The first day at sea – on our way to Antarctica

After a late breakfast, we spent our first day at sea almost the whole day on deck (equipped with binoculars and telephoto lenses) looking for birds, whales and dolphins. Our captain Benni had already spotted penguins and albatrosses in the morning, which was one more reason to spend the whole day outside. However, we only saw a few seabirds and a group of dolphins in the distance.

Enjoying the day at sea

Dolphins ahead

The first day at sea was a mix between excitement for the coming weeks and and relaxation. For me, there is nothing better than feeling how the ship moves (and in contrast to larger cruise ships you can already feel it when the waves are only two meters high) – lying on deck in the sun, wrapped in a thick jacket and blanket is just great. And compared to cruise ships it was really relaxed on deck of the Midnatsol, no fighting for deck chairs and also no “reservation” of the chairs by towels or any other items.

Giant Petrel

Moreover, the deck chairs are not arranged one after the other, you just simply take a chair of the stack and look for a nice place to sit, so very straightforward and uncomplicated.

My anticipation increased even further when we went to an info session on kayaking in Antarctica in the afternoon (and also directly registered for the kayak trip as I could convince my husband quite fast to try it it). Since you never know what the weather in Antarctica is and how many kayak courses will take place, the order on the waiting list is made by drawing lot.

Sunset on deck

So I tried to hold back my excitement a bit as we didn’t know how many groups have the possibility to kayak and it which group we would be.

As always before a day on shore, there was a harbor information session in the afternoon, in this case on Puerto Madryn, a city in Argentina with 10,000 inhabitants which is considered the gateway to the peninsula Valdez. Our arrival was scheduled for 4 p.m. the next day – and if you are lucky you see lots of whales in the 4 hours before arriving at Puerto Madryn looking for the warm waters of the bay/strait.

The food on board

On our journey to Antarctica there were a bit over 430 passengers on board, so dinner took place in two shifts. Originally we were assigned for the first dinner group at 6 p.m. (at embarkation you get the information on dinner group and the table you are assigned to), but as this was too early for us to have dinner (especially when you take into account that the lunch buffet is huge and very delicious) we asked to change for the 8.30 p.m. dinner group, which was no problem at all.
 
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The food that is offered on board of the Hurtigruten ships is influenced by the Norwegian cuisine and just fantastic. As I have some food allergies it can sometimes be a bit complicated in hotels or restaurants, but Hurtigruten even has a solution for that. I already told them about my allergies when booking the journey and they have a system to track and consider this on board, so that sometimes I got the corresponding dishes in a slightly different form without the things I’m not allowed to eat. Also at the buffet the allergens in the different dishes were marked and there was always at least one nut-free cake for dessert (and anyway lots of food to choose from). Thus, as someone being allergic to some kind of food you do not have to worry about going on diet for three weeks, just tell Hurtigruten about it when booking and confirm it again on board. As you have to hand in your doctor’s certificate at embarkation to the ship doctor anyway, he will probably automatically ask you for that (in my case there was a huge, colorful post-it on our documents).

This was an article of our series “Southern Hemisphere Adventure to Antarctica”.
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