![\"20160315-image\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/20160315-image.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI originally saw the glowing colors from my porthole on starboard and thought it was pretty enough for a photo.\u00a0 Only on the top deck did I realize this was merely a reflection of light and the sun itself was rising on the port bow.\u00a0 The winds were so bad and the sea seemingly so angry with its myriad white caps, I felt there was no possibility of Meg and my one shot at a kayak trip this morning.<\/p>\n
A quick breakfast later and Michelle announced unexpectedly that the winds were going to be dead calm around Cuverville Island and we would be able to kayak after all.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t sure if I was excited or terrified about getting into an oblong shaped piece of plastic and paddling through the frigid Antarctic waters\u2026 but this is what I signed for and I made Meg promise me she wouldn\u2019t let me chicken out.<\/p>\n
Donning our kayaking gear in the mudroom, I added a third layer of socks as the people I had spoken to on yesterday\u2019s kayak excursion said their feet got cold even with two layers.\u00a0 It was a tight fit getting the onesie wet suit feet on over the layered socks, and the booties were of an Eastern foot binding tradition.\u00a0 But after a tug here and a pull there, I was cinched in snugly and had my Narwhal wet skirt hiked to my hips.<\/p>\n
Despite horror stories of friends going tandem on canoes or rafting trips (Meg herself experienced just such a thing in her past) we were in a double kayak.\u00a0 The peddle controls were in the rear and the front person could help paddle or take photos.\u00a0 Meg opted to let me shoot photos while she did most of the work in navigating and paddling.\u00a0 Made for a very relaxing ride for me, save that doffing my paddle\u2019s gloves to shoot meant I kept exposing them to the air and they seized up and froze quite a bit.\u00a0 To Meg\u2019s continued unending credit, she had some spare hand warmers that we threw into our dry bag and they made all the difference when things got particularly frigid.<\/p>\n
We piled into a Zodiac and motored out to a more sheltered part of the bay, systematically entering the kayak and orienting ourselves to the process of paddling in tandem or solo.\u00a0 The surroundings were majestic and jaw dropping, and honestly as we floated around at first, I just sat slack jawed at what was happening.\u00a0 Here I was in Antarctica, after having run a marathon, zodiacing away from a converted Russian research vessel, to kayak amidst the largest Gentoo Penguin colony in the world.\u00a0 Seals swam by or lounged around on floating blocks of ice.\u00a0 And the quiet \u2013 save for the odd sound of paddles striking water or the distant hum of a zodiac ferrying other passengers to shore, it was silent.\u00a0 A bubble.\u00a0 The world warped and turned back in upon itself.\u00a0 It was a surreal experience of sight and sound and, when downwind of the smelliest Gentoo penguin colony on earth, of smell.<\/p>\n
As has often happened on this trip, words fail me.<\/p>\n The views were stunning.\u00a0 The sight of a leopard seal snatching a penguin and stripping it clean was something out of National Geographic\u2026 or as the penguin\u2019s lifeblood splattered up from the depths of the sea to the surface, something out of Jaws (1975).\u00a0 The circle of life is strong in Antarctica.\u00a0 Very strong.<\/p>\n Meg did an amazing job and would occasionally navigate us through two pieces of floating ice (which I think is called brash ice) and at times the smaller ones we\u2019d just glide over.\u00a0 The sound of this was one that will stay with me for a lifetime.\u00a0 And, yes, we had more than a few Titanic moments wherein we ran into a larger piece of ice that would not budge.\u00a0 But we never capsized nor sank, and we remained friends throughout.\u00a0 I take that as a major win.\u00a0 Rule # 1 for this trip was always, \u201cDon\u2019t die.\u201d\u00a0 Rule # 2 was probably, \u201cDon\u2019t hate each other when it\u2019s done!\u201d\u00a0 Close quarters, the Drake Passage, tandem kayaks?\u00a0 It all could have gone very, very wrong.\u00a0 But I think we did pretty well, Meg and I.\u00a0 It helps that she\u2019s so great.<\/p>\n About two hours into \u201cthe paddle,\u201d as apparently seasoned kayakers call their outings, Liz and Michelle asked if anyone wanted to go ashore or if we wanted to keep paddling.