Straight outta Antarctica
Credit to Author: Eugene Kaspersky| Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2017 15:47:21 +0000
How’s the weather today? Warm, sunny? We are also warm here, but only if we don’t leave our cabins. Guess where we are? You’ll never guess: We are in Antarctic waters, mixing icy asceticism with science and art. Our 117-meter-long vessel, the Academik Sergey Vavilov, has already left the harbor of Ushuaia, which is located in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and is heading south.
South sounds warm, but in fact it’s not: We will be crossing the Antarctic Circle, touching the shores of several islands near the Antarctic continent, planting our feet on the ice of Antarctica itself, and then heading to Cape Horn. Only then will we turn back home.
We’re here not just to swim and sunbathe be inspired by the cold Antarctic landscape — we have a mission. We’re creating the Antarctic Biennale: artists, poets, and other people from the world of art are here to communicate with futurists, scientists, and other people from the world of technology. And the Antarctic … well, the Antarctic is just a perfect place that inspires one to create something different, something unusual, something that hits the nail on the head.
The conditions here are, let me say, spartan: one satellite phone, with a data plan of 100MB, for the whole team. But can that stop us from posting photos? No way! So we’ll try to liveblog, taking pictures of whatever strikes the eye and posting whatever the narrow satellite data line allows us to send to the mainland. So, the right way to look at this post is from the end to the beginning — scroll down and away we go!
March 20. We’ve just crossed the Antarctic circle! And we’ve seen our first icebergs. In just two hours we’ll disembark on the first icy island and have some fun walking.
March 19. Just exited the Drake Passage. They say 15-meter-high tides and 35-meter-per-second winds are common for this place, but our experience is completely different: everything’s calm, and the only problem is zero visibility.
March 18. By the way, the green bear has had a lot of adventures traveling here so far. To begin with, two bears were sent from their home, Japan, but got stuck in Russian customs. The third bear went to Paris, and there Air France employees desperately measured it again and again because they thought it wouldn’t fit on the plane. Well, we were ready for that, and the package was precisely crafted with airplane specifications in mind. So, here is the bear. At least it’ll see some Antarctic sights.
March 17. Ready, steady, go! The Academik Sergey Vavilov and about one hundred of its dwellers have just left the harbor at Ushuaia and are heading south, straight into the yawning abyss of Antarctic ice. We’re in nice company here — everyone is very communicative, creative, and sometimes weird. What else would you expect from scientists, futurists, and artists? And the green bear is also here, of course. This is our last chance to take pictures with a normal camera and transfer them via normal data link, so we’re indulging ourselves.
