November 25th - Hitting Our Stride

The sound of the expedition leaders voice on the intercom was thoroughly unwelcome at 7:30AM. My body was pretty sore and I was feeling a bit hungover. I struggled through breakfast and pounded a few cups of coffee, but it wasn´t helping much.

The morning activity was a stop at an Ukranian research facility called ¨Verdansky Station.¨ It was what you might expect; a bit spartan research facilities that look like they are straight out of the 80´s. However, when you get upstairs you find the pride and joy, what they claim to be the southern most commercial bar in the world serving vodka made onsite in the station. So the story goes...It used to be a British station that they later sold to the Ukranians as a favor for 1 pound. When the British built it they hired a carpenter to fit-out the place. The guy blew the entire budget on the spectacular bar and was then simply fired and the replacement finished the rest of the station.

We had a couple shots of the fine spirits(Ukranian style vodka made fresh in Antarctica) and my hangover disappeared completely. I was feeling much better and after a cruise around the surrounding area on the zodiaks highlighted by a couple of leopard seals, we headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch we had our second ski adventure. Getting to the ski location was much easier this time around, and I was feeling a little stiff, but excited. The weather had been pretty iffy all day, in fact it was more or less a blizzard during the morning activity. By the time we had set out, it had at least stopped snowing, but the conditions were less than ideal.

We were up and on the skis in no time at all and we made a pretty good pace up the glacier. After and hour and a half or so we were nearing the saddle of the mountain and the cloud line. The very top was a bit precarious, icy and steep, and more than anything I wondered how we´d make it down. After skiing across the top of the peak to a point where we could see the water on the other side through the dense cloud cover we turned and headed down. I followed lockstep behind the two people in front of me and made it through the hard bit with surprising ease.
Something truly magical happened then. As we came down the main face, the weather shifted and cleared completely; soon the sun was blazing down on the fresh white snow and the panorama of the the light hitting the the surrounding bays, snow covered peaks and icebergs was beautiful beyond description. I was by myself on the face at this point and I stopped often just to stare in amazement and take it in. ¨This is the view I came for,¨ I told myself over and over again. It was a truly amazing and emotional moment for me. It justified everything about the trip for me and had I left Antarctica just after that I would have left totally satisfied.

We made it back to the ship feeling great and very tires. Following dinner there was a final activity, a zodiak cruise around the icebergs in the back where we were anchored. The weather, as it does in Antarctica, had turned again and it was pretty cold and windy. It was nice, but relatively uneventful and pretty cold. Upon returning to the ship, I slept right away.