Not even Covid could stop us…!

It might’ve gone wrong in so many ways.

I might’ve failed one of my 12 (!) Covid tests, too many other people might’ve caught Covid, I might’ve had the wrong documents, the ship might’ve been impounded, we might’ve been weathered out, I might’ve lost my luggage (again!), we might’ve struggled to see any wildlife…and so on, and so on.

In the end, though, we were very lucky.

Two people did test positive for Covid on our first day at sea, and they and their partners had to be quarantined on board.

The danger was that we’d reach five cases, in which case we’d have to turn the ship around and go back to Ushuaia.

In the event, nobody else tested positive, but all 162 passengers and dozens of crew members were made to take daily Lateral Flow Tests (LFTs), and we were all forced to submit to a kind of nautical lockdown:

• We had to sit in the same seats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

• We had to sit with our cabin mates at every meal

• We had to take daily lateral flow tests.

• We had to wear masks all the time (unless we were eating or drinking or we were in our cabins).

• We had to sanitise our hands before all meals.

• We were separated into different groups (yellow and green plus red and blue) for all Zodiac trips and meals.

The Expedition Leader (EL) for Oceanwide Expeditions was a British woman called Sara, and she did her best to ‘save’ the schedule and keep the show on the road in pretty difficult circumstances.

It was all the more remarkable considering it was her first assignment as EL.

From my own point of view, it was a great chance to revisit Antarctica and keep practising with my gorgeous new Sony a1.

Yes, the Covid restrictions were dreadfully strict, but I spent a lot of time with my friend Jodie and her boyfriend Dan, and they acted as a kind of ‘pressure valve’: any time someone did something thoughtless or incompetent, we could simply laugh about it and move on.

It was such a joy to have some company on a trip like this.

I’d only met Dan once before, but we got on like a house on fire, and I hope we remain friends.

Jodie’s friends Marshall and Ebru were also good company, and it was fun to go to Buenos Aires with them before and after the cruise.

There was certainly a lot of travelling involved, but I didn’t catch Covid, the trip wasn’t cancelled, and I came away with 38,000 pictures!

Itinerary

1400-1445, 11 December: Uber from Putney  to London Heathrow T5

1805, 11 December to 0500, 12 December: BA0245 London to Buenos Aires

12-14 December: Duque Hotel Boutique & Spa, Calle Guatemala 4364, C1425 Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1255-1630, 14 December: Aerolineas AR1886 Buenos Aires (J. Newbury Airport) to Ushuaia

14-15 December: Cilene del Faro Suites & Spa Yaganes 74, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina 9410

1600, 15 December: Take Oceanwide bus to dock, embark MV Hondius

15-24 December: MV Hondius, with three meals a day, morning and afternoon Zodiac cruises and landings and a Daily Recap in the Observation Lounge before dinner.

0800, 24 December: Disembark MV Hondius, Oceanwide bus to Ushuaia centre

1255-1630, 24 December: Aerolineas AR1887 Ushuaia to Buenos Aires (J. Newbury Airport)

24-26 December: Duque Hotel Boutique & Spa, Calle Guatemala 4364, C1425 Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1100-1200, 26 December: Uber from hotel to Buenos Aires Pistarini Airport

1435, 26 December to 0640, 27 December: BA0244 Buenos Aires (Pistarini Airport) to London Heathrow

0700-0745, 27 December: Uber from  London Heathrow T5 to Putney

Planning

A few weeks ago, I went on an 11-day trip to Arviat in Canada to see the polar bear migration, but I was only actually there for five days. 

For this trip, I was away for 16 days, but I was only actually in Antarctica for four!

Having said that, both trips were definitely worth it. 

I was desperate to get away after 10 months of stewing in lockdown London, and both offered great chances to photograph polar wildlife. 

In Arviat, that meant polar bears, Arctic foxes and Arctic hares. 

In Antarctica, that meant penguins, seals and whales plus the occasional petrel and albatross while at sea. 

However, before I could do all that, I had to take a 13-hour flight, stay two nights in Buenos Aires, take another 3.5-hour flight, stay another night in Ushuaia and finally board the cruise ship MV Hondius - four days and eight hours after leaving my flat in Putney!

I went on the trip with Jodie and Dan, so it was the least I could do to fit in with their schedule. 

