Getting to Antarctica: An Experience South of Everything [Full Documentary, 4K]

it's always been there this giant white pedestal on the bottom of earth it's never exactly felt like a place that's easy to get to after all there are only research bases snow and ice it might as well be another planet except it's not another planet and it's home to some of the most amazing sights on earth and that means we got to get there so let's go on a journey to that seventh continent on the bottom of the world and spoiler alert there's gonna be a lot of penguins [Music] a lot of documentaries talk about in arctica and I will too but I also want to talk about the experience of getting there hey we are in Swire right now we are exactly one day away from embarking to Antarctica but first we get to go to the southernmost part of the entire world right here on the tip of Argentina and just a great little appetizer before jumping on that longboat all the way to Antarctica so why leap from ruse waa and not say leap from South Africa or Australia it's more than just a question of distance it's how an arctica asks we know it is comprised pretty much all around Antarctica is surrounded by a giant ice shelf in fact most of how we picture Antarctica is based on its ice shelf without it it's actually a group of several masses that would look a whole lot different without ice luckily for us and the planet ice is still there so to actually be able to see the continent by boat the best way to go is from South America to the Antarctica Peninsula okay back to swaiiow where we're about to depart there was a ton of anticipation to get onto the boat we could see it from kind of like the boardwalk area we saw our ship in the distance on the on the pier we know that in a few hours we're going to be on this boat going to a continent that few people ever really get a chance to go to it was anxiety mixed with excitement because we had planned for so long and it was right there it was so close we left who swaiiow on the way down here and it was nice and calm as we're still in the beagle channel art so we just be in our first day of into a dark t'cut you can see behind us where we just took off from swine we have two and a half days ahead of us before we get to any other real ends so potential seasickness a lot of God knows what else we're going to do within a couple days the road to Antarctica begins with passage through the beagle channel a strait that goes through the Tierra del Fuego archipelago between us Y and Argentina to the tip of the continent in Chile calm waters at the Beagle Channel allow us time to take in a last sunset before going south towards the Midnight Sun there's about two hours from the beginning of the great passage which apparently is supposed to be the toughest water on the planet they're really rough excited to see looks like and according to the people that are insurance about they expected to be pretty dangerous this time so there should be a lot of fun the Drake Passage itself lived up to its billing it wasn't the roughest in the world but for us it was the roughest we've ever been on [Music] the first night we woke up at like 1:00 in the morning because all of the drawers on our nightstand just slammed open and like woke us up out of deep sleep because the Drake is some of the roughest waters in the world and it's kind of like the first barrier to get to the continent and that's kind of what makes it so special so why is the Drake Passage such an unpredictable and rough sea let's zoom out notice how the area of water is situated right between three unique bodies of water the Pacific the Atlantic and the southern seas with no land masses to slow the currents down which creates the perfect recipe for a bumpy ride the wakes you get as high as 10 meters we're experiencing ones that are six are those falling on my ass right now it is incredibly cold and rough and it takes over two days to get there over this passage you can't walk in a straight line with these things and they're relentless day and night you're gonna have wakes that doesn't calm down it's incredibly unpredictable and amazing we've got swells that vary between about six feet in about 25 feet which is creating a lot of movement inside the boat today we're just enjoying the journey on the way to Antarctica we have a day and a half left to travel to get there and we are watching the sea birds fly in the back of the boat and they are in the middle of nowhere right now currently we're at least four or five hundred miles away from Antarctica but interestingly there's like a flock of birds that has followed the ship the whole time it's like we have our own little ecosystem for them and these these albatross birds have been it's kind of following this bonus for going along and these are huge birds and there's not land for you know hundreds of miles in any direction that there are still these these ocean-going birds that just follow us alone as we reached the end of the drake anticipation of spotting land grows high [Music] we're about five or six hours from hitting the Antarctica Peninsula the last 12 hours at sea have been very rough in fact all the outside decks are actually closed but what's really exciting what we just noticed is we see our first indication that we are we are getting closer because there are icebergs up up ahead on the right hand side all right so it's just been about my 148 hours probably about 40 hours at sea right now crossing the Drake Passage will rough at times and some pretty rough rough seas but we just got here created by a whole bunch of sea prism and flying around the boat ever since we've been really under of and harder done I'm calling I'm using my education for good purposes where I learned how to speak the whale okay we're all gonna speak whale ready three two one you've already seen three Gentoo penguins so the trip is already worth it even if we saw nothing else but we will and check out this island behind pretty exciting after being on a boat for two days [Music] we're just working our at that's a very tip of the peninsula the South Shetland Islands about to this mark on our first adventure of the Greenwich Mountain which is one of the first islands that make up with South settled on this is exciting this is awesome so we can see more soon our first stop in Antarctica is barrientos Island the first time we got off the boat and got onto the zodiacs we went to this island of Penguins part of the South Shetland Islands at the very tip of the Antarctic Peninsula Barrientos Island is home to both chin strap and Gentoo penguin colonies this northern peninsula island is one of the few green islands with the land covered in moss and more notably penguins so we're in the South Shetland Islands we just got off into a penguin colony with Gentoo penguins and chinstrap penguins are a little bit more rare to colonies on this