Something You Don't Get...

After raising two children of our own and then doing four years of volunteer work at a home for at-risk children Michelle and I consider ourselves to be "experienced" in raising children.

We were discussing the value experience when raising children the other day.  This story came up but I didn't take any action.  Then, today, we ran across the picture and I had to share the story.

It was something like 34 years ago.  Shane was turning one so Michelle and I planned our first birthday party ever.  

I came up with the game.  It was simple.  Hang donuts from a string and let the kids have a race to see who could eat their donut fastest.  Now the challenge of the game was not about bite and swallow speed, it was all about chasing the donut with your face.  The rules forbid the use of hands (just like soccer and like soccer, they could use their feet, chest, or head) so I came up with this little bit of genius:
  

Amber Berlin - Look at her hands

The thought was that I could tie their hands behind their backs with masking tape.  That was all I needed to do and I had easy rule enforcement.  Masking tape isn't very strong so nothing prevented the children from breaking the tape and grabbing the donut, but we made it clear that if the tape was broken they were no longer eligible for the prize.

For years I had a sign on the wall of my office.  Here's what it said:

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

The game seemed to be going along fine except for this little one:

The youngest Berlin (Autumn?)

   

As you can tell by this zoom-in, Larry and Udonna Belin's youngest child either did not understand the game, or was just not competitive.  She simply stood there as the contest went on all around her.  She didn't seem to notice the frenzy of those who surrounded her and she didn't seem to care that her donut was untouched.

 

Suddenly my opportunity for experience kicked in.  The child grew bored with simply standing under a donut and decided to walk away.  Being somewhat inexperienced with walking, she caught the end of her sandal on the cement as she took her second step.  She pitched forward and everyone observing the contest learned that a child with her hands taped at her sides is required to break her fall with her little face.

There were plenty of parents at the party, but like Michelle and I, the majority were new to the whole parenting thing so nobody thought to wrestle me to the ground, grab me by the face, make eye contact, and shout "You imbecile, you don't tape a babies hands to her sides.  Babies fall!  Babies fall A LOT!! Babies who can't catch themselves fall HARD!!

So, sitting here nearly 35 years later I expect young Autumn is married and has more parental experience than we did back on that fateful day.  I expect she doesn't remember the story but perhaps she has heard it from time to time.  As for Michelle and I, we remember the story fondly (not that it wasn't terrifying at the time but time heals the wounds) and when Michelle found these pictures today we actually had a good laugh.  That's when I realized that I needed to share the story.

A story that includes an important life lesson and an opportunity to laugh about injury to a defenseless child just has to be shared.
:

Didn't Set Foot on Land

When people hear that I went to Antarctica, many ask me "Did you set foot on land?"

Ok, most people who hear I went to Antarctica ask "Why?", but still, a number ask me if I set foot on land. I actually started pondering that question more than 15 years prior to this trip.

How important is it to set foot on land?  (or more importantly, if you don't set foot on land, did you actually GO there?)

First of all, let's put this "set foot on land" thing to bed.  Most people who go to Antarctica never leave the water.   Think about it.  Robert Scott was the first person to the South Pole.  He got there January 17, 1912 and what does this picture show?

Photo from Mickey Live Presentation

He isn't standing on land.  It's water.  Frozen water, but water just the same.  Many (most?) visitors never get on land, they're just on water in some form.  So, the answer to the question is "No.  I didn't set foot on land".

That said, we would have LOVED to spend time on the ice pack, but there were laws in our way.

Typical Expedition Ship in the front - Our Ship in the Back

Given the choice I made for transportation to the continent, I went to bat with three strikes.  There was no chance of setting foot on the ice-pack when you go in our ship because the law is that people can only go ashore if the vessel contains less than 500 souls on board.  Our ship probably had that many crew members so we were done before we started.  Why then, did we choose to take the big boat?