The basic cost was only £3,000, and she got an additional discount as she knew the founder of Young Pioneer Tours. 

My last trip to Antarctica in 2016 cost over £14,000, so I was very keen to join her - even if the cost of all the flights and hotels doubled the original price. 

I asked if that was going to be all right, and when she said yes, I basically invited myself along. 

She checked with her friend and got me the same deal on condition that I took a few pictures for YPT while I was in the trip. 

I’d done that a few times before at safari lodges in Africa, so that was fine. 

I was also looking forward to having a bit of company. 

Normally, I have to go on my own on all my photography trips, and it does get a bit lonely. 

This time, Jodie would be there, and she was going to be joined by a few of her friends, too. 

The only problem was that Argentina was put on the Red List after we booked the trip, so we didn’t know if we’d be allowed to go or not for a good few weeks. 

We had an official YPT email a couple of months in advance telling us not to make the next instalment of our payment. 

Fortunately, the rules were relaxed on 4 November, and we were able to go. 

However, Jodie had booked a number of other trips by this stage, so she wasn’t sure she’d be going after all!

That would’ve been a disaster all round, but fortunately she decided to invite Dan along, and the fact he could make it made up her mind. 

It definitely wasn’t an easy process getting organised for the trip. 

Jodie managed to squeeze a bit of information out of her friend John at YPT, but she reckoned she only got answers to about 10% of her questions!

I didn’t do much better myself but Trailfinders were very helpful in organising insurance and letting me know all the Covid hoops we’d have to jump through. 

We’d have to take a PCR test 72 hours before the flight, and we’d also have to fill out an ‘affidavit’ online for the Argentine government (similar to the British Passenger Locator Form). 

We’d also have to provide proof of our vaccination status, and I was also told there was another ‘circulation’ form that I’d have to complete, but that turned out not to be the case. 

One of the main problems before (and even during) the trip was finding out the information we needed and getting a consistent picture from Trailfinders, YPT and Oceanwide. 

The left hand often didn’t know what the right hand was doing, so it was a bit frustrating sometimes.

We did get a final email before departure from YPT, but it only arrived the day before we were due to fly out, and it had dozens of links to extra information that we couldn’t possibly view on board ship as there wasn’t going to be any wifi!

Not a great start…

Photography

If you want to read the blow-by-blow account of the trip, then feel free to read my ‘diary’ below or the official trip log.

You can also watch a short video here.

However, the most important thing about it for me was the photography, so let’s talk about that.

Equipment

I recently bought a Sony a1 mirrorless camera body with a Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens and Sony FE 1.4x teleconverter.

I’d only used it once before, which was on my trip to Arviat, but I was very impressed and therefore looking forward to using it in Antarctica.

In the end, it performed just as well as I’d hoped, and I even managed to customise a few buttons and get to know a few more of its idiosyncrasies.

I’d always been a Nikon man, so it was a big step to switch from one brand to another, let alone from a DSLR to a mirrorless camera, but I’m very glad I did.

The combination of the fast lens, the 30fps frame rate and the AI-assisted eye-tracking autofocus system provides what to me has to be the best wildlife camera platform in the world right now.

If I could afford it, I’d buy another one tomorrow!

Wildlife

As I explained to Jodie and Dan before our trip, you don’t go to Antarctica for the variety of wildlife.

You get penguins, seals, whales, a few birds…and that’s about it!

Having said that, the animals you do see are pretty much unique to this continent, and everyone loves a cute penguin, right?

We did see a lot of penguins - gentoo, chinstrap and Adélie - but I was disappointed we didn’t see any Antarctic fur seals.

I’d been to a fur seal colony on Prion Island on South Georgia as part of my last Antarctic trip, and I was hoping to see something similar on the Peninsula, but it was not to be.

The other frustration was not getting any good whale sightings.

I was desperate to see a breach or something truly spectacular.

Instead, we kept getting notifications on the PA system about whales that mysteriously disappeared as soon as I made it on deck!

I guess you need a little bit of luck with these things: I’ve had it in the past, but maybe that luck ran out on this trip.

However good a photographer I am, I still need great moments to capture, and it’s a lot harder if I have to resort to run-of-the-mill portraits rather than action shots of some spectacular wildlife encounter.

Maybe I just missing seeing kills…!

