ANTARCTICA pt. 1 : AITCHO ISLAND / SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS

I am so excited to begin sharing some photos from my travels this past month.  I hope you don't mind that some icy landscapes pop up here and there in the next couple weeks between illustration projects.  For any who wondered why my shop was closed for so long or why you received away messages as I seemed to have disappear, well this is why... 

Click "read more" below for more insight on our trip and more photos! 

I'm really at a loss for words when beginning to explain this trip, what we saw, and how much it meant to be to experience this with my sister.  A necessary voyage in every sense of the word.  Something my sister and I have longed for and decided to just go for it.  All seven continents are on our bucket list (we just have two left now!).  A lot of people asked us why Antarctica... um why not? We both have an extreme yearning and need to experience the world, that is my best answer.

Antarctica truly felt like another planet.  You will see this even better in the following days of photos.  As we went further south on our journey the scenery got more icy, more blue, bigger mountains, bigger icebergs, more otherworldly... 

Our journey began in Miami, we flew directly to Buenos Aires from there.  We stayed for a night at the recommendation of our cruise line since the port city we would leave from is extremely small and flights can sometimes be majorly delayed.  It was a nice bonus to have a full day in Buenos Aires.  We left very early the next morning for Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world!  We spent the night in Ushuaia to board our vessel the following day (photos of Argentina to come). The journey to Antarctica takes you across the dreaded Drake's Passage, the roughest ocean in the world! It is where the current of three seas meet causing angry waves and storms.  The crew said we we're relatively lucky to have nice weather (although I can't say I felt well during the almost two days across. barf.) 

The first stop shown above was Aitcho Island in the South Shetland Islands.  I was initially surprised to see so much rock here, then again it is summer for them right now, ha.  If you're curious to know, summer equals about 15 degrees and colder as we went further.  We surely were bundled up from head to toe the entire time.  Stepping onto land for the first time, greeted by thousands of gentoo penguins, chinstrap penguins, and moulting elephant seals was ridiculously exciting.  I was relieved to be on land after that long journey.  The crew stated once again, we were lucky to have a sunny day, hard to come by in Antarctica and definitely didn't last the whole time.  After this day, we boarded our ship and once again cruised overnight to the next destination.  Stay tuned! 

I'm trying to keep these posts a reasonable length. I posted a bit more (and the images are a little larger) on my photography blog, right here.  Also feel free to ask any questions in the comment section if you're interested in our journey.  I will include more info in the coming posts as well.  Hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me today.  xox