Not Long Now

30/Nov/2007

Lat/Long - 0 25' 41.79"W 51 26'43.77"N Time 09:50 GMT


Well adding some other items to help people track the journey. I will put the Lat/Long on each blog. If you cut and paste this into Google Earth then you can see exactly where we are ( or have been).

An example is Ushuaia - 54 48'41.21"S 68 18'20.81"W This is the port we leave from.


View Larger Map

One on my friends Simon has kindly volunteered to cut/paste my emails into the Blog pages. We only have email access on the boat.

Somebody asked who I am going with. As most of my family get seasick so they all declined and are regretting it now. :)

So one of my friends Terry F, who likes a bit of adventures, said he would love to go. So once we worked the route out and costs out; he was in. He works for my main customer British Telecom. So kind of appropriate we end up going as a partnership adventure.

There is another person in our group of three friend, John S. He was unable to come along due to other commitments. But if he had, the three of us would have had the time of lives. But we have promised John an evening of slides and stories when we return.

Hopefully a daily update from this day forward.

Preview of the trip

Found a link to somebody who did it earlier in the year. Same boat same tour.

http://www.adventureworld.co.nz/Media/Classic_Antarctica_with_Quark_Expeditions_%5B230307%5D.asp

They explain what happens each day.- just what we expected

Also somebody asked about seasickness. Well the cruise people recommend a product called Transderm patches. They stick behind your ear and last about 72 hours. Only side affect is a slightly dry mouth. I can live with that.

Also need to get some suntan lotion

Less than one week to go

Well down to the final week till we fly out and start the adventure.
Last week with the MS Explorer sinking made a lot of friends and family worry about the trip. Myself and Terry figure the boats will be even more aware and that is better for us. Luckily nobody was hurt in the incident but sad to see the loss of the ship.
Those people also get to ride in a Hercules- not bad three adventures within a week.

Nice little link on the M/S Explorer
http://collegiateway.org/news/2007-lindblad-explorer

We have all the final paper work in place and are ready to go.

The big issue is luggage weight. We arde limited to 44lb each. I am at 41lb but still need to put a set of boots in and the toilet items. Might have to take a hand razor instead of the battery one to save weight. :)

One useful item if anybody is going os Lip Balm with Sun Factor 30- sunburned lips is something you do not want.

We have found it will be very hard to do a daily update on the blog on the trip due to the internet link only being text only and not a weblink - but will try and work on that.

Well more at the weekend for the final countdown.

3 weeks and counting

Well down to around 3 weeks now.

Everything is go. Only hiccup this week was the London travel agent forgot to send some paperwork. So we had to hustle around and get that completed.

Final batch of memory chips have arrived- 14Gbytes should be enough now. I hope

Weather is getting better by the week- Buenos Aries in the 70s and Ushuaia down at in the 40s

This weekend a full inventory of all items and build the agenda folder- so we can see if we are missing anything.

Got some lip balm with Sun Factor 30 built in - sound good idea. Sun burned lips are not nice.

Air Italia were on strike today so lets hope that does not happen the day we travel. Luckily for us it is mid week travel.

Good photo from the boat on a previous expeditions - the lovely yellow jackets.