Results

In terms of what we saw and what I managed to photograph, it was pretty much what I expected, but I was a little bit disappointed not to get more shots of whales - particularly of the humpback fluke.

That was an important shot for me, but, sadly, the Sony’s autofocus system failed me in my hour of need…

Maybe it was user error - who knows? - but I do regret not getting that shot.

I did get a decent one of a humpback near a Zodiac full of photographers, though, so that almost made up for it.

I took a phenomenal number of shots during the trip, but at least 30,000 of those were just ‘experimental’ slow pans of the seabirds around the ship, so I don’t really count those.

The problem was the quality rather than the quantity: I took a lot of 4* shots, but only a couple of 5* ones - and even then I had to be persuaded by Jodie and Dan that they were worth the extra star!

I don’t know what’s wrong with my photography at the moment.

I didn’t do very well in Arviat, either, and I’m not sure if I’m just ‘rusty’ after not taking pictures for so long during the Covid lockdown or whether it’s just that my expectations have risen.

Whatever it is, I hope to do a bit better on my next trips to Botswana (in May and October 2022).

Fingers crossed…

PS If you want to read about my last trip to Antarctica in 2016, please visit this page. You can also keep track of my latest travel plans on the Events tab.

Diary

Buenos Aires 

11 December

And it wasn’t much better for Jodie and Dan.

On the morning of the flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires, a van drove by their house and knocked the mirror off their car - and the driver didn’t even stop!

To add to her misery, Jodie’s PCR test result was 13 hours late and only arrived an hour before they left!

That meant they were so late getting to the airport that we didn’t even have time for a drink or a snack together.

The only good news was that the flight was going to be direct.

We’d thought we were going to have to make a transit stop in Sao Paolo, so it was a relief to be able to fly straight to Argentina. 

12 December

When we arrived, the first job for Jodie was to find some local currency. She found an ATM at the airport, but it ate her card!

She did her best to find help, but someone simply told her she’d have to wait for about 15 minutes for the machine to spit out her card again.

In the end, that’s exactly what happened - but she obviously didn’t trust the ATM after that, so she still needed cash…

Fortunately, we managed to find a taxi off the rank that took credit cards, and the only weird part about it was when the guy managing the queue asked us for a tip!

Jodie had booked a nice little hotel in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires called the Duque, and after we’d dumped out bags, we went for a walk around the local area.

It was a cool quartier, and we soon found a good place for brunch called Paris Crepas. 

Ordering was a bit of a struggle as Jodie and I only spoke a little Spanish, but it was very relaxing to be able to enjoy an al fresco meal in the sunshine.

When we got back to the hotel, Dan and I wanted to watch the last Formula One Grand Prix of the season to find out if Lewis Hamilton could snatch the drivers’ championship from Max Verstappen.

We managed to tune in on a dodgy WiFi connection in the hotel lounge, and the race was very exciting, with lots of twists and turns.

Verstappen was initially on pole, but Hamilton managed to pass him at the start, and he was soon leading comfortably. 

Unfortunately, there was a crash late in the day, and Mercedes’s decision not to stop for fresh tyres and ‘cover off’ Verstappen came back to haunt them as the yellow flag bunched up the field and Verstappen passed Hamilton on the final lap to win the championship. 

I was really gutted, but I cheered myself up by having mojitos and chips later with Jodie and Dan at a local place called Keller Serrano on Plaza Julio Cortázar.

The lady at reception had pointed us in that direction, and there were a lot of good bars and restaurants there, so we went back several times during the course of our stay.

Jodie was very keen for me to try the dulce de leche ice-cream at Freddo, so who was I to disagree…?!

In the evening, Jodie and Dan went out to dinner with their friends Marshall and Ebru at a very good steakhouse called Don Julio.

Ebru works in the food industry, and she loves to tick off restaurants on any list she can find of the best places to go, but she didn’t realise I was also in Buenos Aires, so that misunderstanding meant I didn’t get to join them that evening.

Fortunately, Dan later told me that it wasn’t anything special, so I didn’t mind too much.

13 December

The time difference between London and Buenos Aires is only three hours, but I made the mistake of going to bed quite early, which meant I woke up at 0245. 

I went back to bed but then woke up again at 0515! 

