Antarctic Peninsula

The arm of Antarctica reaching north towards South America, reached after the disappointing first landing at Deception Island. Harry’s words for it: this is where the real adventure starts.

He rates the view from a ridge above a penguin colony as the best view he has ever seen anywhere, and says so having already been almost everywhere.

Camping on the ice

An organised overnight, and Harry is upfront that it is a tourist activity with guides overseeing rather than a survival exercise. It is still a hard night.

What you’re given: a sleeping bag rated to about −5 °C, a bivvy bag, and a mat. No tent — the guides explain that tents don’t actually keep you warm and no rain was forecast.

How it’s done:

1. Dig first. Flatten an area, and do it before you unpack rather than after, which is the mistake Harry makes.
2. Choose snow or rock. Rock is hard, snow is wet; there is no third option. He takes the snow on the grounds that you sleep on the ice in Antarctica or why come.
3. Build a low wall for the wind.
4. Take layers off before getting in the bag. The insulation works with your body heat, so wearing everything is counterproductive.

Conditions on the night: around 0 to −1 °C, feeling nearer −5 with the wind. The sun set around midnight and rose around 4am, leaving four hours of dark.

The toilet is a portable seat set up nearby, number ones only, with snow to wash your hands. Harry’s practical warning: once you have walked to it, you have no idea where your camp is.

His verdict in the morning: he slept all right but woke repeatedly, convinced he had rolled into the ice because he felt damp. Mission accomplished, and he would not call himself a wild camper.

The rant it produces is the most quotable thing in the video, and it is not about Antarctica. Do uncomfortable things deliberately, he says — you don’t have to sleep on a glacier, just camp somewhere that isn’t comfortable. It is the kind of fun that isn’t fun at the time and is worth a great deal afterwards; it makes you appreciate a warm bed you had stopped noticing; and he has never once regretted doing one of these things. He pairs it with a second rule delivered in the same breath: never complain.

The gentoo colony

The largest population of gentoo penguins in the world, with over 9,000 birds in the one colony — the scientists on the expedition are counting them by drone, because you cannot do it by eye.

• It is breeding season. Chicks are identifiable by their fur and stay on land while the parents alternate: one hunts at sea, comes back, and regurgitates for the chick.
• Penguin highways are real — worn routes down to the ocean, used constantly.
• They propose with pebbles. A bird carries a good one, sometimes from the beach all the way to the top of the slope, and presents it. It gets rejected and thrown away about as often as not; the rejected suitor then steals a pebble off someone else’s nest and tries again. Nests are built of the same pebbles. They are typically monogamous.
• Survival is about 40% for chicks. One seal species hunts them and takes enormous numbers. Harry’s line: it is not a good place to be a penguin, though he fancies his chances at those odds.
• Gentoos are among the dominant species here, and species don’t interbreed — the emperor and macaroni penguins he most wanted to see are separate populations.

The rules are strict: stay five metres back, never touch one, and if a penguin walks up to you, that is its business and not permission.

Kayaking in Charlotte Bay

An optional extra you must sign up for before the ship leaves, available most days. Dry suits, which are hard to get into, and guides Harry describes as extraordinarily knowledgeable — you turn up and everything is ready.

• Whales sleeping on the surface, taking naps of a few minutes with their blowholes clear of the water before swimming on. Charlotte Bay is full of them and almost nothing else.
• Whales are extremely sensitive to sound, so the rule is quiet — no shouting, no banging the boat. Harry notes that they seemed untroubled by the kayaks.
• A couple of hours on the water, and the first proper look at the ice at eye level.

Time ashore

More than he expected: at least two and a half hours per landing, and usually two landings a day depending on weather. Hiking through and above the colony, bird watching, or sitting still.

There is one spot with no wildlife around where you are allowed to sit down, take a layer off and touch the snow — and he eats some, on the grounds that nothing on earth is fresher.

Harry’s tips

• Sleep on the ice if the trip offers it, and dig before you unpack.
• Take your layers off inside the sleeping bag. Counterintuitive and correct.
• Sign up for kayaking before you sail. It’s capped and it’s the best of the optional activities.
• Wear sun cream at 9pm. The sun doesn’t go down until midnight and he got burnt.
• Do the uncomfortable thing on purpose. His own advice, and he means it generally rather than about Antarctica.

Source

• My First Time in Antarctica (10 Day Expedition) 🇦🇶 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbOpaM25K8k