so over there behind
4:05
is the ship and then we've been
4:07
exploring so you could get two penguins
4:09
over there
4:11
way to climb down there
4:14
as i mentioned a lot of people get
4:15
worried about being overly
4:18
cold
4:19
if anything
4:20
you get
4:21
almost too hot with all these different
4:22
layers like hiking up this big hill
4:24
hiking back down again
4:26
you get really hot but i'm quite sweaty
4:28
i've been taking my hat off even to try
4:30
and cool down a little bit
4:33
just so beautiful so these landings are
4:36
fantastic you get to explore incredible
4:38
places you can everyone jabbering away
4:41
excited there
4:42
get some exercise in
4:45
[Music]
4:50
the biggest mistake i think people make
4:52
on an expedition trip
4:54
is
4:55
to take too many pictures
4:57
they just don't stop
4:59
and listen
5:00
and just take in what you're seeing i
5:02
think it's temptation to just take so
5:04
many pictures or videos and dismiss
5:07
what's going on
5:19
so that then was an example of a wet
5:22
landing although it wasn't that wet
5:23
because we didn't actually step into the
5:25
water which we do on many of the other
5:27
landings so there's three kind of things
5:29
that normally happen on an expedition
5:32
tour you'll have wet landings zodiac
5:33
tours and scenic touring so sitting
5:35
touring for example we did last night
5:37
where
5:38
we went looking for whales so we
5:39
basically cruise on the ship and we went
5:41
looking for wales we saw orca whales and
5:43
we saw humpback whales that was very
5:44
exciting
5:46
and this afternoon we're going to be
5:47
doing zodiac touring in a place called
5:49
paradise
5:50
bay
5:51
but now it's time for some hot chocolate
5:53
and then off to lunch
5:59
[Music]
6:01
so i've had my lunch just over there in
6:04
the buffet restaurant
6:07
which is over there i tend to have most
6:09
of my meals in the buffet restaurant
6:10
because i don't spend a lot of time in
6:12
the main restaurant uh because it's such
6:15
incredible scenery you know you've got
6:17
glaciers and mountains and just so much
6:19
going on i don't want to spend time
6:21
eating really the food is great it's
6:23
fine it's very typical people have asked
6:25
me what the food like it's like on
6:26
expedition cruises basically the same as
6:28
any cruise to be honest with you being
6:30
french serves amazing bread and jesus
6:32
and whatever anyway so had lunch it's uh
6:36
more changes
6:37
because we're picking our way through
6:39
this harbor
6:40
where there are there's a lot of ice a
6:43
lot of icebergs it's going to take us
6:44
much longer to get to paradise bay than
6:46
we had thought or planned or whatever it
6:49
is so actually you're gonna have the
6:50
briefing now normally have the briefing
6:51
at the end of the day when you recap
6:53
what you've seen you get told what's
6:54
happening the next day we're having that
6:56
at two o'clock and then at 4 30 we're
6:57
going to be going out to paradise bay so
6:59
we can enjoy all this incredibles
7:00
incredible scenery meantime and then
7:02
have our briefing and i'll tell you more
7:04
about the briefings uh and what they
7:06
said after that
7:08
so you have uh duman jorvin who was a
7:11
famous french explorer last day we were
7:14
in our war and cooperatively
7:17
briefing's done and one of the things i
7:19
would say is one of the real highlights
7:20
of an expedition cruise is the whole
7:24
area of the briefings so on this cruise
7:27
we have 14 naturalists so there's
7:28
historians geologists whale experts all
7:32
sorts and
7:34
every single cruise is very unique so
7:36
after every outing after every days of
7:39
outings they put together a series of
7:41
talks which are exactly about what we've
7:43
seen so for example we just learned a
7:45
little bit more about orcas and humpback
7:47
whales that we'd seen a little bit more
7:48
about shark cart where we've been
7:50
yesterday and of course we get briefed
7:52
on what we're doing uh tomorrow so
7:55
i would say one of the absolute
7:57
highlights of an exhibition cruise with
7:59
our shadow of a doubt is those briefings
8:02
so we're now sort of heading into the
8:04
bay and we will hopefully be going on
8:07
our zodiac cruise shortly
8:14
[Music]
8:27
[Music]
8:39
each of them is kind of standing on its