Oh, well. Time to read the paper, have a shower and go down to breakfast, which started at a very leisurely 0800…

The breakfast buffet was very tempting, with lots of different dishes - both sweet and savoury. There were also a few jugs of drinking yoghurt, milk and orange juice, and there was a coffee machine that would turn out a passable espresso.

I tried just about everything, but the ham and cheese croissant was the highlight.

After breakfast, I went for a walk and drinks with Jodie and Dan, and then we met Marshall and Ebru and did the same with them.

It was all very relaxing, and the only decision we really needed to make was where to go next to eat and drink!

Later on, I went out again with Jodie and Dan for drinks at Tres Monos before meeting Marshall, Ebru and Gustavo for drinks and dinner at El Preferido, sister restaurant to Don Julio, where I finally had the Argentine steak dinner I was hoping for. 

I do like a good steak, but my only reservation about ordering one in Argentina is that it doesn’t come with the ‘traditional’ French sauces I’m used to, such as béarnaise or pepper sauce.

The nearest they get is a spicy salsa called chimichurri, but I don’t want the delicate flavours of a steak to be overpowered by something so spicy, and I much prefer béarnaise.

Having said that, it was great to be able to eat outdoors again.

It was a balmy night, and I enjoyed the combo of mixed starters, sirloin steak, Malbec and dulce de leche ice-cream.

After waiting half an hour for a table and then over-ordering a little too enthusiastically, we didn’t get back to our hotel until just before one…!

14 December

I woke up at 0525 this time - which was progress of a sort - before packing my bags, reading the paper and going down to breakfast. 

Afterwards, we took a cab to Newbury, the local airport, for our flight to Ushuaia.

Normally, taxi rides to the airport are dull and uneventful, but I was surprised to see a couple of armless beggars and two jugglers, one of whom was juggling on the other’s back in the middle of the road!

At the airport, I had my usual problems beating the luggage weight limits, and the lady had to do me a ‘favour’ to sort things out, but otherwise the flight went okay.

When we arrived in Ushuaia, we were supposed to have welcome drinks with all the YPT guests at the Dublin Bar at 1800, but it was closed, so we had to decamp to the Hard Rock Café instead. After a couple of beers and a plate of very bad nachos, I went to the Dublin bar with Jodie and Dan for drinks. 

MV Hondius

15 December

I woke up around 0400, in time to read the paper and pack before having breakfast and lunch with Jodie and Dan, dropping off our bags in the process at an Oceanwide location near the docks. 

While I was in the queue, a Scottish member of the Oceanwide staff called Bill asked me where I’d come from, so I told him I’d flown from London.

He asked me when I’d had my PCR test, and when I told him I didn’t know, he rather aggressively pestered me about it.

When I told him I couldn’t remember and that I’d been travelling for days, he launched into me again, demanding where exactly I’d been.

This was not the welcome I’d been hoping for, and I was getting very annoyed.

Fortunately, someone called me in for my antigen test, and I was able to escape without further comment.

We all had to take a Lateral Flow Test (LFT) before boarding the ship, so that was my next task.

It’s never pleasant doing these things, but I passed the test and boarded the Oceanwide bus to the MV Hondius, a cruise ship with room for 162 passengers.

I’d been told was supposed to be sharing a quad cabin with Marshall and Ebru (and one other), but I ended up with a couple of strangers called Richard and Aaron. 

Richard was a Filipino living in London, and Aaron was a digital nomad from Mexico trying to outrun Covid around the world from China to Antarctica!

It was the first time I’d shared accommodation with anyone (apart from a girlfriend) since going on a cruise to Svalbard in 2014, but they both seemed very polite and considerate, and we had no problems at all during the voyage.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about Bill.

We all mustered in the Observation Lounge on Deck 5, and someone asked if anyone had seen a missing bag.

I said there was one in our room, and Bill then demanded to see it.

No ‘sorry’, no ‘please’, just another impatient and aggressive tirade about ‘needing’ to see it.

I tried to explain that I didn’t know if it belonged to the fourth cabin-mate who hadn’t arrived yet, but he wouldn’t listen and marched me down to Deck 3.

When we arrived, I met my final cabin-mate, who was an Asian-American woman called Gloria. 

Bill did his usual expression of a bull in a china shop, and I had to ask him for a private word in the corridor.

