Antarctica Dispatch series
Cruise Editor Johanna Jainchill has embarked on a 13-day voyage to Antarctica. She will be filing dispatches detailing her adventures there.
NEKO HARBOR, Antarctica -- Hurtigruten, the Norwegian cruise company formerly known as Norwegian Coastal Voyage, is hosting me on a 13-day trip to Antarctica on the Fram, the line's 1-year-old ship. This is the Fram's last Antarctica sailing of the season.
The 13-day voyage, of which 11 days are actually spent on the ship, is pretty much the shortest cruise you can take from Argentina and actually explore Antarctica, because it takes so long to get here.
The Hurtigruten package begins and ends with a night in Buenos Aires and a half-day on each side in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. It is from there that the ship departs.
From the time we boarded our planes -- I in New York, others from all over the world -- it was almost four days before we set foot on Antarctica. We will end up spending three-and-a-half days here before turning back, so this trip actually comprises a good deal more traveling time than touring time.
Two days on each side of the sailing are spent crossing the tumultuous Drake Passage, the body of water between Argentina's Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica that turns many people off of the idea of ever coming here. Regular doses of Dramamine are a must, as is good balance and a strong stomach, along with blessings from the weather gods.
As the trip progressed, some passengers immediately regretted taking the shorter trip and not going farther south on one of the 17-day or 21-day trips that Hurtigruten offers.
The landscape here is so majestic and surreal that, as Karen, one of the Norwegian naturalists here said, "I dare you to be able to explain what you see here when you get home." It's not easy.
At our first stop, on Half Moon Island, a colony of Chinstrap penguins had stuck around later in the season than our guides had expected, and we were treated to hundreds of them lounging on the rocky beach, getting ready to take to the water for the winter.
On day two here, we awoke to massive, white icebergs surrounding the ship in the Errera Channel, and penguins diving in arcs through the water.
People were quickly disappointed that the trip would be over so soon, which is not unusual. Typically, travelers who want to go to Antarctica find that their time and budgets make this cruise most suitable, but once they get here and realize it is unlikely they will ever come back, many wish they had booked the longer trip.
There also are those who obviously didn't do their homework, like the American guy who didn't realize the ship wouldn't cross the Antarctic Circle, or the British woman who was upset we wouldn't sail far enough to see Emperor Penguins.
Of course, with the stock market where it is, the cost of the 13-day trip probably kept some would-be cancelers from abandoning ship.
One passenger said she considered canceling after her portfolio took a beating, but then she realized if she didn't do it now she might never see Antarctica.
"I am glad I went through with it," she said. "And 13 days is just right."