island right now and they are in the middle of breeding season before we get too much further let's talk about the types of penguins we'll see generally around the antarctica peninsula you're onto three types of penguins the Gentoo chin strap and Adelie they are really easy to tell apart gentoos have orange beaks and orange feet Adela's have beady eyes and are all black and white and chin straps have will a have chin straps okay back to Barry into islands and more penguin talk there are penguins everywhere thousands of penguins let me underline that point on this small island there's literally six thousand breeding pairs of penguins here it's which made my heart super happy because that's what I was most excited about when we came to Antarctica was seeing the Penguins they are the most adorable little animals that you could ever imagine they walk around they're really really okay they're really graceful in the water and they're like killing machines in the water but then they get on the land and they're like cartoon characters because they walk around click with their their fins out to the back and they fall and they like slide on their stomach accidentally and like clamber back up and they're just adorable [Music] so penguins smell terrible and nothing can really prepare you for the smell of the Penguins it smells so bad everything is like a pink colour because they eat krill and that is like the colour of the poo although the birds are unafraid of humans because they have no natural land enemies they do have an enemy from the sky the birds of steel the eggs are called skewers are probably other ones as well but that seems to be the biggest predator for young penguins and penguin eggs and their big big brown birds they're very pretty as well but what they do is they try to swoop in and steal the penguin eggs any time they move is a chance for a bird to come and swipe and take their egg we're trying very hard not to disturb them so that you know they don't do that [Music] you can see them at all times near the nest waiting for that opportunity to steal that pig would egg here you can see a Gentoo on the outer skirts of its colony guarding its egg the arctic Skua knows that has the upper hand and sees an easy meal until another Gentoo comes to the rescue at least for today his egg will be safe as the snow starts to fall on Barrientos island we head back to the zodiacs and leave these penguins behind but don't worry have more penguin stuff later [Music] far away to see [Music] like here's the favor yeah there [Music] these might look like big seals but these are just juveniles they are nothing compared to a full-grown southern elephant seal an adult bull seal can weigh as much as two sedans and a few motorcycles they're big and all that extra weigh should keep them warm in this Antarctic snow as the Midnight Sun shines bright our vessel heads south to the snow-capped beauty of the Melchor Islands [Music] located between Anvers islands and Brabant islands Melchor islands are a group of small islands in the palmer archipelago and home to the first base will see the argentinian Melchor base this base was founded in 1947 and became one of the main weather forecasting stations on the continent but this is far from the only base in Antarctica currently there are 70 pieces representing 29 countries with upwards of 4,000 people scattered throughout the continent the history of many bases vary from expeditions to land claims to scientific research however since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 by 54 nations the stations are now used for scientific study of various kinds it's because of this treaty that we are able to go hike this entirely untouched island and see it for the same beauty that its original Argentinean explorers saw nearly 80 years ago this is one of the main activities that we signed up for was doing this hike we really wanted to go hike touch land in Antarctica and actually you know go up about all right early morning in an article we just got to the melkor Islands and we're about to go hiking about a hundred fifty metres up then this nice day got our axe got our sticks we're ready to go let's do it they we got off the zodiacs a la couple penguins just hanging out couple chinstrap and a couple Gentoo penguins greet us and because there's only a group of like ten of us they weren't too flustered about anything [Music] the climb itself is short but because we are hiking on old ice and snow we still use an abundance of caution we use specialized snowshoes to distribute our weight entire cells to each other so that no one can get stuck in a hidden crevasse and you know like die forget hurt ouch Ike table was essentially a kind of two big mounds it was a simple hike it wasn't very strenuous but it was a perfect day pro-v blue sky the water was pretty calm I don't know how they did it but even had 100 meters high and half a mile from land a chinstrap penguin couple is checking out the views from above [Music] due to the region's dry air and lack of trees the views when hiking up are fully spectacular and so once we got up to kind of the second dome of elevation we had a pretty spectacular view of the entire harbour as we look left it will look right we see icebergs everywhere we see these mountains as far as the eye could see the sky is super blue [Music] and see for miles and miles it was hard to get a better view than that 360 view of of where we're at that's the first this is the first time it can really see where we're actively been on a road for two and a half days you really get that sense there at that moment like wheat Wow we're in Antarctica we are here and as we get into our zodiacs and head south leaving the Melchior islands behind we look forward to finally stepping foot on continental Antarctica in a Warren Harbor [Music] but on our way down a pot of type-a Orcas breached the ocean's surface right next to our ship and put on quite a show for its passengers [Music] big giant tribal court and there's so much the start of the Antarctic summer means that the orcas will be frequenting these seas for several months looking for food so there's laws in our in Antarctica about how many people can be on the continent at once remember that Antarctica treaty well part of that treaty signed by these guys was to limit the tourism impact on the continent so now it allows only 100 people on shore at once at any given time and will prevent big ships like these from ever setting sail to Antarctica so as groups of tourists scientists and guides check out on harbor we will cruise around the increasingly icy waters looking for wildlife we get on the zodiac again and we're cruising around and we are lucky enough to come across a leopard seal there they're kind of hard to find cuz they like to float around on icebergs and they are predators unlike other seals like other seals will kind