\u00a0 Two people wanted to go and try and get a photo of a penguin snuggling them but the rest of us were adamant in wanting to prolong our kayak adventure for as long as possible.\u00a0 Our guides chuckled as this isn\u2019t often the case with passengers, and their passion for the sport and the experiences it brings made them want to share even more with us.<\/p>\n And so we kayaked all the way around the 3.5 km island.<\/p>\n About \u00be of the way around the island, with me snapping more photos than I should and gawking about like a kid in an ice cream parlor, Meg finally told me she needed a break and I helped paddle for a bit.\u00a0 To be fair, I had been off and on but more off than on.\u00a0 I found out pretty quick just what a workout paddling can be!<\/p>\n The swells started kicking up just as we rounded the bend and spotted the Ioffe on the horizon.\u00a0 We paddled to a more secluded spot to enable us to de-kayak and re-zodiac.\u00a0 It was just enough swell to make me understand why they would cancel this excursion in winds and rough seas\u2026 and just enough to make me appreciate how sorta fun it can be to cut through swells.<\/p>\n Kayaking in Antarctica was all one could hope for and then some.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Kevin\u2019s Log \u2013 Supplemental \u2013 6:27 PM<\/p>\n The afternoon excursion was three-pronged.\u00a0 Almirante Brown has a maximum of 50 tourists on land at any one time.<\/p>\n Prong one, consisting of 50 people, would go ashore.\u00a0 We were at the gangway early enough to go ashore first.\u00a0 This area was on the Antarctica continent proper.\u00a0 No islands or territory.\u00a0 This was terra firma of the Antarctica continent mass.\u00a0 So when we set foot here, we would join the 600,000 people who have stepped onto Antarctica ever.<\/p>\n Snow was falling but there was no wind.\u00a0 Heavy fog ringed the area, adding to an eerie isolation, akin to the discovery of a snowy Shangri La passage to an untouched spot on earth.\u00a0 Only it was touched \u2013 there is an Argentinian base at this location, one that apparently was built in the late 70s, early 80s.\u00a0 The story goes that in 1982 a doctor was left at the station for the winter 6 months.\u00a0 Upon arriving, the doctor realized this was a terrible mistake and thought the best way to get out of the assignment was to burn the place down.\u00a0 His thinking being the ship that left him would see the fire and return to pick him up\u2026 only the ship didn\u2019t see the flames and left him amidst the smoldering embers of his only shelter and refuge.\u00a0 What could have been a truly epic tragedy turned into a rescue courtesy of the surrounding bases that helped the guy out and got him off the continent.\u00a0 Truth be told, the guy wasn\u2019t all there anyway \u2013 supposedly at the base that took him in, he was caught stealing toothbrushes, can goods, and other sundries, hording them as if he expected the apocalypse were around the corner.\u00a0 In any event, Argentina converted the base into a summer time only location; only last week the Argentinian occupants finished up their summer season and effectively locked up the place for the winter.<\/p>\n As we stepped onto dry land from our zodiac, I was immediately struck by the quiet and solitude.\u00a0 Though we were amongst others, it was another silent world.\u00a0 We crossed a rickety bridge that might have been a rejected design concept for the climax of Indiana Jones and the Temple of <\/em>Doom (1984).\u00a0 I even jokingly said to Meg, \u201cStrong bridge, Indy!\u00a0 Strong bridge!\u201d\u00a0 She told me not to jump on it \u2026 and truth be told, later the hand railings fell apart so we weren\u2019t far off.<\/p>\n A few penguins greeted us and waddled about.\u00a0 I was dumbstruck at the snow and we trudged along taking snapshots and trying to capture a modicum of the moment.<\/p>\n We came across a guy in running shorts doing laps between two stakes in the ground with volunteers clearing the new fallen snow from the makeshift track.\u00a0 Apparently, this guy had gotten severely sick the day of the marathon and wasn\u2019t able to run.\u00a0 He somehow convinced Marathon Tours to let him run a half-marathon here during the excursion in the hopes of completing a race on the last continent.