Margaret's Antarctica Post 1: The Preparation

February 2, 2006: Making two major overseas trips within six months is exciting – and very unusual for me. But when the chance to travel to Antarctica arose, it’s impossible to turn down such a great picture-taking opportunity.

Let me start by saying that my trip isn’t being sponsored; I’m paying the full cost myself. This means I will be free to go where I wish, do what I want and take the pictures I want to take without any obligations to anybody. It will also provide a great opportunity to try out new equipment in challenging situations and, for this reason, once again I will be posting a trip log whenever I get the opportunity to go online.
My partner and I have wanted to visit Antarctica for some time and were planning to try for the 2006/2007 summer. However, a lucky Google search directed me to the website of Antarctic Horizons, an Australian company run by Milton Sams and Andrew Powell. Their offerings included the features I wanted: a small group of tourists (maximum 45), the ability to participate in sea kayaking and an adventurous – but safety-conscious – approach, so I emailed them to see what was available. By a happy coincidence, a twin cabin had come vacant on a cruise leaving on 16 February and sea kayaking was available. Were we interested? You bet we were! As a bonus, Milton was escorting a group through Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in the two weeks beforehand and it would add very little to the total cost of our trip. Would we like to join him? Most definitely!
Our trip will take us initially to Buenos Aires, where we’ll have a day to recover from jet lag and see some of the city’s sights. From there we’ll fly south west to El Calafate, which is close to the Chilean border. We’ll spend a day visiting the Perito Moreno glacier, which has a front that’s 5 km long and ice cliffs rising over 60 metres above water level. This glacier is continuously fracturing, so we may be able to take some spectacular shots.
From El Calafate we go by bus NNW to El Chalten, Argentina’s “trekking capital”, where we’ll spend three nights, taking day walks to the base camps for Mount Fitzroy and Cerro Torre, two spectacular peaks in the Los Glaciares National Park. We return to El Calafate and, from there, fly south to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost city in the world. After a night in a hotel, we head out by bus for four days’ trekking in Tierra Major, camping out in the wilderness.
We return on 14 February and spend a day and a night in Ushuaia to give us the chance to prepare for embarkation on the Russian icebreaker, Professor Molchanov on 16 February for our Antarctic “cruise”. After spending two days crossing Drake Passage – where we hope to see whales, giant albatross and other sea birds – we’ll be travelling between the South Shetland group of islands and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Our itinerary will depend on the weather but, essentially we will go as far south as Peterman Island at the end of the Lemaire Channel before turning back home. In all, the trip will cover 11 days, arriving back in Ushuaia in time to catch a flight back to Buenos Aires, where we connect with our flight back to Sydney.
Once again, I plan to use only digital equipment for image capture. However, this time, I’m taking a somewhat different suite of cameras, with a digital camcorder included for the first time. Like many travellers who prefer shooting with a DSLR, there are times when I know I will want to record moving subjects so, rather than putting up with the capacity and quality limitations of a compact digicam for shooting video, I’ve decided a compact camcorder will be a better tool. As I hope to participate in sea kayaking while in the “deep south”, I’ve chosen a recent model – the Sony DVD703E – which Sony has kindly lent me with the new SPKHCA waterproof housing. With this gear, I should be able to record high-quality video everywhere I go, regardless of the place or weather conditions.
Maxwell Optical Industries has generously provided me with a Nikon D200 plus 18-200mm VR Nikkor lens for use on the trip. They have also supplied a spare battery and a Lowepro Slingshot AW bag, which can accommodate all my gear – including my compact Velbon tripod. A clip-on pouch has been provided for the Ixus 750 so I can keep it readily available. A review of this all-weather bag and pouch will appear in Issue 28 of Photo Review Australia.
My partner will be taking the same Canon EOS 300D plus two lenses that I used on my last trip – plus our Nikon F80 film SLR plus a wide zoom lens (as a back-up in case of problems with our digital equipment in the cold conditions). He will also have a pair of Canon 8 x 25 IS image stabilised binoculars, which we purchased specifically for the trip. They will be handy for spotting whales and other wildlife so we know where to point our cameras.
Canon is lending me an Ixus 55 digicam with a waterproof housing, which I will use as a back-up to my Ixus 750 (for which a housing was unavailable when I left). It will be valuable for sea kayaking trips and if wet weather appears.

For storage, I have three 1 GB CompactFlash cards for the 300D and a 1GB SD card for the Ixus 750. In addition, I’ll be taking the new Lexar Professional 2 GB CF card and a Seagate 8 GB CF Photo hard Drive (“microdrive”), both of which will be reviewed in the next issue.
My Dell Latitude X1 notebook PC, which has SD and CF card slots, will be used for reviewing and storing images and writing this online diary. I don’t need USB cables for the cameras as I won’t make prints until I return. I will, however, take a 128 MB USB flash drive for transferring files between computers, should the need arise.
I’ll also be taking several waterproof bags for housing cameras in wet conditions, plus a sachet of silica gel.

Margaret’s Antarctica Post 1: The Preparation

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