I told him we’d obviously got off on the wrong foot and should probably start afresh, but it was no use.

The only thing I could do to stop myself getting angry was to walk away and hope that I’d never have to talk to him again…!

Sadly, that didn’t last, and I saw him again in the Lounge a few minutes later, still chuntering about the missing bag.

He asked me about it again, and, again, all I could do was walk away.

I was absolutely furious, and I couldn’t understand why he was being so rude, aggressive and impatient.

It has to have been the worst first impression anyone has ever made on me - with the possible exception of the black guy who came up to me at Los Angeles bus station, demanding some spare change and then, when I told him I only had $50 notes, telling me that he’d just got out of prison that morning for killing his sister’s rapist and that they’d found 14 different kinds of semen inside her…!

Unfortunately, the first impression made by the rest of the staff wasn’t much better.

When we mustered on deck four, there were two missing people, but there were a few people laughing and joking, so Sigi, the hotel manager, completely lost his sense of humour and shouted, “I’d ask you to be a bit more serious - this is a lifeboat drill.”

Sara, the Expedition Leader, was next up, and she gave us a dreadfully depressing Covid briefing, telling us that we’d have to wear masks on Zodiac trips and socially distance at all times.

After that, we had a safety briefing and had to hear the general emergency alarm and the abandon ship signal. 

The constant stream of briefings meant that it was difficult to enjoy the moment when we finally got under way.

That was a shame, and Dan captured the mood when he said it would’ve been nice to be out on deck when we’d left harbour.

However, we forbidden to go outside due to forecast bad weather, and we were also told that it was going to be a pretty rough voyage across the Drake Passage. 

As a result dinner in the canteen on Deck 4 was turned into a buffet (rather than table service) to make things easier for the staff…

The only good news was that all 162 passengers had negative tests.

Phew!

16 December

I woke up early, showered and dressed and listened to the first of Sara’s daily wake-up calls, which always began “Good morning, good morning, good morning!”

The weather forecast had been spot on, unfortunately, and the wind was reaching speeds of 40-60 knots with swells of 8-10m.

That’s a Force 11 gale to you and me!

The bad weather didn’t take long to find its first victim, with Richard throwing up at breakfast! 

Poor lad. 

Bill slid in to my booth in the restaurant and asked me how I was coping with the weather, but I thought the safest thing for me to do at that point was just stand up and walk away…!

We were again banned from going out on deck, and we had to make do with a lecture on Antarctica, formed over 800m years ago and now the coldest, driest, windiest, highest and most remote continent on Earth.

Lunch was slightly better with pasta carbonara, and I even saw two wandering albatrosses through the window.

There was no sign of Jodie and Dan, though, and it later turned out that they weren’t feeling too good.

There wasn’t anything for me to do, so I just went down and had a nap in my cabin.

I was in 312, and it was situated in a pretty good position, not too near the stern and within easy reach of the shell doors, where we’d have to muster for all our Zodiac cruises.

Later on, we had yet another briefing, in which we were told we’d only been making an average speed of 10 knots due to the storm.

We learned a few facts about that MV Hondius, including its 60° self-righting capability.

We’d only been heeling over by 20° at most thus far, so that was reassuring.

We also found out that, due to Covid precautions, we’d all been banned from sitting with our friends and we’d have to sit in exactly the same seats at every future meal!

Finally, there was time for Bill to say a few words.

His message was a bit strange and woo-woo, telling us all to ‘Listen, hear, understand, do’. 

He actually ended his lecture by telling us all, “You are but nothing,” and I thought, yes, that just about sums up his attitude to other people!

17 December

Happily, Deck 5 was opened up in the morning, so Dan, Marshall and I went out. 

I went back to get my camera and took a few shots of Antarctic petrels cavorting in the sunshine before joining Dan for Laurence’s lecture on glaciation

He and Jodie and I had lunch together before going for a biosecurity check, which meant scrubbing our clothes and equipment to within an inch of their lives so that no plant or animal material could pollute the Antarctic continent.

It was definitely easier said than done, and I didn’t appreciate being told I couldn’t wear my waterproof trousers unless I personally cleaned the velcro straps with a toothbrush!

I even got into trouble for not signing out - even though nobody had asked me to!

Once that was over with, I took the chance to take a few more pictures of the Antarctic petrels.