Two reasons.  First, look at the difference between the typical expedition ship (foreground) and our vessel.  My little daughter gets sea-sick really easily and we knew the Drake crossing often has winds of over 100 mph and really big waves.  We were told we might get into waves as tall as our ship.  Imagine being in waves that tall in the foreground vessel!  While on the voyage I learned that one year a wave that was taller than the ship broke over the top (14 stories tall).  Imagine THAT in the foreground vessel.

The second reason was cost.  Any way you slice it going to Antarctica is expensive.  That said, not all trips down there cost the same.  It cost a bit over $8,000 for a cabin on our ship.  Passage on the expedition vessels run between $1,000 and $1,500 per person per day.  Two of us were on-board for 15 days so on the smaller ship we would have paid between $30,000 and $45,000 for the same boat ride.

So the next question has to be "If you didn't set foot on land, have you actually been there?"

I probably answered that one when I was working on my life goal of visiting 49 US states.  Since setting that goal I've been to 49 states, probably that many or more countries (perhaps I should count them). and all seven continents.  Back when I formulated my 49 states goal I came up with a set of 5 rules that determine if I've "been there".  Here are my rules:

1. Crossing the border isn't enough.
   
   Let's say you are driving from Nashville to Philadelphia (I've done that plenty of times).  You will drive pretty much the full length of West Virginia's eastern border.  Now let's say you make a 90 degree turn, cross the border, do a U-Turn and head back to Interstate 81.  That's not good enough, following my rules you haven't been to West Virginia.  This leads into rule 2.
    
2. Leaving a state crossing a different boarder constitutes presence
   (e.g. you HAVE been there).
   
   Same trip as example 1.  You drive through Knoxville TN, head up I81 then do the 90 degree turn on to I77, but this time rather than doing the U-Turn you just stay on I77 until you reach I64, turn right and drive back to I81.  You can now add West Virginia to your list of states because you crossed the border in two different places.
   
   An amusing side note - West Virginia was my last state (#49) and I actually drove from Nashville to Washington DC and failed to do the 77 to 64 thing which cost me a flight to West Virginia and a long weekend at a bed and breakfast to achieve my last state.
    
3. An airport is not part of the state.
   
   Stopping at an airport in a state isn't enough (I've flown all over the place and have had many connections but these don't count).  The airports are not a destination, they are just airports.
   
   I've been to the airport in Hong Kong but have never gone outside the airport it so I've never been to Hong Kong.  The second time I had a lay-over in Barcelona, Spain I took a train into town, ate breakfast, took a train back to the airport, and caught my connecting flight to Cairo, Egypt.  This leads us to the 4th rule:
    
4. Eating a meal establishes presence.
   
   Back to West Virginia.  If you took I77, crossed the border, had lunch, did the U-Turn and headed back to 81 you can add West Virginia to your list.
   
   I actually did the Barcelona breakfast trip solely to establish presence and add Spain to my countries.
    
5. Spending the night establishes presence.
   
   You drive I90 from Wyoming to South Dakota.  You visit Mt Rushmore, spend the night in Rapid City and drive back to Wyoming  (on the same road) the next day.  Of course you've been to South Dakota.  Spending the night establishes presence.
   
   Interesting side note - The first time I had a lay-over in Barcelona it was 11 hours and I actually got a bed and spent the night at the airport.  I decided that spending the night did not establish presence because the airport was not part of the country.  This led to the train trip and meal on my second layover.

Ok, here's a test question to see if you have been paying attention.  Is it possible to get a passport stamp from a country yet never go there?  Leave me a comment with your answer!

To the best of my knowledge the US congress and United Nations have not yet adopted my five rules of travel to establish presence, but I have to assume this is an oversight on their part, and I digress.

When Mandy and I went to Antarctica we met the criteria of all 5 rules.  Here's our path in Antarctica (actual path on actual nautical chart plotted by a member of the crew and certified by the ship's captain).

Actual course plotted on a nautical map

Here's the big picture of the southern part of our voyage.  The latitude line at the top is 60 south (the start of the south ocean which is how Mickey Live told us they define "being in" Antarctica.

