An adventurer has documented his 5,000 miles journey aboard a 100-year-old ship, sailing from Argentina to Antarctica to Cape Town.
Geographic Information System Analyst Andrew Orr undertook the epic journey on the Bark Europa to witness the world’s harshest landscapes in their rawest form, choosing to avoid cruise vessels and ice-breaking ships.
Orr said: “I’ve always wanted to go to Antarctica and in order to see Antarctica you have to go by boat unless you’re doing research there.”
“I looked at some options and came across the Bark Europa.”
Boarding at Ushuaia in Argentina, Orr and his fellow passengers sailed through the Beagle Channel and spent four days navigating the Drake Passage – one of the most dangerous sailing passages in the world.
The journey from Argentina to Antarctica takes around 10 days but everyone on board is kept busy as all of the travellers have their own part to play in the running of the ship.
The south Atlantic ocean is renowned for its roughness and the ship sees all sorts of conditions and weather.
Antarctica is the southern most continent on Earth and at 5.4 million square miles it’s almost twice the size of Australia.
There are only 135 permanent inhabitants but there can be up to 5,000 living there at any one time at the research facilities.
There might not be many people but there certainly is an abundance of wildlife.
Orr said seeing the native penguins up close was “a dream come true.”
The team also spent a week on South Georgia Island, exploring the local area.
The island has no permanent population but there are scientists working there for the British Antarctic Survey.
The last stop on the trip was Tristan De Cunha, the most isolated inhabited island in the world.
While it only has 265 permanent human inhabitants, there are plenty of wildlife species to see.
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Source: AOL Travel UK
