I had fallen asleep relatively late, with the sun setting at 11:00 pm over endless waves with just a few pieces of light land in the distance. When I awoke again at 5:00 am, with the full sun shining through my window, I looked outside and saw that we had stopped somewhere. Rather than endless water to the horizon, my view was obstructed by a large white wall. I grabbed my camera and headed up to the top deck.
When I reached the observation deck, my jaw dropped. Truly, dropped, and I had to physically close it again. I have never seen anything so beautiful, and while I took as many pictures as I could, none can truly match the emotion I felt seeing it in person. Endless white walls enclosed us in every direction, with blue glaciers falling over themselves into the sea, while clouds fought their way over the top of the mountains so that the edges of the snow was obscured, but never never so successfully as to block the view. Penguins leaped out of the water all around us while seals basked on ice floes, drifting listlessly through the bay in which we had settled.
There are many other memories from the trip, but I'll never forget that first glimpse of Antarctica.
One other memory sticks in out in particular, and that's the Polar Plunge. You may have done this yourselves -- leaping into a cold winter lake or ocean. My Polar Plunge was much the same, but the waters in Antarctica are only 30 degrees. Typically, water freezes at 32 degrees, but the currents and the saltiness of the ocean in Antarctica prevent it from solidifying.
I had signed up for the plunge along with several other people on the boat, and we huddled for warmth wearing bathrobes while the crew set up the platform from which we'd jump.
