D-Day for Departure to Antarctica

King George Island here we come!

The day dawned, the 6:30m wake-up call from Ted did not eventuate, and everyone started to filter down to breakfast.  At 7:15am Ted rushed in with the news that there was a very narrow window of opportunity to depart, and we needed to be ready to leave at 7:30am!  Plenty of pastries, hurriedly put-together ham and cheese sandwiches and fruit were put together for later as everyone rushed upstairs to get packing.

Of course, South American time meant that the buses scheduled to arrive at 7:30am did not arrive until 8:15am, by which time a few anxious checks of watches were starting to happen.  However, the luggage and people loading went smoothly, and a short ride to the airport had everyone inside checking in by 9am.  The big concern, and the subject of numerous emails and conversations for months beforehand, was the 20kg/44lb luggage weight restriction on the plane going to Antarctica.  Those of us with lots of camera gear were getting a bit antsy, however the previous evening’s reassurance that the carry-on luggage did not usually get weighed, together with seeing our illustrious leaders piling all the check-in luggage in a pile near the counter, to “average out the weight”, was a great relief.

There were two planes heading down that morning, and they must have taken off with about 10 minutes difference between them.  We had boarding passes, but once on the plane it was free-for-all seating, and within minutes we were off! The two-hour flight down was easy, and we didn’t get much of a glimpse of land until we were just about to touch-down on the gravel runway.

KGI is a Chilean base, with a big landing strip made up of “gravel” which is really an accumulation of bits and pieces of all the rocks around the place.  They allow anyone to use the runway – today there were some Argentine personnel returning to their base, as well as the 100 tourists and staff getting ready to board the Akademik Sergei Vavilov.

This was no easy feat – everyone had to walk along the gravel road for about half an hour, through the Chilean base, down to the beach, where zodiacs were waiting to transport staff, passengers and fresh provisions to the Vavilov, anchored quite some way off the beach.  A very quick, sink or swim lesson on how to get into a zodiac off the beach, and how to get off the zodiac at the gangway, and everyone was finally settled into their cabins, bags unpacked, and ready to start the adventure.

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