Part of the Antarctic Peninsula we Visited

Rule 1 and 2: The border where we entered the land portion of the Antarctic peninsula was through the Schollard Channel.  The last land mass in we visited (the next day) was 560 miles away at Elephant Island.  Rule 1 & 2 met. 

Rule 3 is kind of moot.  There are no airports in Antarctica.

Rule 4 was met multiple times.   My first (and 2nd) meal in Antarctica were hot soup as I stood on the deck taking pictures.  This guy came around with his little soup cart.  Maybe the best soup on planet earth (14 hours without food and hot soup in sub zero weather probably had nothing to do with it).

Hot soup guy was a hero on deck

Mandy and I also had a wonderful dinner by a big picture window with a glorious mountain view as we sailed up the Gerlache Straight.

Rule 5 was met because we entered the Schollard Channel between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on one day, spent the night, and left Antarctica the afternoon of the next day.

So...I didn't bring home any Antarctic rocks (and you KNOW I would have) and I didn't get to sleep in a tent on the ice pack (something that I included in an earlier $50,000 dollar trip plan) but following all of my rules of travel and presence...

WE HAVE BEEN TO ANTARCTICA!!

Cape Horn

Day 8 - Cape Horn and Fake Horn

I have to start my blog on Cape Horn with a shout out to Mickey Live.  Mickey did daily lectures on our cruise and in the case of Cape Horn, This bit of history came from him.  I also need to use a few of his slides and Windy.com (which he told me about) To tell the story.

Let's start with his picture as the cover photo (because if I used the one I took it would look like this:

Cape Horn was a little Foggy as we went around the southern side

Ok, enough about the photography and on with the learning crap!

Location of Cape Horn

Prior to the Panama Canal, going around the southern side of Cape Horn was the only way to get from the Pacific Ocean side of the planet to the Atlantic Ocean Side. 

(That isn't entirely true, you could go the other way, traverse the Indian Ocean then sail between the southern tip of Africa and Antarctica to do it)

I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of Cape Horn but it has become much more personal for a number of reasons.  One of them is this:

My little daughter at the north side of Cape Horn

My little daughter went there with me.  (That's right, she's 31 and although I don't call her Pook very much anymore, she will always be my little daughter).

Another reason was that being there was a bucket list level life experience, but most of the reasons were related to a bunch of cool stories that helped us learn more about Cape Horn.  This post is about my favorite story.  Favorite not because it was wonderful, favorite because it is powerful.

Let's start with the geography.  Our story takes place here:

The picture above shows where the archipelago that contains Cape Horn.  

So take a look just north west of Cape Horn.  There is another island called Island Hershel.  The story is about two things, what the islands look like, and what the wind is doing.  The star of our story is Hershel Island which was commonly referred to as "Faults Horn".  Mickey Live shared this slide:

Looking at the picture on the top of this page, you see that Cape Horn can be identified by a 656 foot tall hill that looks like a horn.  If you look at the southern side of Hershel Island (Faults Horn) on Mickey's slide, you can also see that Hershel Island also has a 656 foot tall hill.  

So imagine you are the captain of a three masted sailing ship in the mid 1700s.  As you came down the western edge of South America you were tacking into gentle winds ranging from 8 to 15 miles an hour.  You and the crew were relaxed.  You reach the bottom of the continent and start your turn eastward.  Now you have the wind on your stern (behind the ship) and it's speeding up so you are scooting along at a quick pace.  You know just what you need to do, and it is this:

What You Want To Do With Your Ship

You watch for the horn because in these winds you need to start the turn as soon as you see the horn (and before you reach it).  It's a grey overcast day but you get lucky and the skies clear enough that you catch a glimpse of the 656 foot tall hill that looks like a horn.  You give the command for a hard turn toward the port side (left for you land lubbers) and the ship turns putting you on this track:

Course when you turn after seeing the False Horn

Let's say that 30 seconds into your turn the fog clears enough that you suddenly see the real Horn shaped hill off your starboard side (the wrong side, but you saw it early so you are in the best case scenario).

Before I go on, let's talk about the wind.  

