Baby, it’s cold outside.

I could wax lyrical and spout forth endless superlatives about our recent sojourn in Antarctica however, it would really be better to see it for yourself, but in the mean time I will titillate your travel taste buds with a few images and some timely tips.

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Timely Tips:
1. It will be really cold; wear as many layers of clothing as you can, and if you are a female, always allow more time for potty stops. It takes forever to peel these layers off with frozen fingers in a tiny cubicle. (Do remember to remove your gloves first, it is virtually impossible to pull all those layers back up in the correct sequence with gloves on.)

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I'm under there, somewhere.

2. Make sure your gloves don’t have any holes as I discovered a patch of frost bite on my pinky due to a few stitches coming unstuck on my outer pair of gloves. Yes, I was wearing two pair, though the inside pair were inadequately thin.

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Hubby, incognito.

3. Smart phones do not work when wearing ordinary gloves, DO NOT REMOVE YOU GLOVES! If you do, your fingers will snap freeze like popsicles and may remain in your gloves next time you remove them. I have discovered, albeit too late for this trip, that you can buy touch screen compatible gloves. But, as I didn’t have any of these high-tech gloves, I discovered the next best thing; my nose! Although it was a bit awkward entering my password screen pattern, (my nose is slightly fatter than my already too fat fingers), I did manage to operate the camera.

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4. Do not even think about trying to take a selfie using the above mentioned method, trust me, all you’ll get is an extreme close up of your left ear hole.

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5. If you want to get used to the smell of a colony of Gentoo penguins before embarking on a trip to the Antarctic, buy 20 kilo of prawns, stick them in your freezer, unplug the freezer from the wall socket and wait about 3 weeks and then open the freezer.

Okay, so enough tips for now. Here are some more photos.

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This was the biggest iceberg we saw, 600m long, 100m above the sea & 700m below.

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Same iceberg, different angle & me well wrapped.

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Penguins flying through the sea.

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Hold your nose around these guys.

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Snow slugs, AKA, seals.

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Addendum.
Falkland Islands, King penguin colony (thankfully not as smelly as the Gentoos)
Technically not Antarctica but here are the photos anyway.

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I’ll endeavour to blog again from Buenos Aires. Till then, hasta luego.

5 thoughts on “Baby, it’s cold outside.

  1. SUSAN SEGAL, you are a brilliant commentator,humorist, and photographer!
    This ought to go in to Wikipedia, so impressive is it!. How were the other tourists
    coping, I wonder? Your old mate, Kay

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    1. The wind was so strong at times that I actually got a shot of one bloke standing on deck at at 30° angle leaning into the wind. Most of the passengers were from colder climates than we and had clothing to cope with the cold.

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  2. Holy moly!! How cold exactly WAS it? We saw that in China (or maybe Japan?) they use frankfurters to operate their smart phones when it gets too cold. Perhaps try that next time?

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    1. Hmmm, pity I didn’t have a frankfurter in my pocket. Most days it was only about minus 4° C The third day the wind chill factor was what made it so much colder. The wind was so strong it almost blew my socks off and I was wearing boots at the time.

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