Having left the shelter of South America, we awoke to gentle pitching and rolling as National Geographic Explorer made swift headway towards the Antarctic continent. Despite the near constant presence of fog, we were still able to observe the wildlife that calls this notorious stretch of water home. Albatrosses, petrels, and even penguins, amongst others, made appearances throughout the day. These animals are true seabirds, in that they only ever go to shore to breed. Solid ground has no other use to them. People often wonder what they are doing so far from land. However, it is really just we who are the ones out of our natural environment.
In between watching the inhabitants of this little-understood world we began to prepare for the coming days with a number of talks, to help us to gain a sense of context and understanding of what we were about to see. The first presentation was given by photo instructor Jeff Litton and served to get people of all abilities ready for the specifics of photography in Antarctica. Bud Lehnhausen, one of our naturalists, then told us about the lives of the seabirds we saw flying past us, giving a sense of how they have adapted to an environment that is incredibly alien to humans. Finally, we listened to a presentation by Global Perspectives guest speaker, Peter Hillary, on his expeditions in some of the world’s most extreme environments, including Antarctica. This served as a reminder that we were entering the outskirts of a world in which humans can never truly be more than guests, and gave a sense of gratitude for what we were about to experience in one of the wildest places on Earth.
