Friday, 4 November 2011

The 2011-2012 Antarctica season starts!


After a long trans-Atlantic voyage from Las Palmas, the good ship Fram arrived in the port of Buenos Aires on 2 November at around 2:00 o'clock pm. Staff members from all over the world had already arrived and waited patiently for their home away from home to come to port. Everyone was looking forward so much to the new Antarctic season just starting.

The next day passengers started arriving in the morning. They too were from all over the world and made the Fram a truly international place. After check-in and our first lunch on board the ship we set sail exactly 24 hours after she had arrived the day before.


Our first destination on our first cruise of the season is the Falklands Islands- Islas Malvinas, but first we had to sail east out of this famous river, the Rio de la Plata. We noticed the river water was quite brown and assumed this was from the silt washing down the many streams and rivers that feed this rio. 


Vessel traffic is very well controlled and we steamed down a narrow shipping channel, passing several huge container ships coming into port. The amount of ship traffic we will experience will change very soon as we head south into much quieter waters.

The weather treated us perfectly today and out Antarctic season started today with temperatures 28° and sun! For sure this will be our warmest day for the next almost three weeks! We took advantage of this by having our after-lunch nap on deck before lectures brought us inside. Photo workshops brought us again out on deck.

This has been a long day for everyone and we will retire for the night with great expectations for what the next days will bring. Stay tuned!