of they eat mostly krill and they prey on penguins a little bit but leopard seals are almost carnivores and they specifically go after other animals seals penguins etc they've got big canine teeth this seal when we came up on him he opened his mouth so we got to see all the sharp jagged teeth inside as he's just relaxing on an iceberg and it was it was amazing to see it is amazing to see a seal a leopard seal that close and that was one of the things I hope I hope that we would see when we got here and we're cruising around and we saw it that wouldn't be the only seal we'd see floating along the ice we also spot a crabeater seal which despite their names be krill not crap yeah it's a poorly chosen name [Music] so we are on a Zodiac on an excursion to land and before we do that we take a long kind of Zodiac tour through the water and we were looking at some seals and penguins and then all of a sudden out coming out of the water comes this massive humpback whale and shows us his fin her fins as she dives straight back down which Oh like you never there's no way to prepare for that that's so cool a to the right of our zodiac you've just come across a big humpback whale and we were lucky enough to see it breach and the tails gonna the tail is gonna come oh my gosh Wow oh my god that was amazing we just saw a humpback whale dive down into the into the ocean and it was for probably fifty feet away from hitting maybe 75 feet it is it was an incredible nervous I close to only four when our zodiac finally hits ORN harbor we hiked to the top of our first continental landfall we're standing on top of a mountain and it's so beautiful that it almost doesn't feel real it creates such emotions of happiness and excitement because just when you think things can't get any prettier they do and we've seen so many things today and now this is the most beautiful overlook I've ever ever seen in my entire life and words just can't describe how wonderful this place is when you're surrounded by so much beauty words are hard to come by maybe the best thing to do is stay longer or better yet just camp there all night because we decided to spend a night outside camping in the Antarctic this is what it looks like [Music] it doesn't get dark and you nautical in the summertime and it is peak summertime right now so it's we're laying there it's bright out the sleeping bags have a little cocoon so you can actually pull the thing over your head and then tie it close so that it protects you from the elements here beautiful outside though so no conversations no direct should know anything else we just kind of found a little hole to dig and then lay down and slept for four or five hours all right so we are here camping it's our first night our only night we have a guest or a beard majestic crab eater seal over X our campground and you look very close over to my place first London [Music] well it's rise and shine and off even further down the peninsula an echo and paradise Harbor its neko harbour where we will go first [Music] and after a restless night we board the zodiac and make landfall where Gentoo penguins are hanging out with a really out of place female elephant seal I'll be honest the idea of going on a huge hike the day after we slept like four hours while camping combined with the fact that I was feeling pretty crappy was not the most appealing option in the world but as we climbed in neckl harbor and saw the glimpse of the giant glacier that we'd be so closely approaching it quickly became worth it [Music] this glacier here is nearly 200 feet tall and stretches back as far as you can see and is just one of thousands of glaciers that surround the Antarctic Peninsula and create the icebergs that we see in the channels the further south we go the bigger they get from on top of the mountain to win the water our next stop will get us up close and personal with bass Brown in Paradise Harbour where we will explore in a kayak [Music] whereas every antarctic base is steeped with history bass Browns is a little more dark in 1984 after a doctor was told he had to stay another year in the base and avoid seeing his love he became furious and instead of staying another year he did the most logical thing he burned the whole days down the bass has since been rebuilt but now only operates in the summer months for biological studies [Music] kayaking is kind of a really intimate way to experience Antarctica because when you're on the zodiac you're there with you know eleven other people on on the zodiac and you have a driver who's like deciding where you go but with kayaking your fate is kind of in your own hands you kind of have to stick with the group but you there's a lot more leeway if you want to see something a little closer and with Antarctic sea birds all around the cliffs of Paradise Harbor it's the perfect time to get a closer look [Music] the rocky cliffs at the water's edge create the perfect shelter for a variety of sea birds like the cape petrel in the Imperial blue-eyed shag which build their nest out of seaweed in mud and can last several years it's pretty good craftsmanship [Music] and just below the cliffs on the rocky shores below you'll see the Antarctic terns [Music] and on the icebergs around the island where there's birds there's schools [Music] it's a bunch of penguins and I've been trying to get them on the cover all morning and finally I just got a bunch of em so hopefully the video turns out great our next stop would take us to see a lot more penguins and as we go to the southernmost post office on earth Port Lockroy aka the penguin post office this British base is known as much for its penguins that surround it and as it is for its claim to the southernmost post office in the world and well we got a middle letter right writing a postcard to aunt Kyle where we will mail it from the penguin post office in Port Lockroy in Antarctica so it may take three weeks to three months to get there but she'll get it eventually hi that time she should have an adequate amount of time to at least knit at least 10 England sweaters for the little penguin chicks [Music] port lockroy wasn't always just a post office port lockroy station a as it's known was established during world war ii as a research base by the british it housed between four to nine men who stayed on average two winters today it is museum full of all research equipment and paraphernalia from the time and you know how you might imagine a hut with 49 dudes stuck in the winter for years might look after a few years of wear and tear and you know that nickname penguin post office well it's a well deserved title so you can see them making nests for each other remember there aren't any twigs or grass to make a nest this far south so if you want to make a nest you gotta get creative [Music] penguins use rocks to keep its eggs protected from the elements then bigger the