Antarctic Beauty

(click on any photo to enlarge it)

It's April, and the Antarctic continent is slipping into a short Fall season, to be followed by a long, harsh, even brutal winter, where temperatures are often in the -50s and can be lower on many occasions. 

This is a good opportunity to recall how beautiful the Antarctic Peninsula looked just a few months ago, when summer settled in and the temperatures climbed to just around freezing. That time, the area is just perfect for cruising, kayaking, even meditating, as evident in the photo above - Thank God the days are long so one can just sit idle in the kayak for a while and enjoy the peaceful environment!

Kayaking allows us to look at the macro and the micro, so to speak. In the picture above, I paddled literally underneath a pretty huge iceberg, only to see what a beautiful engraving the ocean can make.

And of-course, all you need to do is lift your eyes again, kayak towards the open sea, and watch how ocean, fog, and people mesh together:

It's not that kayaking around Antarctica is always so peaceful. Often, with a slight change in the stream or the wind, everyone in your group becomes a traffic cop!

Evidently, we got out of there since I'm sitting here, sipping coffee and writing this post.

Let's go back to the broader view, where sunlight, the ocean, the icebergs and the land mix together in a dance of Antarctic nature:

The photo above, by the way, has won me a few awards, so take a second look :)

However, not everyone is suitable for kayaking in freezing water, and there are always the real estate types who simply prefer a balcony with a view. Even for those of you, Antarctica has something to offer. Although, of course, that piece of land is already taken by some small, funny creatures.

(click on any photo above to enlarge it)

To view more Antarctic ocean pictures I have taken, go to my post Mountains In The Sky With Diamonds

The Color of Water

(click on any photo to enlarge it)

Oops - Sorry. That was The Color of Money. Whether you prefer older handsome guys, or younger handsome guys - they were all in that movie!

Anyway, my intention was to write about the color of water. "What color," you might ask - "Water has no color, right?"

Right. But, one of the beauties of traveling to places where the water is almost ice-cold is that you get to see the water almost absorbing the colors around them, reflecting them as if they were its own. Take a look at the dance of water and sun, on a cool day over the Antarctic Peninsula:

For some reason, the water is even more colorful than the sky above it - You get the whole palette just like a watchful painter was using his watercolors skilfully. And even when the sun is about to set, the water keeps its color games with it!

(click on any photo to enlarge it)
Speaking of Antarctica, you probably expect to see some snow and ice in the picture, right? Well, even with them, the water has to say a lot about color.

In the meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, summer looks very different. Glacial streams storm down the valleys, carrying what's called "glacial dust" - the powder created by the sheer weight of the ice on top of the bedrock up on the mountains.

In the valleys, the glacial streams meet their pure and innocent relatives - spring water streams. The result is yet another dance of contrasts in the color of water.

A closer look reveals the amount of glacial dust in that stream, when it's meeting the pure water one:

No wonder there are no fish in those streams! (In this case, in Denali National Park in Alaska) There used to be special Dust Fish but even they all died of asthma.

Hahaha.

Sometimes, the water goes an extra step and rather than improvising on the colors above it, it just copies them. In the Arctic ocean, there's a thin layer of fresh water (from melted icebergs) on top of the salty seawater. On colder days, when the temperature drops to near freezing, the freshwater freezes faster and makes a huge ice blanket on the ocean. On warmer days, the different density between fresh and salt water makes for a perfect mirror effect:

So perfect, that sometimes you could get vertigo and be completely disoriented between the sky and the ground without flying a plane - Just by paddling in a kayak... But I guess if you were upside down, paddling in a kayak in the Arctic Ocean, you'd know that because you'd freeze in the water.

Other times, it seems the water just decides how to color itself. Sure, it's all about physics. Even physicists have very thoughtful sayings like "the color of the pond depends on its depth" - But that takes all the romance from the photo below (taken in Alaska) - Don't you think? Same pond, only several feet apart, and with no Photoshop...

 

To read more about the wonders of colors in the water, read my post Mountains In The Sky - With Diamonds

A Tent with A View

(click on any photo to enlarge it)

Each year, thousands, maybe even millions(!) of men are asked to pack up and go ("you can sleep in a tent").

NO! What were you thinking? That my blog has turned into some middle age, bitter dude's place of expression? I meant go camping, of-course! Spring is just around the corner and camping season is gathering heat, so to speak.

