Landing on the Antarctica

After the two-day voyage across the Drake Passage, the cruise ship, Clipper Adventurer arrived at the nearest and most suitable bay to anchor. The bay had to be one which was sheltered, deep enough and with less ice floating pieces. Another crucial factor for the captain to choose the bay was that there should be a flat landing platform for their “zodiac”s (landing crafts) to unload the passengers ashore.


My sister-in-law remarked, “It was lucky that the weather was mostly sunny and most important was that the notoriously fierce Drake Passage was not very wavy as expected.”

Each zodiac carried at most ten passengers (dressed in yellow) , five on each side and a crewman (dressed in red). It was mobilized by a motor at the back. About three to four zodiacs were used each time to transport passengers from the mother ship to and from shore.


The passengers had long been taught how to dress themselves up before the landing and they should observe and obey certain rules once they were on land. The ship provided partly the outfits for the passengers. They included the yellow water-proofed overcoats, trousers, socks, boots and life-jackets.

My sister-in-law told me that she wore three pairs of socks – the outermost pair, water-proofed, the middle pair for keeping warm and the innermost the usual pair that she wears. She had to wear gloves of her own, a woollen scarf, a mask for the face leaving a hole for the eyes and a pair of sunglasses.