\u00a0 How this plays against those that got pulled from the course for safety reasons I cannot say\u2026 but in the spirit of running, I wished the guy well.<\/p>\n A marker at the crest of one hillside was covered in snow.\u00a0 As I wiped it away, like Indiana Jones blowing sand and dust from ancient markers, I exposed an engraving of significance.\u00a0 But unlike Indy, I wasn\u2019t able to identify the worn and slightly illegible sign.<\/p>\n After a few more panoramic pics, Meg eventually quite rightly said to me she was going to stop taking photos and just enjoy the quiet and the surroundings.\u00a0 She headed down to sit and share a moment with the penguins.\u00a0 I spun around and tried to take it all in but as usual abhorred the vacuum and found myself filling the air with exclamations of, \u201cWow!\u201d or \u201cWhat a thing!\u201d\u00a0 Such exhalations no doubt distanced me from having a quiet moment with the penguins myself but I did shoot a vine-ish length video of me:<\/p>\n VINE-VIDEO<\/a><\/p>\n As four o\u2019clock rolled around, we returned to the rocky shoreline to board a Zodiac for prong two of our excursion.\u00a0 Swapping people from shore to sea, prong two involved cruising around the area in Zodiacs.\u00a0 Cody was our skipper and I use that term in the best sense of Disney Imagineering.\u00a0 For what followed on our zodiac trip was nothing short of a real-world Jungle Cruise.\u00a0 From the moment I tried boarding the zodiac and slid around the pontoon like an outtake from 1990s era America\u2019s Funniest Home Videos, bad jokes and puns became de rigueur for our journey.\u00a0 As others attempted to board the Zodiac to fill it to capacity, each person took a pill and since no one suffered any injury worse than hurt pride, it was all in good fun.\u00a0 Meg deployed a well-timed, \u201cAnd\u2026 you\u2019re safe\u201d umpire joke to a sliding passenger.\u00a0 And from there, it just got more and more comical.<\/p>\n Cruising about the foggy waters though, it was as if we were in some defined space though Cody was zipping us from point to point trying to get us wildlife sightings and history lessons whenever possible.\u00a0 A huge copper vein which Chile linked to their own Andes Mountains served as confirmation of the Gondwanaland\/Pangea continental drift theories of Alfred Wagner.<\/p>\n More than a few crab-eating seals (which don\u2019t eat crab only krill and are therefore misnamed) were spotted lounging on ice sheets or swimming through the water.\u00a0 Cody would adopt a goofy cartoon hillbilly voice and say, \u201cHey, fellas, whatcha doin\u2019?\u201d\u00a0 And then in a slightly altered hillbilly voice he\u2019d say, \u201cNothin\u2019.\u00a0 Fishin\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 It really did have a cadence of a scripted comical tour patter.<\/p>\n This was especially true for moments when we came across seals laying out on ice floes, lazily raising their heads to check us out and therefore become wildlife paparazzi prey.\u00a0 It all felt like an animatronic display\u2026 but it was most assuredly real.\u00a0 Or at least, I think it was a real\u2026 maybe Marathon Tours and One Ocean just locked us into a soundstage set and rotate the backgrounds behind us, only making us think we went to Antarctica when in fact we\u2019re in some telenovela studio in downtown Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n Adding to the fantastical reality, icebergs would float by, drifting into sight and then vanishing into the fog like predetermined \u201cscenic ooh!\u201d moments in a theme park ride.<\/p>\n But truth be told, this cruise was little more than a fun distraction, a time filler water-safari to enable passengers to rotate on and off shore and to lead up to the third element of today\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n The third prong was a polar plunge.<\/p>\n Yes, the polar plunge, where participants strip to their bathing suits and jump into frigid polar waters.\u00a0 The Ioffe doesn\u2019t often do the plunge on the Antarctic Continent proper; there\u2019s a plunge pool on the upper deck that they fill with sea water or a few other island spots further north that provide a polar plunge option.\u00a0 Given the rarity of the location, and given that this may be the only time I personally will be in Antarctica, I decided I would do it.