April 7 – April 8
Category: Pole to Pole Cruise
Pole to Pole Cruise
South Africa
March 27 – April 3
We left the remote South Atlantic islands and cruised over open and often rough seas for several days to South Africa. We had to leave the islands a bit early as one of the guests fell and required medical care not available on the ship. The landing in Cape Town, South Africa was quite significant for us as it meant we had now visited all seven continents, a feat which many of the guests had already achieved.Â
We have met many guests with financial means far exceeding our own who have been to all corners of the earth, and many places multiple times. But, nearly without exception, everybody is incredibly friendly and eager to share their travel stories and make recommendations of where to go. There is never a shortage of people to join up with for meals or any of the many activities on or off the ship when you choose to do so. In fact, since this is a smaller ship, I often find it a bit challenging to just get the time for a quiet meal or the solitude to read a book out of the cabin. The number of guests so far has ranged between 170-190.
CAPE TOWN
Our first landing spot was Cape Town, which is teeming with a new species of mammal we had not yet encountered – humans! So, after a month of seeing practically nobody at any of our destinations, we landed at a regular city, and a beautiful one at that. It sits on the southern coast of the continent with beautiful views, sparkling beaches and a well-planned waterfront area of modern stores and activities. The main landmark here is Table Mountain that towers over the city and provides a haven for many local plant and flower species. The other striking part of the city is the prominence of memorials and mentions of Nelson Mandela, who served many of his 27 years in prison in nearby Robben Island. The history of apartheid here is impossible to miss and is the main theme of any local historical exploration.
We spent one day here doing a private van tour with two other couples and visited the Cape of Good Hope and other scenic areas. Combined with Cape Horn in South America, we have now been cape to cape. Part of the tour was a visit to Boulders which is home to a local colony of African Penguins.
GAME RESERVES
The last four days here were focused on visiting local game reserves, one of the highlights of the trip. We made it to four destinations and am sharing a long series of pictures from those locations. These reserves, and national parks, have been specifically created either privately or publicly to save these animals from extinction and at the same time encourage revenue from ecotourism as a way of providing jobs and placing pressure on limiting poaching which continues to this day. I hope you enjoy these images half as much as I enjoyed taking them.Â
Saint Helena
March 20 – March 22
South Georgia
March 12 – March 16
United Kingdom/Ireland
Jun 2 – Jun 21
We traveled around Ireland, Scotland and a handful of island groups to the north and the west of the UK towards Norway or Iceland.
We discovered amazing gardens on an island called Tresco in the Isles of Scilly; amazing history on an island called Iona; thousands of puffins on an Island called Lunga; fabulous birdlife on the Shiant Islands; beautiful scenery in the Shetland and Orkney Islands. We continued to have amazing weather that allowed us to enjoy a number of island hikes or zodiac rides close to majestic rock formations with huge bird colonies. There is a lot to share here so I have divided this section of the voyage into different pages. Some pages are primarily bird photos, so could be kind of boring for you readers.
Isles of Scilly, off southwest corner of Britain
– beautiful Tresco botanical gardens
Iona – Hebrides Islands, Scotland
– the medieval Iona Abbey and nice scenery
Isle of Man, between Northern Ireland and England
– the Drinking Dragon, nice scenery, the Chasms
Isle of Lunga, Scotland
– puffins, puffins and more puffins!
Ireland and Northern Ireland
– Malahide Castle, Wicklow country scenery, Dunluce Castle, Giant’s Causeway
Isle of Skye, Scotland
– Dunvegan Castle, seals
St Kilda Islands, Scotland
– Centuries old settlement abandoned in 1930 as uninhabitable; birds
Shiant Islands, Scotland
– birds and seals
Other Scottish Islands
– a little bit of everything: archaeological sites, scenery, birds
Iceland
June 23 – June 25
Iceland/Greenland
June 27 – July 5
Iceland
We left the North Atlantic islands and arrived in Iceland to rainy weather. Unfortunately, the rain hardly ever stopped during our time there which is a shame. We were in Iceland five years ago and drove around the island for nearly two weeks to mostly good weather where you can really appreciate the beauty and diversity of the island.
We were only here for a couple of days and with the rain I only have a handful of photos to share. One day ashore was canceled because the winds prevented us from taking the zodiacs off the ship.
One thing we noticed was that the capital city of Reykjavik had a large number of new hotels and other buildings. Iceland has seen such an influx of tourists that they have been struggling to accommodate them. From our memory of the last trip, no place is more indicative of their struggles to handle all of the people than the airport.
The main trip here was a 4×4 jeep trip into the Iceland countryside. These vehicles were huge and could auto-inflate and deflate the tires as we drove to handle the various terrain. Nothing seemed to be too rough for these things. We did pass a herd of reindeer on the trip, but they ran off before we could get a good photo. Here is a sample of photos from the trip, but it really does not do the country justice.
We visited one of the main geothermal plants that pipe water all the way to the city. The only fossil fuels used in Iceland are the gasoline for the cars.
Here are a couple of photos from our previous trip to Iceland to provide a tiny sample of its real beauty.
Greenland
The largest island in the world contains a massive ice sheet that makes the interior of the island uninhabitable. The few cities on the island are on the coast, except for Kangerlussuag which houses the only commercial airport on the island and sits at the end of a fjord. It is where we ended our cruise and flew on a charter to NYC.
The country remains a protectorate of Denmark and relies on them quite a bit for financial assistance and skilled labor. The resident population of the island is 90% Inuit. The population of the entire country is only 57,000.
We took a walking tour in the capital city of Nuuk (you could walk from one end to the other in an hour) with a 20-year old woman as our guide. She had been going to school in Canada for the past two years and did not seem to have any desire to remain in the country for the rest of her life. She indicated that most young people feel this way as there is really nothing for them to do in the country and as you can imagine, life is very hard here. She still adhered to some of the local culture, not the least of which was being proud that she had successfully hunted seals and wanted to hunt a caribou this summer. The killing of seals, whales and caribou is very much ingrained in the culture here for both boys and girls and is used quite a bit for food. They even had whale blubber to eat at one of the hosted lunches. Only a few brave souls tried it.
We spent a week going around the south and western parts of the island exploring as many of the fjords that the weather and ice flows would allow. The scenery is certainly spectacular and similar to Antarctica but we saw very little wildlife there, with the exception of a few local birds. We wondered if most of the whale and seal population had been killed off. We did pass one or two musk ox on a tour to a glacier one day.
Here are some photos…
Eva and I did our “polar plunge” into the waters shown in the photo below. Yes, it was cold…. Yes, we have photos that we will keep to ourselves (smile).
As night fell on the final days of our cruise, we were incredibly grateful to be fortunate enough to have taken such a voyage. We were reminded that the simplest things are the most amazing – a sense of the local history and culture, a wildflower in an otherwise barren landscape; a beautiful mural on the side of an unremarkable building; incredible cloud formations and sunsets; the local wildlife, and of course, the thousands of different species of birds that I came to appreciate. Time to go home…
Bye for now. Thanks for reading.
Mozambique
April 6th