2020 Antarctica
February 2020 we made the "once in a life time" trip to Antarctica. 3 Weeks on the Hondius a recently constructed ship, build in the Netherlands. We were very fortunate to be able to finish this trip just before the corona virus hit the world. The main reason to make the 3 weeks long trip was, that we wanted to visit South Georgia with the huge colonies of King Penguins. And indeed that was one of the highlights, but there were many more. We started the trip in Ushuaia in the very south of Argentina. From there we sailed to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) for three landings. After two days sailing we reached South Georgia were we spend 4 days to see the abundent wildlife. The zodiac landings were often influenced by weather conditions. Via South Orkney and South Shetland we headed to the Antarctic Peninsula. We spend there 6 days to watch the glaciers, ice bergs, ice shelves, all kind of seals, birds, penguins, orca's and whales. One humpback whale came so close that we could touch it, we did not of course. The whale circled around the zodiacs for 30 minutes, magical moments. Its hardly possible to decribe your feelings at such a moment, emotional was certainly one of them. Via the Drake passage where the weather can be quite bad, we were lucky, we sailed back to Ushuaia to finish our magical trip.
