Antarctica The Expedition – The landings – King George Island 18th Feb 2014.

Getting used to something as beautiful as the glaciers, meant they drew less and less attention with only a few cameras coming up to catch the magical blue. I later learnt that blue is got to do with the amount of air trapped in the ice. The lesser the air the more the color, the more the color, the older the mass of ice, be it Glacier or an odd Ice Berg floating by.

We had a landing planned at 0930 hrs on our second day in the continental waters. The map of the South Shetland Islands was provided the earlier night to each cabin to which I had not really given a second look. But as the morning unfolded I could see what each one of the little orange dots on the islands meant. The King George Island has Frie landing base of Chile. Next to it is a Russian research station. With lots of penguins the day earlier, it was now to spot humans. I got into the drill of stepping in and out of the zodiac boat with the layers and the life jacket, which had taken less time than earlier to get into.

The Chilean Base station Frei

I could see the Chilean flag 100 meters from the landing site and the Russian Orthodox Church with its onion dome in the distance on a tiny hill. Humans wearing different colors than the blue that we were wearing meant that they were the ones staying at the base.

In August 2013, I had been to the north at a latitude of 78.5 deg where a Russian mining town had the same look as the Russian base station that was in front of me at 64 deg south. Grey and light colors were prominent as in all communist towns of Russia.  The Chilean’s however had a brighter tone to there make shift cabins and buildings.

I wasn’t really eager to get into the structures, but it was like all roads lead to the church, and so the Chilean church was first to be visited. It was summer in Antarctica and they were mending the structure. It was obvious that the next one would be the Russian Orthodox Church on the adjacent hill. I had Carlos to give me company up to the next corner. He spoke to me about his last one year on the base, of which I could only pick a few basic Spanish words. When we differed our tracks, It was more like he dropped me to the border between Chile and Russia and said ‘enjoy your time on the other side’.  There are no borders at least here in Antarctica, thankfully.

The Russian Orthodox Church 

The highlight of the visit to the base station was a Chilean navy station. I saw some residents clearing snow, the others working in a garage and for a moment it felt like any other town on a regular continent. It was still snowing with temperatures of below freezing point. Unlike the penguins who I thought didn’t like our company so much, the Chileans loved chatting with the tourists on the cruise and they even offered some of us who could converse a little in Spanish a tour or their main building. The chef called us for some coffee later. I had to buy the wine from the store, with the Antarctica sticker as a souvenir.

The wet suits that Naval officers wear!

It was good to see fellow humans living in such inhospitable conditions. The nationalities just disappear when you are in Antarctica. We were all, just humans!

I got back to the Fram and was surprised to see the Chilean navy officers being shown around the ship. They had the same look on their face, as we had when we were on their base. I smiled and got back to reading the program for the next day.