Random Notes, Antarctica, 18.01.09

Though I’m now about 800 miles north of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula I’m paying attention every day to news from the seventh continent. I’ve been traveling there nearly annually for the past twenty years and it’s a place like few others on the planet that truly gets into your blood once you’ve seen it. Which is a good thing in regard to its future protection. More and more people are seeing the Peninsula up close each year, creating those ambassadors and evangelists that are part of the key to keeping it pristine.

Here’s are a few things that have been going on since we sailed away from the seventh continent a few days ago:

I saw an Internet photo yesterday of the landing of the downed US Airways plane that coasted to safety on the Hudson River, not far from my home in the Hudson Valley. Early suggestions are that the crash was due to birds being sucked into the engines. Apparently pilots are enduring a similar problem all over Antarctica, though here it’s 20-pound skuas not 12-pound geese that are the hazards.

On a slightly less fortunate note, the other day a small plane - Twin Otter - delivering supplies to a research expedition crash landed on a mountainside. All four on board – 3 Brits, 1 Russian - survived and were quickly rescued by a second plane.

Sea Sheperd-ites, unfurling a rope in an attempt to foul the propellor of a Japanese whaler

I’ve been gone from the States for nearly two months but have heard rumors of a ratings boom for the Animal Planet show “Whale Wars,” which follows my colleague Paul Watson and his Sea Sheperd gang as they “fight” against continued annual whaling by the Japanese. Apparently Watson announced last week that his ship – the bizarrely named “Steve Irwin” - returned to mainland Australia for fuel and the Japanese suggested (hoped?) it would not return. Watson claims otherwise, vowing the ship would return, and denying that his team was culpable for a Japanese whaler missing from a ship, apparently drowned.

Prince Albert II of Monaco – the man, not the Silversea expedition ship named for him, which has been prowling the Peninsula this season, its first - arrived at the South Pole by means somewhat unusual for a head of state: By ski. Apparently he joined South African explorer Mike Horn, who has spent the past couple months skiing solo to the pole, for the final couple days of his journey. While it would be easy to mock the Prince for joining in for only the last few miles, assumedly accompanied by a phalanx of protectors, his stated goal for coming to Antarctica and for joining Horn was to draw attention to the continent as it continues to change and evolve, which is exactly what politics and celebrity should be used for here, so I’m all for this particular stunt.

Prince Albert II, at the South Pole

On a different level, three Canadians have arrived at the South Pole in what they are dubbing ‘record time,’ 33 + days. You know my thinking about how Antarctica and how it should be a place far removed from ‘firsts’ and ‘records.’ That said, I still admire their physical feat; it is a cold, arduous place for expeditions of any kind.

Expedition History