I thought it might be too stormy to use my tripod, but it was fine in the end.

Later on, I found out that I’d passed my Covid test, but two people didn’t…

And so the whole Covid nightmare began.

The two people involved were immediately quarantined with their partners in their existing cabins, and they took no part in any of the Zodiac landings or lectures on board ship.

It must have been utterly, utterly dreadful, and I heard that one of the women immediately broke down in tears on receiving the news.

I do feel terribly sorry for them, but the downside for the rest of the ship was that it forced Sara to implement a further raft of lockdown measures.

This time, all the passengers were divided up into colour groups (yellow and green plus red and blue), and the different groups would be segregated in future for all activities, including meals, lectures and Zodiac excursions.

We also had to submit to daily Lateral Flow Tests, which meant that we were at risk of having our trips effectively cancelled every single day.

That was not the most comforting experience.

However, needs must, and I grudgingly put up with the inconvenience.

As I told the others, the most important thing was getting to Antarctica; as long as we could do that and make all our planned landings, then the Covid lockdown was just an annoying irrelevance.

18 December

We finally made landfall in Antarctica, and I went out on deck to enjoy the moment with Dan, Jodie and Marshall.

When we went to the restaurant for breakfast, more Covid rules had been implemented: we could only sit with our cabin mates, and we couldn’t serve ourselves from the buffet…

Later on, we went on a Zodiac cruise and then landed at Orne Harbour and then Cuverville Island to see the chinstrap and gentoo penguins.

This was a particularly important moment for Jodie, who just needed Antarctica to say that she’d landed on all seven continents!

Congratulations…

I’d done the same thing myself in 2016 - again in Antarctica - and I remember it being a special moment.

The landing didn’t start well: I had to get out of the Zodiac in very deep water and jump from stone to stone, but I couldn’t stop both my boots getting water in them.

That’s not what you want when the temperature is below freezing!

It was also a very long, hard climb to the top of the ridge, and there were only about four penguins there!

I was suffering particularly badly because I’d decided to bring all my possible lens and tripod options in my rucksack, so it was a real struggle.

For the Cuverville Island landing, I packed a lot lighter, and it was fun taking pictures of the penguins on the rocky beach...

…and sliding down the snowy slope.

The gentoos were also porpoising in the harbour…

…and there was a brown skua standing on the snowy shoreline.

Later on, Jodie and around 100 other passengers took the ‘polar plunge’ at a nearby beach, but Dan and I stayed well clear!

Marshall’s achievement that day was rather different: he managed to purloin a chunk of black ice from the sea!

Black ice is ice that has spent thousands of years , at the bottom of a glacier having all the oxygen and other impurities squeezed out of it.

As a result, it’s incredibly clear and dense. 

We picked up a block of it on a Zodiac cruise in Svalbard, taking it back to put behind the bar so that people could use it for ice cubes in their drinks.

I had a whisky with a black ice cube in it that immediately sank to the bottom!

It also lasted longer than it took me to finish the drink, which was a good half an hour…

This time, we did the same thing, and Jodie and Dan, Marshall and Ebru and I all had drinks with black ice in them.

The ice cubes didn’t sink, unfortunately, but it was still a cool thing to do.

Marshall seems to be a ‘can do’ sort of guy.

When he’d asked Sara in the Zodiac if he could grab a chunk of black ice, she’d said yes, but only if it was for personal use.

In the end, the block he picked up was enormous, but it was too late by then!

It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission…

Sara got her own back by refusing my request to take pictures of the ‘polar plunge’.

Over a hundred people were going to jump into the icy waters of the Southern Ocean - just for fun! - and one of the staff had said she thought there’d be no problem with me filming it, but Sara said, “The polar plunge is not a spectator sport.”

She also refused a passenger’s request to swap a kayak trip with someone else and told the people camping overnight on the Antarctic mainland that they couldn’t take any alcohol. 

Computer says no…

19 December

I woke up at 0245 and worked on my pictures before having breakfast with Jodie and Dan.

I had to break the rules to do it, but at least that meant we could enjoy one another’s company at all the remaining meals.

We went on a Zodiac cruise and landed at Danco Island.

I got splashed in the Zodiac, and my Nikon D850 stopped working properly: I could still take pictures, but I couldn’t change the aperture or shutter speed, and the menu button didn’t work.

