Ushuaia departure. |
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The world's southernmost city, and gateway to Antarctica; on my way to run the Antarctica marathon. February 2007.
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This is the end of the road, the end of the line. there's very little land, on the South American continent, that is further south of Ushuaia. It's so remote, that the Argentine's established Ushuaia or fin del mundo (end of the world) as a prison colony, modelled on our British colony of Australia. I had flown into town that morning on a flight from Buenos Aires with a hundred or so other athlete's on our way to the Antarctic, and King George island specifically. I was nervous and excited. Nervous, because for the last 2 years, I had been looking forward to this moment; boarding a ship to sail across the roughest waterway in the world, the Drake Passage. The Drake passage is the aisle, that leads from South America to the Antarctic, named after Sir Francis Drake. It is notorious for bad sea's and the infamous cape horn; which before the opening of Panama canal, was the only passage that merchant vessels had, to negotiate their way, to the western coast of the United States. Many sailors lost their lives, and others spent days trying to battle round the horn. I wasn't nervous about the seaward journey, more that I had to be on that boat whatever happened. I had spent a long time training and preparing, and I didn't want any mishaps to stop me getting to the Antarctic. Sadly, one of our group did fail to board the ship. He had taken a painkiller, and it had an adverse reaction and he had to be rushed to hospital in Ushuaia. After 2 years, he made it to the jetty, but couldn't board the ship. |
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Ushuaia also has some other historical significance, it's where the main Argentine invasion fleet left from in 1982, to invade the Falkland islands dependency. It was very interesting for me to visit the place, and there were a few signs in town, written in both Spanish and English, proclaiming that the Falklands or 'Malvinas' as they like to call them, are Argentine and always will be. It was almost exactly 25 years since the invasion, and in town they were building a memorial, to the 655 Argentine's who were killed during the conflict; which resulted in a return of British sovereignty and the collapse the military dictatorship government in Argentina. A few months later I saw the finished memorial on television and the Argentine President (read newspaper article) speaking in front of it, saying that whilst the Malvinas are part of Argentina, never again will bloodshed or force be used to reclaim them. Nationalist fervour aside, and on with the story of our departure; on boarding the ship, I was ushered into the galley and was asked to surrender my passport to the Peregrine tours staff and sign in. Peregrine run the boat all season, and had been hired by our marathon tours company, to take us to the Antarctic. I was thrilled to be onboard, and felt that nothing could stop us going South now. I was assigned a cabin with a chap from the USA, Anthony Russo of Georgia, who himself was a very accomplished marathon runner. We had a decent cabin with 2 bunk beds, which was en-suite though basic, very pleasant. |
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The ship itself had a very interesting story; it was one of 5 ships commissioned by the USSR in the late 1980's, and built in Finland. The ships were Akademik class, the highest honour in the secular state, that one could achieve. The ships were named after famous scientists, Ioffe and Vavilov. They were designed to research sonar, and have strengthened K class ice resistant hulls, able to withstand the impact of 1 year old sea ice. There is quite a difference between this and a true icebreaker, which has an entirely different hull. The ships were designed to operate in pairs, both lowering sonar sensors down through the hull. These could of course be used to look for American Ohio class submarines or the seabed, depending on what the Ivan might be interested in that day. The 45 strong crew were from Kaliningrad, part of modern day Russia. Shortly after the first two ships were completed in the early 1990's, the iron curtain fell along with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The ships were deemed too expensive to use and the only way, that they could afford to operate as spy, sorry I mean research ships, is by having tourists for 6 months of the year, and then scientists the other 6 months. So they were fully functioning spy ships, with a Russian crew for 6 months of the year. Later in the trip, I saw a few of the crew on the top deck practising martial arts. It made me think of under siege, but these guys looked like hardcore spetsnaz types. Next stop, King George island, Antarctica... |
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| Authors: | Photographs and page created by: James Bartosik. |
| Date of event: | February 23rd 2007. |
| Page History: | First created: May 23rd 2008. Last Revision: n/a. Revision version: 1.0. |
| Camera and Lenses: | Canon 350D, Canon 30v, EF 24-70L USM f2.8, EF15mm f2.8 FE. Film: Kodak 100, Fuji Velvia 50. |
| Locations: | Ushuaia, Argentina. |
| Copyright: | © Copyright material, all rights reserved |