There is a website called "Windy.com" that you should be playing with if you aren't currently doing so.  It shows what the wind, rain, snow, temperature, and waves are doing at any point in time.  It shows everyplace on earth and shows it all the time.  I went out to that site and looked at the current winds while I was writing this blog and did a snapshot of the winds at Cape Horn right now:

Winds of the Drake Passage Feb 22nd 2018 @ 9:18 p.m.

The little white lines show the direction of the wind.  The color underneath shows how fast they are blowing.  9:20 at night is right around dusk so the winds were more calm than usual.  Typically the wind through here is anywhere from a low of around 40 mph up to hard winds that are over 140 mph.  When we came to Cape Horn they were around 70 mph and we were told we got lucky because the winds "weren't as strong as they normally are".   So, back to our story.

You had just transitioned from tacking into a 15 mph head wind which had you running with forward speed or 5 or 6 mph.  Turn the corner and you suddenly pick up an 80 to 90 mile an hour tail wind.

As you accelerate to what might be the fastest sailing speed you have ever experienced you spot the horn, give the order, make the turn and 30 seconds later you see the real horn on the wrong side of the ship.  

Hopefully you don't check the charts to see what happened or you will use more precious time.  If you had the charts memorized you would realize that instead of the Atlantic Ocean it's about 2 and 3/4 miles straight ahead to this...

Actual picture of where your ship is currently headed

...and at your current speed and direction you have about 90 seconds left until you hit it.  Time for a decision.  Quickly because 10 of your 90 seconds have lapsed while were recognizing what was happening.  Like me, your little daughter is on the ship with you.  What do you do?  GO!!

Well, I don't know what you did but most of the captains who made that mistake hit the rocks and sunk their ships.  The water is below freezing and if your crew (and little daughter) didn't die from the impact they probably got less than 5 minutes in the icy waters prior to hypothermia shutting all their muscles down.

As we rounded that corner (coming from east to west) I stood on the deck in 70 mph winds and imagined what it would have been like in my mind as I made that mistake (as many did).  It was a grave thought.  It was emotional.  It was educational.

And now, as my Dad used to say...you have been educated.

The End of the World

Ushuaia, Argentina - The End of the World

Really?

Ushuaia, Argentina.  El Fin Del Mundo.  The end of the world.  From the harbor you see a wall that says:

"USHUAIA end of the world, beginning of everything"

They call Ushuaia the end of the world because it is the southern-most city on planet earth.  They have a lighthouse called "The Lighthouse at the end of the world" and you can buy all manor of trinkets that say "End of the World" on the front (and "Made in China" on the back).

For Mandy the end of the world was the beginning of mental joy.  She was thrilled to get off the ship and walk around on dry land.  For me, it was a pleasant visit with memories that found my mind challenging the city's famous tag line. This post is about why.

First of all, here's what the bottom of South America looks like:

Argentina is shown in yellow.  The brown country on the west (and south) side of the country is Chile.  It is bordered on the east by Uruguay and Paraguay.  To the north is the Bolivian border.  For this discussion I don't care about the north or east, but let's consider Chile.

The town of Ushuaia is on Tierra del Fuego which is the largest one of many islands at the southern end of south America.  The eastern half of the Island is Argentina and the western half is Chile. 

Angentina / Chile Border in Yellow

The image above shows Tierra del Fuego with a yellow border drawn to show you what is Argentina and what is Chile.  The photo below circles the Chilean portion in red.

Ok, so now you've got a lay of the land.  The waterway below Tierra del Fuego is the Beagle channel.  Let's take a closer look at the channel.

Our trip to Ushuaia required we sail on the southern side of the Beagle Channel because the water is deeper there (and our ship was quite large).  For this reason we had to have a Chilean pilot aboard (to keep us from sinking our ship in Chile's channel).  About 40 minutes prior to arriving in Ushuaia we stopped at Port William Chile to offload the Chilean pilot and pick up one from Argentina.

(For those of you who don't track such things, big ships have to hire local pilots who know the conditions of the sea floor to guide them in and out of ports.  This is done at nearly every port.)

