Antarctica - Day 6

Today was our last morning on the boat. We did not know our flight times off the peninsula, as it is all weather dependent. We woke up to a low fog and no visibility, so we were getting updates nearly every hour as to the expected time the plane was departing from Punta Arenas with the next load of guests to board the boat, and for us to depart and return to Punta Arenas on the same plane. 

The fog lifted and it got sunny, but by now there was a gale force wind. We finally were given our expected departure time of 3pm, which was late in the day and we were worrying whether it would even take place at all. We are obliged to book a buffer day when flying in and out of Antartica in case we cannot fly on the appointed day due to bad weather conditions. We had to disembark the boat and go by zodiac to the beach and then carrying all our hand luggage walk 1.5 km up a hill facing a 70km/h wind to get to the air strip. There is no airport at Frei, the Russian base which is used to fly in and out of Antarctica. It is basically a gravel airstrip with no airport buildings. It was very challenging, and some elderly guests could not quite manage the uphill walk into that strong wind but there was no alternative. A handful of guests who could not walk ably were taken from the zodiac to the plane by a vehicle that was booked the day before. When we got to the top of the hill we had to stand around for about 30 minutes in the freezing cold wind waiting for the passengers to disembark the plane before we could walk up to the plane. It really is an unsatisfactory arrangement but I believe the restrictions on building an airport terminal do not allow for an alternative way of doing things. We were frozen and so windswept by the time we boarded the plane, but the lovely air hostess greeted everyone with a friendly smile and chocolates!


A two hour flight back to Punta Arenas, and we finally got to the hotel again at about 8pm. And back to a mobile signal and wifi!! I had so many emails and messages to go through having had no contact since Sunday - but in a way it was rather nice to be offline! 

My main image shows the plane about to land on the runway - you can see how bleak the surroundings are. In winter this is snow covered so no flights take place. In extras 1. Arriving by zodiac from the boat to walk up the hill to board the plane. You can see the wind whipping over the water, and the boat in the distance. The captain kept moving the boat closer to shore to reduce the journey by zodiac, but the gale force wind kept pushing the boat further away from the shore. Everyone got quite wet on the zodiac, thankfully we had waterproof clothing on 2. A fur seal photographed the day before 3. The injured crab eater seal we saw a few days ago - that cut is quite horrific, amazing it survived. 4. The pod of orca whales we saw the previous night, swimming next to the boat