Monday 11 March 2013

The end of a wonderful journey



This was the last day of our wonderful trip to Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas. We were looking forward to this trip for such a long time and now it came to its end already. Tomorrow we will reach Buenos Aires. We can feel the warm temperatures already. In the evening after the Captain’s farewell we will have a BBQ outside on the open decks. We changed our thicker sweaters against t-shirts and summer trousers and had our afternoon tea under a sunny sky.

In the following report you can read how our youngest expedition team member Julien experienced this trip.

My name is Julien Wiese. I was lucky enough to come on this trip together with my dad who works on MV Fram as a lecturer. He is a Marine biologist. I am eleven years old and I was included in the expedition team. It was one of my dreams to come to Antarctica like my brothers before me. I have now seen many animals like Gentoo, Chinstrap, Adelie, Macaroni, Magellanic, Rockhopper and King Penguins. My favorite penguin was by far the King penguin. I also saw many Albatrosses like Black browed and Wandering Albatrosses. By myself I spotted a Royal Albatross.

I saw many seals and whales too. I even saw a group of Humpback whales eating which was really cool. Elephant seals are enormous.  We had a lot of sun shine but we also had big snow blizzards. On the Drake Passage which I crossed three times we had all kinds of weather. But on the third time it was a “Drake lake.”  For me the “Drake Lake” was boring. I liked the big storms like the sea birds. My teacher gave me homework for the trip on Shackleton.  Which was rather easy because I nearly did what he did except for getting stuck in the ice and staying there a winter and all that. But I did the last part of the Shackleton walk. It was really an AMAZING trip!!!!!!!

On the picture you see me and my best friend Anja the expedition leader.