Port William, Chile is a picturesque little town nestled in between some beautiful mountains on the south side of the Beagle Channel.  Here's a picture I took of Port William as we changed pilots.

Port William, Chile

Some of you are racing ahead to where I'm going here.  How could Port William be a town six miles south of the southern-most city on earth?  To that my response is simply:

"Don't get ahead of yourself, you ain't seen nothing yet".

As you already saw, Port William, Chile is six miles south of the end of the world but if we zoom back a bit with Google Earth we see that Cape Horn Chile (the true southern-most point in South America) is about 90 miles south of Port William.  It has full time residents and a lighthouse that is tended (full time) by the Chilean Navy.

So...

That means there is a lighthouse close to 100 miles south of the lighthouse at the end of the world.  Hopefully you head didn't explode quite yet, because I'm not quite done.  Two brothers (Bartolome and Gonzalo de Dordal) were sailing on a Portuguese expedition in 1619 and nearly 400 years to the day prior to Mandy and I arriving they found this:

Diego Ramirez Islands

The cosmographer on board was named Diego Ramirez so obviously they would name these islands that are 68 miles south east of Cape Horn after him.  Fast forward 400 years and here's what you will find on these islands:

The Settlement 150 miles south of the southernmost place on earth 

You will also find this...

The lighthouse 150 miles south of the lighthouse at the end of the world

...so anyway, I'm not going to try to convince you one way or the other but I ask you this question.  When I sent my little grandson a sweater vest that had a little penguin on it with the caption:

Ushuaia  El Fin Del Mundo.
(hey, the kid's smart and I'm going to make him work for it)

What did I do?  Did I:

1. Set him up to walk around sporting a bald face lie?
   
2. Agree with the folks in Argentina regardless of what the goobers in Chile believe
   
            or
   
3. Dip into logic that starts out with "Hey, it works for Santa Clause so ..."

Krill

If you want to see wildlife, you think about places like Africa and India.  You don't typically think about Antarctica, but a little know fact is that there are more animals in Antarctica than any of the other six continents.

What is the most successful abundant animal species on earth?  According to the Department of the Environment in Australia, the national geographic and many other knowledgeable sources, the answer is the Antarctic Krill.

I've written a number of articles talking about this animal or that animal that I hope to see on my trip to the south polar region and many (most) of those articles talk about krill being a primary food source.

So what is krill?

Krill are crustaceans, and are related to shrimp and lobster.  There are 85 known species of krill living in every ocean around the world.

Krill are small.  The average one is three quarters on an inch long.  The biggest ones can grow up to about two and a third inches long and weigh less than half an ounce.

Krill are numerous.  They swim together in enormous groups called swarms.  The swarms are so large that they can be seen from space on images taken by satellites.

The most plentiful species of Krill is the Antarctic krill.  If you took all the humans in the world and put them on one side of a balance scale, then put just the krill in Antarctica on the other side, the krill (at less than half an ounce each) is the heaviest.  In fact, the biomass of the krill in Antarctica is greater than the biomass of any other animal species on earth. 

Krill outnumber any other multi-celled species on the planet with somewhere between 32 trillion and 384 trillion of them within the waters of Antarctica alone.  (between 500 million and 6 billion tons)

Finally, there's this:

This is a duck.  They are less plentiful than krill in both biomass and number of individuals.  That said, a baby duck is much cuter than a krill of any age.

and...As my dad used to say...Now you've been educated.

Whales

If you are going to hang out with whales, there are many types to choose from.  It seems like there are some automatic goals when you are heading toward the south pole.  

Probably first of all, you hope to see penguins.  You just don't ever get to do that up north where we live.  If you want to hang with penguins you pretty much have to travel to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, or Antarctica. 

The second thing you think of is probably mountains and ice.  I should have said icebergs and although I did see literature about that when researching the trip, I didn't realize how important the icebergs were.  I had seen icebergs in Alaska but they weren't the size of a 5 story tall super Walmart.

