Antarctica - Day #5

Our room on the Sea Spirit

Our room for 10 nights

First night on the water - looking into Ushuaia

Liam, Greg, Kyle, Kurt -- in front of the famous sign in Ushuaia

The mountains surrounding Ushuaia

Our ship - the Sea Spirit

Thursday, February 24th

Coming to you live from the 3rd floor lounge aboard the Sea Spirit in the middle of the Drake Passage, 1-day from reaching the most isolated continent in the world. "Hold on baby it's a bumpy ride"

Yesterday was a long, crazy day. We left the hotel at 5:40am for the airport. On arrival, we found ourselves in a jam-packed line. Since our group made up over half the 7:40am flight, they actually held the plane for us. Only problem in this situation, if you barely make the plane, more oftern than not, your checked bags will not make the plane.

So, after our 3.5 hour flight, we arrived into Ushuaia, AND --- are bags did not show. Not so good. We got transferred to the port area and were given 3 hours of downtime before needing to report to the ship at 3:20pm.

We grabbed some lunch, walked the town, and made it to the ship on time. The ship is awesome. The rooms are significantly better than I had expected. There's 6 levels. Not a ton of space, but nice for the 150 people or so on board. There's 1 bar, 1 dining room, and 1 conference room - we'll definitely get to know each other better over the next 10 days.

We ended up waiting for a couple more flights to come into Ushuaia before setting sail. Our bags finally arrived by 7:30pm. Great feeling to have our gear back. We did our safety checks and then went to dinner. The dinner was nice - elaborate 5-course setup. We met up with a cool couple from Atlanta (already had completed the 50-states marathons and 5/7 continents).

Around 9:30pm, we completed dinner, just as the ship left port. We walked around the deck for a little while before calling it a night. The first several hours, the ride was smooth as we travelled through the Beagle Channel. We hit the Drake Passage in the middle of the night. I know this, only because I almost rolled out of bed a few times.

All I can say at this point of the game, the patch behind my ear is the most important thing in my life right now. I'mhaving trouble downloading pictures, hope to figure it out soon.