And as every camper knows, you don't have to go to the end of the world (up or down) to find beautiful views; but then again, you should! Because nothing beats the following view, for example, right from your tent, in Alaska:

Or even at the Bowron Lakes Canoe Circle in BC, Canada, where you can wake up next to the canoe and never wonder how you got there!

Camping gets interesting when you go further north to the high Arctic, where the midnight sun is present for several months each year. Not only can you take a great picture like the following one, shot exactly at midnight:

But you can also watch the beautiful Arctic Ocean, with ice floats and icebergs on it. Unless you time your trip to just a couple of years from now, when there will probably be no ice around places like Ellesmere Island in the heat of the summer...

But until then, camping up in the Arctic can also give you a sense of how large these icebergs are when you see the whole of them, not just the tiny part above the water. I love the following picture, because it felt like camping in a parking lot of giant buses, feeling small and fragile...

But who said you need a tent to camp? How about a big Back-To-Nature? in Antarctica, on a mild summer night when the temperature hits 30F/0C, and the snow is light, there's nothing like camping under the starry(?) skies. All I needed to do was dig a little foxhole, perhaps even build a low igloo-like wall, and there you go!

Yes - This is me digging. And yes - There are two sleeping bags there. Now stop speculating!

Lastly, if push comes to shove, and there are no tents, no ice, not even bare ground under you, that's still not a problem. There's always the giant canoe waterbed. I guess it's better used for an afternoon nap, but hey - That's important too, no?

Read my post Alaska Summer Vacation for Ordinary People to see other interesting things to do when the outdoors calls you.

Kayaking Deja Vu - Best of My Arctic and Antarctic Kayaking Posts

The kayaking season on the Arctic ocean has ended a couple of months ago, and the Antarctic ocean is about to open up to kayakers very soon. I've been getting a good number of emails from readers asking me for recommendations about kayaking trips, the experience of kayaking, and kayaking photography. It seems that since I've been writing this blog for some time now, many great and relevant posts have been buried! And as I get new readers almost every week, I thought I'd direct you - or, for my repeat readers, remind you - to my most favorite kayaking posts. Click on any link to open that post, and on any photo to enlarge it!

If you're interested in kayaking, you may want to start with my post Kayaking The Arctic and Antarctica - 9 Tips 

Think it's crazy and risky? Unlike walking, kayaking on thin ice is rather safe, and you get to see amazing views like this one:

And of course, the benefits of kayaking among icebergs is that you can no only take pictures of them, but literally absorb them! A very popular post I wrote about this is Frozen Creatures of the Arctic and it has some very nice pictures I took while kayaking.

That's it for today - Just a filler to remind of old gems!

The Coolest (Coldest?) Bed

(click on any photo to enlarge it)

Birds do it

Seals do it

Why don't I do it?!?

I don't know about you these days, but I'm feeling so hot! What's the story with this summer? It just doesn't end! So I'm sitting here, fantasizing about a cold, comfy bed to find refuge in. And what's better than Pure Antarctic Ice for that? The coolness! The whiteness! The Purity!

I must be losing my mind. It's the heat. Sorry.

Certainly, one of the nice things about traveling in Antarctica (or the Arctic, back in the days when there was still sea ice!) is to watch how the various mammals of the region enjoy the temperature. Our idea of a warm bed is for them, well...

A very cold bed! This seal sure looks like it's having a very good nap. But what about the dreams? Well, how about this "I have a dream, and it's mostly comprised of shrimp" dream?:

Life can be harsh, though. Imagine you spent your night on ice, and then, to warm up, what do you do? Dive into the icy water? Of course. We know that many times the ocean is actually warmer, because sea water that isn't frozen is at about -2C/28F, while it could be much colder outside. Convinced yet? Not this penguin - who stood there for long minutes, contemplating physics and wondering whether it would be a good idea to dive in:

But the best part, for sure, is waking up from the coolest bed and looking out the window. That makes life, and trip to the Antarctic, worth it - Isn't it?

Read my post On Thin Ice to enjoy more of the coolest stuff.

A Free Advice for Amazon

Have you read the news over the weekend? A vicious thunderstorm in Virginia, USA, cut the power to millions of houses and - most importantly - to an Amazon data center. As a result, many services hosted on Amazon where shut down for hours, most notably Instagram.

