Auspicious start to Antarctic tourist season

by Kraig Becker on

November marks the beginning of the tourist season in the icy waters off the coast of Antarctica. It is mid-spring down south, and travelers with a sense of adventure, and plenty of cash, are heading to the frozen continent to get the opportunity to visit one of the last true frontiers on the planet, and possibly get a glimpse of Emperor Penguins while they’re in the neighborhood too.

The past few years have been challenging ones for Antarctic cruise ships. In 2007, the MS Explorer sunk after hitting an iceberg, and last year two more ships ran aground while maneuvering through the treacherous waters. Fortunately no one was hurt in those incidences, although the sinking of the Explorer did create an ecological disaster when tens of thousands of gallons of fuel were released into the water.

With the 2009 tourist season barely underway, there has already been in incident in the Weddell Sea, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, where a Russian icebreaker called the Captain Khlebnikov became trapped by ice for the better part of two days. The ship, which carries roughly 100 passengers, found itself stuck behind large icebergs when winds shifted, causing the ice to close all access to open waters. While the boat was never in any real danger, it was unable to continue along its intended route, preventing those aboard from following their intended itinerary.
Late yesterday, the winds shifted once again, and the Captain Khlebnikov was allowed to return to its scheduled route. It is now estimated that it’ll be three to four days late getting back to port, but will make its appointed rounds, allowing the passengers to get their close encounter with the penguins after all.

Hopefully this will be the only incident in the Antarctic waters this season. In the greater scheme of things, it was a rather minor issue, but as ship traffic increases at the bottom of the world, and more people travel there, the chances of a true disaster striking, seems to be almost inevitable.

Exploring the Mekong River

by Kraig Becker on

Some of the most amazing adventure destinations center around the great rivers of the world. Whether it’s rafting the Rio Grande, kayaking the Congo, or simply taking a leisurely cruise down the Nile, we seem to have a fascination with these waterways that have played an important role in human development. One of those rivers is the Mekong, which stretches for more than 2700 miles as it meanders through Laos, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar.

In Laos, the Mekong is known as the “Mother River” and it plays an important role in that country’s culture and lore. Travel writer Kate Quill discovered this for herself recently when she made her own Mekong journey, sharing the details with us in this article from the London Times. Kate spent a week on the river back in October, and describes a tropical landscape filled with dense jungles and rocky peaks.

On her journey up the Mekong, Quill stopped at a remote village that gave her a sense of what life is like for those that depend on the river for their daily needs. Villages like the one she visited remain largely untouched by the outside world, lacking nearly all modern conveniences. She also notes that the Laos’ lack of public health care is also evident when interacting with the villagers.

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the four longest rivers in the world, spending time on the Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, and Mississippi. Each offered their own unique experiences and glimpses into the cultures of the countries that they flow through. The Mekong seems like it continues this tradition, and offers adventure travelers another destination to add to their list of must see places.

Antarctic tour operators recommend further safety measures

by Kraig Becker on

Just a few short weeks before the Antarctic cruise season gets underway, the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) has recommended further safety measures in the wake of several high profile accidents in the region over the past few years.

The IAATO is a completely voluntary organization, made up of companies that operate cruises in the Southern Ocean. In recent months it has taken a leadership role to ensure the safety of tourists traveling in the waters off the Antarctica, with their most recent recommendations detailed in a press release last week. These include continually reviewing information services that provide the most accurate and up-to-date information on weather and ice conditions, as well as staying abreast of changes in technology that may help keep the ships safer in the dangerous waters of the Southern Ocean. The IAATO also recommends that tour companies review their emergency procedures on a regular basis, practice onboard safety drills, and stress the importance of proper cold weather attire for passengers and crew.

Over the course of the past few years, there have been a series of close calls with cruise ships in the Antarctic, including the sinking of a ship called the Explorer in November of 2007, and two more vessels running aground during the cruise season last year. While none of this incidences resulted in casualties, they have led some to believe that it is only a matter of time before disaster strikes. This resulted in the IAATO making a series of recommendations like these to try to bring a higher level of safety to travel in the region.