I tried switching it off and on again, but no joy.

I then tried taking the battery out for a whole minute, but still no joy.

Fortunately, I still had my Sony a1 with my 400mm lens and 1.4 teleconverter, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

And then a Force 8 gale sprang up from nowhere! 

It also started to snow, and eventually even my Sony lens was wet and encrusted with ice, so I beat a hasty retreat with Jodie and Dan…!

Nobody likes bad weather, but it can often lead to better pictures, so I was grateful for that at least.

Unfortunately, our Neko Harbour landing was cancelled as it was completely icebound according to one of the other ships in the area, so Sara organised whale watching in Wilhelmina Bay and a barbecue.

It was pretty cold out on deck, so Dan and I weren’t too keen, but it wasn’t too bad in the end.

There was music and dancing, and we were even offered a couple of free glasses of mulled wine.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see any whales until half-way through the event, and even then they were too far away for me to get any good shots.

The closest I got that day was when I went to Felicity’s lecture on whales and Hazel’s on pinnipeds.

I ended up having a drink with another YPT guest called Robin and having a good moan with her…!

Meanwhile, Marshall and others were discussing rumours about whether two of the crew had caught Covid and whether we’d all have to quarantine for 10 days if there were three more cases.

I asked Sara about borrowing a dry pair of trousers or finding somewhere warm to keep mine, but she just told me that she would never have gone on a Zodiac without putting everything in a bag…!

The next day, she did offer me a pair of trousers she’d managed to scrounge, but I didn’t need them by then.

20 December

I woke up early (again!), listened to my audiobook and checked my camera. 

Fortunately, it had dried out overnight and was working fine

The Useful Island landing was cancelled due to high winds, so we went to Paradise Island - although Jodie and Dan were on a different Zodiac. 

Before the trip, a member of staff called Karolina amusingly asked me if I was ‘single’…!

Her command of English wasn’t great, so I assume she just meant was I on my own looking for a place in the next Zodiac…

In the afternoon, we went to Brown Station, but the hike was rather pointless as there was no wildlife - although we did see some gentoos and a crab-eater seal on our Zodiac cruise later.

I was given my daily antigen test by ‘Ben the Butcher of BA’.

I was in absolute agony, and when I blew my nose, I realised he’d actually drawn blood, but he didn’t even bother to apologise.

Was he raised by wolves…?!

After I went to bed, Sara announced a killer whale sighting, but when I finally changed into my wet weather gear, collected my camera and made it out on deck, it was miles away.

I even cracked a rib trying to lean on the bow…!

21 December

We were by this stage much further south than Sara had planned to be, so she changed the schedule. 

Instead of having the normal morning and afternoon Zodiac excursions, we made two morning trips to Foyn Harbour and Charlotte Bay.

It was a very early start at 0430, but I got a good shot of a humpback whale with a Zodiac in the background, so I was happy (see top of article)!

There was also an Antarctic tern feeding on fish, so I took the chance to take a few shots of that as well.

We then saw some crabeater seals and another whale in our second cruise.

22 December

I woke up early and worked on my pictures - although adding titles made me feel a bit queasy as the ship corkscrewed its way forward through the choppy seas. 

There were lots of birds outside, so I skipped lectures and took about 30,000 slow pans!

After dinner, I was asked by Marshall to give a slideshow in the lecture theatre.

Quite a few people turned up, and it was fun to show everyone my favourite photos from the trip and also my favourites of all time.

I told a few stories and handed out a few pearls of wisdom, but it only lasted for around 40 minutes.

23 December

I woke up early again, edited my pictures and then breakfasted with Dan. 

I left my glasses and laptop at my table again, so I had to dash back in a panic…!

Bill asked me a question at the antigen testing, so I had to leave!

They asked us to pay our bills after lunch, so we had to worry about how to pay for our drinks at dinner, but then we received a letter from Mark, the head of the whole company, saying they’d be on the house.

Cheers!

At the final recap and farewell drinks, there were a few speeches, and we were shown a video of the entire voyage.

We were all even handed a glass of champagne, so I had my first bubbles for two weeks.