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d regret it much more if I DIDN\u2019T take the plunge than if I did\u2026 and I thought it couldn\u2019t possibly be worse than the marathon day.\u00a0 After all, the plunge would be a moment or two and then I\u2019d head back to the ship for a hot shower.\u00a0 Easy, right?<\/p>\n Unlike the marathon, the One Ocean staff facility this event wanted everyone to know that we\u2019d be on our own getting our dry clothes on.\u00a0 They\u2019d take photos and make it as safe as they could to get us to the plunge and back to the ship, but the onus was on ourselves to actually do it.\u00a0 What the hell, right?\u00a0 You only live once.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Kevin\u2019s Log \u2013 Supplemental \u2013 9:18 PM I\u2019ve been wrestling with how to describe the polar plunge.\u00a0 But like Vietnam, if you weren\u2019t in the shit, I\u2019m not sure anyone can tell you how it really was.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll try.<\/p>\n After Cody dropped off the \u201cnon-swimmers\u201d at the Ioffe, he spirited us back over to the shores of Almirante Brown.\u00a0 Here we crossed the rickety bridge once more and made a left to get to the water\u2019s edge\u2026 but in order to do this, we had to scurry over a series of slippery rocks.\u00a0 Later I would think about the insurance nightmare of such an activity sponsored under a US flag and therefore having to hew to US health and safety codes.\u00a0 But this being an international treaty continent, where rule of law is either international law or laws of the high seas, I guess things like safety and liability waivers are more guidelines than rules.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I signed something at some stage absolving them of liability for doing incredibly stupid things; I know we signed one for kayaking but I can\u2019t recall signing one that said, \u201cWaiver of Liability for Any Injury Including Death Sustained While Doing One of The Dumbest, If Not THE DUMBEST, Things You\u2019ve Ever Done In Your Life, I.E. The Polar Plunge.\u201d<\/p>\n When first we arrived, two \u201cswimmers\u201d were already there.\u00a0 A question was raised as a seal suddenly swam near the diving rocks and we were assured it was seal that only ate krill and penguins so we should be fine.\u00a0 We should be fine?!\u00a0 Should be!\u00a0 As in the fine print \u201cthere\u2019s a chance you could suffer bodily injury including death and SHOULD this happen, it\u2019s your own bloomin\u2019 fault, Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n Amidst the jagged rocks we stripped down to our bathing suits and dove in one by one.\u00a0 Sounds simple enough, right?\u00a0 The first guy, a large Polish man with a gruff accent and a manly attitude, stripped and then splashed water on his face and body like he was a Sumo wrestler of the water, and then dove in.\u00a0 Easy peesy.\u00a0 The guy didn\u2019t even seem fazed.\u00a0 Mark went next, plunging in and popping up, struggling with exiting the water amidst the rocks but saying it wasn\u2019t too bad\u2026 so then I went for it.\u00a0 Down to my blue swimsuit, I rushed over the rocks hoping to get this over with.\u00a0 The Cruise Director Cheryl was apparently taking photos but I didn\u2019t pose as I immediately slipped on a rock at the water\u2019s edge and fell on my bum.\u00a0 I scraped my back but the doctor on sight said it wasn\u2019t bleeding so I was good to go (!!).\u00a0 I dove in\u2026 and the rush of salty frigid water was something else.\u00a0 Rising from the minimal depth to dunk my whole being, I breached the surface to applause\u2026 but struggled on the rocks.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it was only a few half seconds, but I felt my body shivering, my voice lost to chattering teeth, as I floundered in the water, trying to get purchase on the slippery submerged rocks to pull myself out of the water.\u00a0 Every hand or foothold seemed slick with penguin guano or some other slime that allowed no grip.\u00a0 With cheers and applause at my bravery\/stupidity, I kept thinking, \u201cWhy the fuck are you clapping?\u00a0 Can\u2019t you see I\u2019m dying here?\u00a0 That I can\u2019t get out of this fuckin\u2019 water?!\u00a0 Somebody fuckin\u2019\u2014\u201c and by then I somehow, finally found something to hold onto, and like an animal emerging from the primordial ooze of prehistoric times, I crawled onto the jagged rocks, my breath equally jagged, gasping for air and warmth.