Looking over these recommendations, it is kind of scary to think that the members of the IAATO have to be reminded of these things. They seem like they should be common sense and regular business practices to ensure safety of ships traveling in one of the more potentially dangerous regions of the world. Still, any measures that remind tour operators and travelers to be aware of their surroundings are probably good ones, and considering I’d like to travel to the Antarctic one day, I’ll make that journey more easily knowing that safety is a major focus.

Nine great photographic adventures

by Kraig Becker on

Yesterday we told you about the highest photography and videography workshop in the world, which is scheduled to take place in April of 2010 on the North and East side of Everest. Today we have nine more great photography adventures courtesy of Outside Magazine, who asked their favorite photographers to name the best locations for getting amazing photos.

Topping the list is Antarctica, which gets high marks for its stark beauty and acres of penguins. They recommend a cruise from Geographic Expeditions that is 23 days in length and includes guest lectures by Peter Hillary (son of Sir Edmund Hillary) and photography workshops from a guy named Art Wolfe.

If heading to the South Pole seems a bit on the cold side to you, perhaps you’d prefer to go to Nepal instead. Outside claims that it’s practically impossible to take a bad picture in the Himalaya, and I’m inclined to agree with them. They recommend staying on the Nepali side of the mountain and making the trek up to base camp with Berg Adventures on a 24-day adventure in the Khumbu Valley.

Most of the other trips on the list are equally high on adventure, but lack the distances involved in traveling to Nepal or the Antarctic. They recommend similar photographic adventures in Colorado, New Mexico, and California, amongst others. Each of the locations will give you plenty of interesting landscapes to shoot or to serve as spectacular backdrops at the very least.

I recently had great advice from a photographer friend of mine who told me that the trick to shooting great photos is to shoot great subjects. Who would have thought that it was that simple?

Cruising the Northwest Passage

by Kraig Becker on

Global climate change has had an undeniable effect on the planet, with weather patterns changing dramatically, polar ice caps melting, and sea levels rising, altering coastlines and reshaping boundaries. For evidence of these changes you only need to look north, where global warming has caused arctic pack ice to break-up and melt, opening the legendary Northwest Passage for navigation for the first time.

For centuries explorers and merchants sought out a sailing route north of Canada that would link the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Such a route would have made travel to the far east much easier and faster, but all attempts to uncover such a path, which was dubbed the Northwest Passage, were met with thousands of miles of impenetrable ice. Famous adventures, such as John Cabot and Captain James Cook, risked their lives, and their ships, to find the Northwest Passage, but no one was able to complete the navigation until Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made the voyage back in 1908 aboard a specially designed ice vessel. Amundsen’s journey took three years however, and was not commercially viable for merchant ships.

Fast forward to last year, when the route was declared navigable by the Candian Coast Guard, and the first commercial ship made its way through the Passage. By late summer, the waterway was said to be nearly completely free from ice, and safe for ships to pass through, and it remained that way until the arrival of winter, when the route froze shut once again.The cruise industry has never been one to miss a business opportunity, and there have been a number of tour operators that have begun offering Northwest Passage cruises for 2009. Most begin in Nome or Anchorage, Alaska, but others can be found departing such places as Ottawa, Canada or even Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. The cruises vary in length from two to three weeks, which is a far cry from Amundsen’s three year voyage, and they remain on the expensive side now, with most staring around $10,000 and up.

A Northwest Passage cruise is a true adventure into mostly unknown waters, and a travel experience that few have had the opportunity to witness. But with increased traffic along the route, and plenty of ice to contend with, we can only hope that the ships don’t suffer an accident such as the ones that have occurred in Antarctica, where several ships have run aground, and another has sunk after striking an iceberg. However, those that do take a cruise through the Passage are booking a trip into history, as they pass through a realm that has been, until now, off limits to all but the hardiest polar explorers.