Chile : Articles : Antarctica

By Pedro Chanceaulme

...continued

Day 10

At 2 in the morning we anchored in Maxwell Bay in King George Island. In front of us the lights and runway of the Chilean President Frei Base and their neighbor the Russian Bellinghausen Station and more South, the Great Wall Chinese Base, could be seen. After breakfast we disembarked under a brilliant clear sky with a radiant sun, but with such a low temperature that the air could be cut with a knife. Chilean and Russians opened their souvenirs stores that attracted our attention immediately.

We had the luck that a Russian amphibious transport went toward Chinese Base and with our guide we visit the Chinese Base. An Hercules C-130 airplane of the Chilean Air Force, landed in Lieutenant Marsh Chilean Base, bringing new scientists and supply to the area. The Russians showed us their meteorological station and also they offered us tea, sodas and immediately we were laughing with their songs, harmonica and accordion music, folkloric dances and their great happiness of living. The wind began to blow and we had to advance our return to the ship. With great sadness we said goodbye to our new friends and we left King George Island toward Yankee Bay.

The wind already blew with a storm magnitude, so the captain considered to change our navigation route to Half Moon Bay, where we could see the small Lieutenant Camara Argentinian Station and to the left of the station, we observed several skin seals and Antarctic penguins, but weather worsened and our guides decided, by security reasons, to suspend the landing, so, we stood on board enjoying the wonderful landscape of the glacier that fell by the hillsides of the mountainous Livingston Island. The captain decided return to the Straits of Bransfield and headed Northeast, we descried Greenwich Island and then we turned North, to the Drake Passage, through the Straits of Nelson, saying good-bye to the Antarctic Continent.

The navigation was not so bad, the same as the weather. We had all the season of the year each two or three hours. Our lecturers offered us a vigorous program of interesting chats maintaining us busy the whole day. During the night, the Drake Passage showed to us in all its magnitude its sadly celebrated fame as a farewell salute.

Day 11

Next morning with a lot of difficulty we reach the control bridge, to see the captain's efforts to offer us the best possible navigation among foamy waves of about 8 to 10 meters high, an infernal wind, rain, snow, in short all the worse; but the calm and professionalism of the sea men and our guides, helped us to calm our fears and convince us to pass in the best possible way the hardness of the moment, personally I decided to enjoy this wonderful manifestation of the nature, stuck to a window of the control bridge.

Suddenly the needle of the barometer began to ascend, the wind and rain ceased, the clouds opened up and the sea was calming down as we descry the Cape Horn. We entered Chilean territorial waters surrounded by birds, dolphins and a queerly calm sea. The Captain hosted the farewell dinner and party, where we could express him our admiration and respect for his magnificent job transporting us with professional security, comfortably, considering prevailing conditions, and mainly by his cordiality and friendship the same as his officers, lecturers and guides. We will always have them in our memories, the same as to all those that participated in this expedition.

Day 12

We wake up next morning tied again to the continent in the Port of Ushuaia as scheduled. My heart and my overflowing spirit full of knowledge and lived emotions bring to my mind the poem of my friend, the Chilean Antarctic man, writer and poet, ambassador Mr. Oscar Pinochet de la Barra.

"Ice is noble material of eternity
all and nothing
bubble where the universe fits
modest lamp
without own light
to reflect the Creator"

Deeply grieved I disembarked, saying goodbye to all and each one of my trip partners, and while I am walking by the dock heading the city, I felt a renovated happiness feeling quite similar to one of the so many blasts of Antarctic wind, arose from inside me, I realized that I am smiling and I felt prime and more human that when I began the trip. This is for what it is worthwhile to live.

A San Agustín's thought, taken from one of the Quark Expeditions' books on board the ship: "The world is a book and those who do not travel, read only one page of this book".

Photo: Quark Expeditions and Pedro Chanceaulme