<\/p>\n The trouble with stupid things is that they are so stupid you don\u2019t even really plan beyond the stupid thing.\u00a0 My layers of clothes were on the rocks, a good five feet from where I burst forth from the frigid waters and I scrambled shivering over the sharp edges of the Antarctic continental shores, only to stand on my rubber boots as a makeshift mat while someone handed me a towel to dry off.\u00a0 This towel was a pink half towel, perhaps a modified towel bath mat that I desperately tried to squeegee off cold water from my body as best in good while the snow kept falling around me and on me.\u00a0 I struggled into my clothes, unable to feel my fingers but still having some dexterity of movement (unlike after the marathon).\u00a0 My toes on the other hand were borderline frostbit, and trying to get them through my windbreaker pants proved a Herculean task\u2026<\/p>\n By this time, Meg had stripped down and Cheryl told her to pose by the water\u2019s edge before taking her plunge.\u00a0 I saw her strike an SI pinup girl pose and then leap into the 1 degree Celsius waters.\u00a0 I was still struggling to get my pants on and opted to abandon that for the time being and get my top layers sorted.\u00a0 Meg emerged, freezing like me, struggling with the rocks but eventually she too emerged from the Almirante Brown baptism.\u00a0 She rushed over, toweled off and saw me struggling with my pants.\u00a0 She helped guide my rock solid foot through the mesh pant leg, once again saving my life on this trip.\u00a0 We both quickly finished dressing and returned to the Zodiac launch, crawling over outcroppings and hopping over the slippery, snow covered shoreline.<\/p>\n Others followed \u2013 Matt then Mark and Jenny. Shivering, we boarded the Zodiac and they launched it half empty to get us back to the Ioffe as quickly as possible.\u00a0 I have little memory of this, other than stating categorically that this was the dumbest fuckin\u2019 thing I\u2019ve ever done and I\u2019ve done a lot of dumb fuckin\u2019 things.<\/p>\n Soon after I stood under blistering hot water in the shared bathroom shower, the circulation returning to my appendages in that prickly painful feeling, like when you\u2019ve slept on your arm wrong and the blood flows in a rush of pain and feeling, the nerve receptors reactivating and functioning but making you pay for your mistakes.\u00a0 After several minutes of this, I emerged from a stream cloud with at least partial feeling and put on several layers of warm, dry clothes.<\/p>\n Wandering to the bar to grab my daily treat of a $2 Diet Coke, I bumped into a few people who asked me how it was.\u00a0 I relayed a version of what I\u2019ve just typed here.\u00a0 When I got to, \u201cIt was literally the dumbest thing I\u2019ve ever done in my life\u2026\u201d someone wisely and quite rightly pointed out that \u201cit was also one of the most memorable.\u201d\u00a0 Sometimes it takes doing something completely stupid to complete a moment.\u00a0 I would have regretted not doing this.\u00a0 Some day, I would have.\u00a0 With still only 85% feeling in my toes and fingers, I\u2019m not yet ready to say I\u2019m glad I did it.\u00a0 But tomorrow, I suspect I will be.<\/p>\n In the meantime, it\u2019s sufficient to say that I came to Antarctica, ran a marathon, and then jumped off the continent into freezing waters of the Antarctic Ocean.\u00a0 That\u2019s a story for a dinner party to be sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3\/15\/2016 Kevin\u2019s Log \u2013 Supplemental \u2013 2 PM It will be a day long remembered.\u00a0 My first kayak experience and the day I set foot on the Antarctica continent proper.\u00a0 The former was around Cuverville Island and the latter is at Alimantre Brown in Paradise Harbor. The morning began with strong winds and a chill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,415,410,4,412,411,414,413,72],"class_list":["post-1247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antarctica","tag-continent","tag-kayak","tag-marathon","tag-plunge","tag-polar","tag-profanity","tag-stupid","tag-tours"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
\nWARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS EXTREME PROFANITY, PARTIAL NUDITY, AND EPIC STUPIDNESS.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a>\u00a0<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n