nest the better and let's be honest some penguins are better at this than others they all nest in colonies and we learned that while penguins are social animals like they live in colonies they're not very like friendly to each other they will often go around and like steal little pebbles out of other penguins nests to bring to their mates the effort that goes into stealing varies a lot this Jen to barely walks a foot pretty brazen and this guy whose mate is perched right under the British flag post he's giving the Ocean's eleven crew a run for their money we tracked this penguin for almost 15 minutes trying to see where he'd go he didnt dissapoint behind the flagpole and down the penguin Highway it goes [Music] and up we go not the easiest thing to do without arms and pay dirt a big muddy Rock straight from the base sorry he'll be taking that now and back the little Gentoo goes to right under the British flag and no one knows the wiser well done [Music] well when you were in Antarctica there inevitably comes a time when you just can't get any further south and we hit that point with the ice-filled lemaire channel but not before exploring its iceberg filled waterway [Music] one of the one of my favorite things is seeing these glaciers and when we're going out into the zodiac we're different last zodiac tours where it were we're jumping in the zodiac and we're going straight towards this channel that's full of ice and as we're going through the ice were turning through a whole bunch of we're seeing shine mountains on the left and on the right these icebergs all around us that are just enormous 30 40 50 feet sticking out in the air at least the ones we got close to which means that ninety percent are still underneath so they're absolutely gigantic [Music] some of these icebergs have these incredible icicles just dropping off the sides that are just you know just just blue and in a way that looks at almost like Caribbean it's the color of the icebergs is amazing it's like this deep beautiful blue it looks like it's cleared away that's just unbelievable [Music] and then there's some that just have the these sculptures that almost look like a Cathedral that's being built into the size of these icebergs even though they're mostly submerged the stuff that is actually shown is just beautiful in a way that only nature can create it is spectacular sometimes hard to to judge how big any of the icebergs were because I'm a father they look tiny up close it looked huge but when you saw another Zodiac drive in front and you can see perspective they were absolutely gigantic [Music] we drove close to one and the guy driving our zodiac already mentioned that that he thought it was a relatively big iceberg but it was still way way way too small to be even named given the size of some of the other icebergs ever out there that are 15-20 miles wide so yeah that icebergs big but to be like officially named big you have to be at least 12 square miles that's equivalent to five thousand seven hundred thirty one football fields and that's the minimum but it doesn't have to be a giant named glacier to make for a good Bend for this Weddell seal [Music] or gin to show advice [Music] I promised there would be a lot of penguins you really do add to the magic of this wonderful place I think you could say I followed through and I promise [Music] after seeing all this beautiful wildlife and scenery the only thing left to do is jump in the water yourself so we are approaching an area in between an absolutely massive iceberg and the boat which should create a call which allows us to do the Polar Plunge and remember because it's salt water can actually be below freezing so this is gonna be really cold it was in the lemaire channel and a hundred people on the boat did it which was most of the ship some decided to do other things the people got really excited before we had to get on our assume suits and getting our bathrooms and line up ready to do this and so someone had music playing and everyone's getting super excited and trying to psych themselves up to to jump off the boat mice people went before some of our cheering as they came back [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] kind of went around the corner and jumped off the same platform that we would get onto the zodiacs to do any of the zodiac cruising before they put a harness on you right so everyone has a harness before you're allowed to jump in and they do that because I think every once in a while someone panics or seizes or goes into shock or whatever and I can't get themselves out and have to be like drunk out by a leash and so I was wondering if I was gonna be that guy leading up to it there's a ton of anticipation because everyone was jumping in and then frantically getting out and barely able to talk because they were so cold and so I went before anyone else in our little group guy basically said look over a smile say hi and then jump whenever you're ready and so I waved at the camera woman and then jumped off [Music] and without of the water at about three seconds while [Music] Wow [Music] that's the narrator it is a lot better to talk fondly of this being in the future I'll admit but after weeks in the continent jumping all in just feels like the best way to embrace it completely I think what's amazing about you Nordica is that it's it's a very it's so remote and it's so untouched we're also thrilled about adventure and going places that are special and going off the beaten path and seeing the things that aren't designed for tourists so you don't see trees that are bulldoze to build a building you don't see foundations of concrete you don't see people anywhere the only signs of humanity are the tiniest little bases or the few footprints that we put in while we're climbing into that that much space just unexplored or just so really explore it makes you really feel like you're on the cutting edge of exploration and I think there's something that's just very human about wanting to see something so these are under certain some natural that makes you realize of how big the planet is and I'll smile the planet is at the same time there's just something special about it something so wild about it and it's so relaxing about it that it's it's one of the few places that I've been in my life that I will have to return to one day no longer is Antarctica just a white pedestal in the bottom of earth but after time there it's an experience a memory it's a living breathing place both epic and fragile Antarctica isn't the end of the world it's the start of Earth's last great adventure thanks for watching I made this video as a total passion project that took months and appreciate you checking it out if you liked it give it a thumbs up leave a comment and subscribe for more videos in the future [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Alexyn Photo & Video

