We had eight planned shore landings in the Antarctic and we managed to go ashore seven times. We met a couple at the Lima airport that took the exact same trip we were on and they only managed to get ashore three times, so we were lucky with our weather this trip.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of what people talk about when they talk about “weather” in the Antarctic. On June 5, 1963 at the “Eights Station” research station, the surface temperature changed 185 degrees F in 96 hours. At that same station on June 10, 1963, the surface temperature changed 97 degrees F in 12 minutes. Granted, these are some extremes, but in Antarctica, they are also possible.

So going ashore was a matter of being prepared at all times. Before any tourists were allowed to go ashore, the excursion staff went ashore with survival supplies, just in case the weather changed quickly and some of us got stuck on shore. Survival supplies included body suits, tents, food and water, shovels, axes, etc. You can see some of these supplies onshore in the first photo.

We went ashore in small hard plastic boats which carried eight passengers and the boat operator. We went out a door on the second deck and went down a stairway to first deck or water level. You can see this in the second photo. In this picture, passengers were coming back onboard our ship.

Our shore landings were “water landings”. The boats usually stopped twenty to thirty feet off shore and we waded ashore. The water was shallow. I think the water only went over my boots on two occasions and yes, wow that’s cold. The worst problem was that sometimes the shore was very rocky and sometimes the rocks were very slippery or covered with mosses and the like. You can see one of our shore landing in the third photo.