Ushuaia & Buenos Aires 

24 December

I woke up early, packed, left my rucksack outside my cabin, had breakfast, disembarked, left all my bags with £30k of camera kit in them with a couple of dockers, took the bus into Ushuaia and spent the morning in the Marco Polo café using WiFi to catch up on two weeks of admin - including 173 emails!

Jodie and Dan and I collected our bags from the storage place and took the Oceanwide bus to the airport, which was pretty much closed when we arrived, so we had to wait before we were allowed to go through security.

I only had to show my passport rather than any Covid documents, which was a joy!

We had to wait for ages for a cab back to our hotel, but I guess it was Christmas Eve…even though there were no Christmas decorations anywhere. 

It was supposed to be $50, but it ended up being almost double that in pesos…!

The hotel couldn’t find Dan’s bag, but it did turn up after a few minutes. 

We walked to Valk in the nearby Plaza Julio Cortázar (in the pouring rain!) for Prosecco, empanadas, chips and blonde beer, and then the receptionist treated us to champagne and panna cotta back at the hotel. 

I was feeling so sweaty and dirty after not bathing for a week that I had to have a late-night shower…

25 December

Christmas Day!

I woke up to a rainstorm outside - or was it the air conditioner…?!

I had an early breakfast, then met Jodie and Dan for a second breakfast and hung out with them by the pool. 

We had drinks and the ‘19th best burger in the world’ at a place called Burger Joint on Jorge Luis Borges and then went to Sullivan’s Drinking House for ‘champagne’ and a dulce de leche ice cream at Lucciano’s - and played on the swings!

Later on, we went to the tango demonstration at El Querandi restaurant.

That was my suggestion to Jodie, who planned just about everything else.

I used to do a lot of dancing at Oxford, and I really enjoyed Tango Rojo the last time I was in Buenos Aires, so I was keen to do something similar this time.

Fortunately, everyone enjoyed the show, which was a mixture of singing, dancing and music from a live quartet of piano, cello, violin and accordion.

Afterwards, we went back to the Plaza Julio Cortázar for drinks with Marshall and Ebru.

Unfortunately, we were approached by a rather weird couple with a cat, and I had to walk off and take pictures of the square for 20 minutes…!

I got back around one in the morning.

26 December

When I woke up, I read the paper and had breakfast with Jodie and Dan 

Reception tried to make Dan pay 35% extra on the 3,000 pesos he’d agreed to pay for the taxi from the airport - which had already cost him £65 rather than $50.

He understandably lost his patience and refused to pay the extra charge, and the receptionist didn’t insist.

This was the day of our flight back to London, so Jodie booked an Uber to the airport.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a tiny Fiat, so we almost couldn’t get all the luggage in!

In the end, the driver managed to put my rucksack on the back seat, and I nursed one of the big bags in the front seat, so we managed to get to the airport on time.

Once there, it was my turn to get angry when we had to fill out yet another affidavit to leave the country (as well as the PLF and LFT!) and wait for an agonising few minutes for not one but two emails!

Crazy days…

Jodie and Dan had Bronze status with BA, so they were able to skip the queue, but I caught up with them at a café near our gate after having to walk for miles through the airport.

For the first time on the entire trip, I was just desperate to get home…!

I had a ham and cheese calzone and found a nice bottle of Malbec to give to my girlfriend, Miriam, as a kind of homecoming-cum-Christmas-cum-housewarming present.

The guy in front of me on the plane was very annoying, asking me first to walk past when I clearly couldn’t, then asking me not to rest my foot on the arm of his girlfriend’s seat and then rather rudely suggesting that I move to one of the empty rows of seats!

I just gave him a stony glare and ignored him…

27 December

Home at last!

Butcher’s bill:

1 x pair broken glasses

1 x cracked rib

Species list:

Adélie penguin

Antarctic petrel

Antarctic tern

Arctic tern

Black-browed albatross

Brown skua

Cape petrel

Chinstrap penguin 

Crabeater seal

Dusky dolphin 

Elephant seal

Fairy prion?

Fin whale

Gentoo penguin

Grey-headed albatross 

Humpback whale

Imperial shag

Kelp gull

Killer whale (orca)

Minke whale

Peale’s dolphin

Pilot whale 

Snowy petrel

Snowy sheathbill 

Sooty shearwater?

Southern giant petrel

Wandering albatross 

Weddell seal

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.