Views: 212,774

Keywords: Antarctica, antartica, Anartica, Quark, Neko Harbor, Penguns, Port Lockroy, Orne Harbor, Drake Passage, Brown Base, Beagle Channel, Getting to Antarctica, Barrientos Island, Alexyn, Kellie Masters, Jen Scheller, Ushuaia

Id: rzpQLg0nh6I

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/jayhawk2112]

That is really really well done. I was on this same ship back in 2016 your movie really brought back some wonderful memories. Thanks!

[u/westrox11]

Wow this was really beautiful and exceeded my expectations! Thanks for sharing! Antarctica is my number one place that I want to visit in my life, and I’ve started looking a lot into it. Were you happy with your ship/itinerary? Did you consider others? If you could go back and do anything differently or change your travel plans, would you? The Drake has always intimidated me the most. I know people always describe it as being really rough and scary, but is it ever actually dangerous at all?

[u/TanookiAlexYT]

I love this! Great capture of the landscape! What was your fav part of the Antarctic?

[u/nick027nd]

Can you explain what went into booking? Is it an all inclusive and do you have to go through any screenings or approvals for lack of a better words? What is it cost wise? And is there a waiting list?

Also, great watch so far!

[u/jayhawk2112]

I would add as far as screenings and approvals you do need to self-certify your health and if you have certain conditions you need a doctors note. My buddy has a prosthetic leg and Quark required him to have his doctor fill out a form that he was physically capable.

Other then that you just need a passport. Argentina as of when I went doesn’t require a visa in advance although that has changed before. If you book the trip that stops at the Falklands you want to make sure you call them Las Malvinas when in Argentina as they are still pretty sore about the UK winning the war back in 1982 (not kidding this is no joke)

[u/Sausage-Tits]

As a film student this is what I want to do when I hopefully get a call saying I'm selected. Except im just gonna remake Happy Feet by strapping a JBL speaker to a penguin and have it exclusively play Elijah Woods lines.