The Instagram incident was very painful, because millions of young kids were forced to upload to Facebook pictures that looked modern, not 30-years old!!! And in real natural colors!! It ruined the weekend for all of them. 

But Amazon can only blame itself. Who puts a data center in Virginia? The state gets thunderstorms half the time, and you can't even fly technicians in because the airports are closed. And on top of that they have to put fences and fancy stuff to protect the data center from crooks trying to break in and steal their books. Well, I guess the books are electronic. Whatever.

But, Voila, I have a suggestion for them: Just move your data center to Svalbard . Svalbard is an island north of Norway, up into the Arctic Sea. It's cold, isolated, and remote. In fact, as you can read in the link above, Svalbard hosts the Global Seed Vault, a safe-in-a-cave dug deep into the mountain, where seeds of plants, fruits, and vegetables from many countries are stored in case a global disaster breaks. Till then, the seeds are stored in a naturally frozen vault, at a place where no Iranian lunatic will bother to drop The Bomb.

The seeds include those of over 1,500 types of potatoes! We're all going to have one big mashed potato party after the next nuclear war.

 Svalbard is a beautiful place to tour, especially by kayaking along its shores: (click on any photo to enlarge it)

The island is the last front before you paddle the Arctic Sea all the way up to the pole, or rather to the permanent ice cap. But in recent years, the effects of global warming have been felt even there, with very little ice on the water during the summer.

I love this picture! Look at the ice! But back to our topic. Amazon will get lots of benefits from placing its data center in Svalbard, next to the Seed Vault. There are no thunderstorms. But most importantly, there is no need for all these security budgets because there are free guards all over the place! As a proof, here are some incidents of thieves trying to get into the Seed Vault that I caught on my camera:

1. A thief trying to sneak into the Vault:

 - And a guard popping up and saying "not so fast, pal!" (yes, it's a Walrus)

2. Another thief trying to get onto the shore while a guard (accompanied by her kids as school's out for summer) says "yeah, right, why don't you just come on shore?"

3. Skeletons of Seed Seekers who died attempting to get on the island while pretending to be whales:

And, if all hell breaks loose and someone passes all the perimeter security, there's always Martin waiting for them.

In short, I can't seem to understand why not transfer the data center to Svalbard. After all - Aren't bits more important than seeds?

Get some summer reading done by reading my post Alaska, Arctic, and Far North Books to Read

On Thin Ice

Who's this handsome guy? And is she smiling just because she's happy to be with him in the same kayak?

There are so many things to wonder about in the Arctic! But beware - One must be in full concentration while paddling on thin ice - Kayaking on ice is not just an extension of paddling on water. While you may comment "you just move the water, the ice - what's the difference?" there is a huge difference. (click on the photos to enlarge them) 

Kayaking on ice feels a bit like the miracle of paddling on rocks. You stick your paddle in the ground, pull some rocks back and voila - you're making progress! And the truth is, it feels great and empowering.

It is especially nice to watch your guide showing off as an expert ice kayaker, only for him to pretend to know where he's gotten himself and yet waive his hand and tell the rest of us "Go that way - it'll be so much easier for you inexperienced city people." 
"Umm, by the way, can someone paddle over here and help drag me out of this ice?"

But guides are not always useless - sometimes they help the group get out of a bay that was iced down by changing winds pushing the icebergs towards the shore:

I say: if someone has to fall into the icy water by stepping on unstable icebergs - let it be a guide!

But no matter what, kayaking on ice is certainly the highlight of an Arctic/Antarctic trip. Here, you really feel the essence of these regions and the meaning of surviving in a different environment. And when all of a sudden seeing a whale coming out of the ice and water 30 feet in front of you, well - there is no feeling of awe stronger than that. (stay tuned for such photo in a future post)

Sometimes, you have to paddle strong and hard to navigate in icy water:

  

And sometimes, it's the most delicate act you could imagine. Increase the volume on your computer, click on the video clip below, and listen to the 1 millimeter thin ice cracking under the paddle. Then, try to watch the ice breaking, and imagine yourself at one of the most pristine places on earth, with complete silence, only you and the sound of your paddle on the thin ice....

To be an ever better kayaker, read my post Kayaking the Arctic and Antarctica - 9 tips