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NewsHo! Ho! Ho!To all our family, friends and students! Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day for us here in the southern hemisphere – on the contrary, back home in the northern hemisphere, we would have the shortest day and Winter Solstice! Being positioning right on the Equator at this moment, we stood at the deck of the ship at midday, and we could not find our own shadow while the sun was directly above us! Christmas is just around the corner and we are presently at sea sailing towards the Antarctica direction. This is our second expedition to these territories since 2002; except this time, we are taking a different route to gain 4 new countries on our travel country collection: Cape Verde Islands, Ascension Island, St. Helena Island and Tristan da Cunha. This will total to 222 countries for me and 224 for Brian. After our first stop visiting Cape Verde Islands on December 10th and seeing some of the spectacular volcanic mountains, we sailed 5 days at sea crossing the Equator before reaching Ascension Island. There was not much there but it is a very important military base for the British and Americans in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Two more days of sailing took us to St. Helena where Napoleon was exiled and died in 1821. Brian ran up and down the very steep 699 steps “Jacob’s Ladder” in Jamestown on the island in 15 minutes! I planted 2 Gumwood trees at the Millennium Forest to help rebuilding the forestation on the island. These trees have been charted on Google Earth of St. Helena Island as number 18 and 23 on December 17th, 2011. We are just over mid way through 4 full days at sea before reaching Tristan da Cunha (It is on the left side of Cape Town, South Africa on the map). This is said to be the most remote inhabited island in the world with only 200+ inhabitants – there is no runway for aviation and it is not on any of the routings for commercial ships. Only 4-5 expedition cruise ships such as ours will stop by this island each year. Warm weather will end for us after Tristan da Cunha as we will be heading to South Georgia and the Falklands into the icy Antarctic water. Later in the journey, we will be passing by Tierra del Fuego and going into the Magellan Straits before finally ending up at Punta Arena in Chile. Too much lovely food!!! We will get really fat if we don’t take control over our eating and drinking for being on ship for 34 days! Lots of lectures for birds, plants and marine creatures! So far there has been several sightings of dolphins and various flying fishes, all kinds of birds such as the flightless frigate bird, red foot booby bird, albatross, petrel, etc.. Whales, elephant seals, sea-lions, great big albatross with wing span of 3.5m (11ft)… etc. should be plentiful as we head further south into colder waters. Of course, there will be the Gentoo penguins, Magellanic penguins, Rockhopper penguins, King penguins, Macaroni penguins....Everywhere! As we will be spending Christmas in Tristan da Cunha, we shall extend our Christmas greetings to all of you and your family everywhere in the world – Merry Christmas! We will be seeing 2011 off and entering 2012 on the island of South Georgia which is famous for the Shackleton South Pole Expedition and his rescue mission after his ship was crushed by the frozen sea in 1917. It is a tradition for all passengers and the captain of all passing ships to make a toast of drink to Shackleton at his grave site! We shall all wrap up warmly wearing our yellow expedition arctic parkers and drinking a salute to this great adventurer and hero! A very prosperous and healthy 2012 to all of you as well! Mimi and Brian Between St Helena and Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic Christmas 2011 Feng Shui Pro Shop "fs pro shop" Click here to sign up for my newsletter |
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