Then there are Whales.  As we planned our trip I definitely hoped to see a whale or two.  Apparently I wasn't the only one because Mickey Live did a lecture on whales.  There are 86 different kinds of whales out there.  If we were lucky, we had a chance to see one of three or more species of whale. 

The three species of whales that we might get to see were the Orca (commonly called Killer Whales), the Minke, and Humpback.  In the chronology of our trip this would be the 6th day.  Tomorrow we would be entering the Beagle Channel and heading toward Ushuaia, Argentina, the city that calls itself "The end of the World".

Following this same chronology, this was the day I saw my first Orca.  

We were heading south (duh!) along the coast of Argentina and Mandy and I were sitting by the window in a coffee shop on the 5th deck (we spent a lot of time in a coffee shop by the window on the 5th deck).  Out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was a dolphin jumping.  Upon closer examination I realized the dorsal fin was way too long and when the whale came out for air I could clearly see the white underbelly (don't get a lot of that on dolphins).  I didn't try to take a picture because, well, taking pictures through the window isn't what the cool kids do.

Humpback:  For me, the big goal of the trip was the Humpback whale.  As whales go, the Humpback is the 4th largest species.  They grow up to 52 feet long (the size of a school bus) and weigh in at over 60,000 pounds (some are as much as three tons over 60,000 pounds).  These marine mammals can be found literally all over the planet.  They don't get up to the Arctic, but I've seen them in Oregon, San Francisco and the inland Alaska passage near Juneau.   

The Orca is pretty small as whales go.  The females range between 3,000 and 6,000 pounds.  The males run twice that size.  A big male Orca can grow to 26 feet long (that would be about 8 feet longer than a Chevrolet crew cab pickup with a full size bed.  The orca is the biggest member of the dolphin family and they like to hunt in packs (not unlike wolves).  A hunting group (called a pod) can contain as many as 40 whales.  The female orcas lead the pod (they are a matriarchal society) and these whales typically live 50 to 80 years.

Minke: There are two known species of minke whales; the north Atlantic minke and the Antarctic minke (guess which one we were most likely to see).  Minke whales are in the same family as the blue whale and the humpback whale.  They are the most plentiful in this family (called the Rorqual family of whales).  Minke whales are a bit shorter (up to 24 feet long) and a bit heaver (up to 22,000 pounds) than Orcas.  The females typically grow a little bigger than the males.  These whales are filter feeders meaning they have Baleen bristles  (think of the bristles on a comb) that allows them to pass water through the filters and trap the food.  They filter out and eat small fish, krill, cod, herring, capelin and pollock.  For the most part minke whales travel alone or in small pods of 2 to 3 whales.  They can hold their breath for up to 25 minutes and have been know to swim at speeds of up to 24 miles per hour.

Drakes Passage

Look at the bottom of a globe.  Find Antarctica and check out what is above it.

Water.  No land, just water.  Look any other place on the globe and as you turn the globe you will find land masses that serve as wind breaks and current deflectors.  At the bottom of the globe there is none of that.  The currents and the wind are free to run wild and unobstructed.

The Bottom of the Earth (Google Earth)

This is the only place on the planet where there is nothing to deflect the wind and the water and as a result, this is the place on the planet with the most powerful winds and the roughest seas.

If you examine the place where the Antarctic Peninsula reaches up toward South America, you see that this is a choke point where the path between Antarctica and any continent to the north is the smallest.  There is an 800 kilometer (480 mile) gap between the two continents and all the water that pushes up against South America can only squeeze by on the bottom through this tiny gap. 

The result of that is some of the strongest and most dangerous currents on the planet.  That should be enough to make us understand why the passage is scary, but there is more!

The currents in the Pacific ocean come down along the west coast of South America and then turn back up north, then east when they push against Antarctica.  Meanwhile, the currents of the Weddell sea run in a counter clockwise direction and are heading westward as they meet the eastward current from the Pacific Ocean.

So what happens when a powerful current heading eastward off the Pacific meets a powerful current heading westward off the Weddell sea?

Well...let's just say that memories are made.