On December 9th, 200 passengers embarked on a 10-day expedition to Antarctica on the French ship, Le Soleal.  We had 10-passenger Zodiacs to visit shore locations.  According to the International Antarctic Agreement, we were only allowed to visit designated landing zones and only 100 people were allowed to visit a landing zone at a time. We left Ushuaia, Argentina, on the southern tip of Argentina to go 600 miles across the Drake Passage as we traveled from South America to Antarctica.  Just as we approached Antarctica, we crossed the Antarctic Convergence.  At this point the water temperature drops from 42F to 36F.  The ocean currents and winds change from flowing clockwise around the South pole to counterclockwise. After exiting the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia, it took about 36 hours to cross the Drake Passage.  You can see the areas where we made 4 stops on the South Shetland Islands and 8 stops on the Antarctic Peninsula.  The yellow dotted line is the Antarctic Circle. As you can see from the inset, Antarctica extends beyond the Antarctic Circle. The stops on Neko Harbor and Paradise Bay are actually on the Antarctic Continent. 

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For the Antarctica 2014 Photo Album, click Here

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