8:41
own nest
8:42
[Music]
8:44
so i'm back from the zodiac tour which
8:47
was amazing heading to paradise bay now
8:49
i've actually been to paradise maybe
8:50
before but i've been at the end of the
8:52
season so amazing going beginning of the
8:54
season because it's just chock full of
8:55
ice
8:56
loads of icebergs the glaciers are huge
9:00
the place is covered in snow it looks
9:02
amazing so we had a look
9:04
or went past anyway an argentinian a
9:06
research center which isn't open yet
9:07
they only move in in december time then
9:10
we headed out into a place called
9:11
scontorp bay
9:13
uh
9:14
had a look around there we had a really
9:16
little surprise because they uh had got
9:19
a little box in
9:20
the zodiac with champagne so that was
9:22
very nice little surprise that we had
9:24
out there then we weaved our way around
9:27
looking at all the incredible sights
9:28
birds on the rocks uh and
9:31
what people most enjoyed looking at
9:33
probably is the icebergs all the kind of
9:34
colored ice et cetera headed back had my
9:36
traditional hot chocolate you can
9:38
probably hear them they're putting the
9:40
zodiacs back and then we're going to set
9:41
sail for our next destination tomorrow
9:43
which actually the south shetlands
9:45
but of course there's still the whole
9:47
night to go and explain what's happening
9:50
a little bit later
9:51
during the course of the evening
9:55
[Music]
9:57
today seems to have been a really good
9:58
day to have chosen to
10:01
talk about the unpredictability of going
10:04
on an expedition cruise and how you need
10:06
to be adaptable
10:07
i was going to talk about the things to
10:09
do in the evening on board the ship
10:11
which is pretty laid back because most
10:13
people go to bed early because
10:15
you're pretty tired at the end of the
10:17
day after all of these kind of
10:18
excursions and activities you've seen
10:20
however during dinner today the captain
10:23
came on over the loud speaker system to
10:26
say that he was going to try
10:28
something very special very unique and
10:30
that's to push the ship
10:33
right into the ice shelf
10:35
and
10:36
if successful we're going to be able to
10:38
step out of the ship and go exploring
10:40
and walk around on the ice now the ice
10:43
shelf is a really big thick
10:47
sheet of ice that extends past the land
10:51
out over the sea so underneath the ice
10:53
shelf is
10:54
ocean basically
10:56
uh not land most of antarctica is land
10:58
the idea is to push the ship because
11:00
it's uh got a strengthened hull into the
11:03
ice shelf and have a look and see if
11:06
that's possible and if it is we're going
11:08
to be out exploring on the ice shelf
11:10
tonight and so the plan is to
11:13
start doing that at about 10 p.m tonight
11:16
and hopefully we'll be out on the ice
11:18
shelf about 11.
11:20
so we're having a pretty unusual
11:22
experience we're actually in
11:24
the shelf ice so
11:26
there's the sea
11:28
there's the beginning of the ice
11:31
there's the ice shelf
11:32
and we're pushed into our shelf and
11:34
we're now walking through and on the ice
11:39
absolutely and utterly incredible the
11:42
ship just pushing
11:44
into the ice
11:49
and it's just really totally wrong
11:51
everybody out on deck having a look what
11:53
was even more amazing is once we were in
11:55
the ice shelf and got out and explored
11:58
we were able to walk around there was a
12:00
perimeter set up
12:01
explore there was a really great
12:04
excitement because there was actually an
12:05
emperor penguin in the distance we
12:07
couldn't get to because it was too far
12:08
away which is really unusual
12:10
and
12:11
uh they set up a little stand where you
12:13
could have caviar
12:15
and explore the filipino crew went crazy
12:18
they all came out
12:19
because many of them had been able to
12:20
get out at all
12:22
when we've been touring the islands they
12:24
went crazy with flag uh really fun where
12:27
they they put a rope down from the front
12:30
of the ship and so people pretending to
12:31
pull the ship absolutely incredible
12:33
experience it doesn't happen very often
12:34
it's very rare it's very unusual and it
12:38
was just mind-blowing
12:42
[Music]
13:01
you
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