The Crossing to South Georgia

It took us four days of travel just to reach Stanley, the small capital of the Falkland Islands, where the boat trip started. From there we headed for South Georgia on the m/v Plancius. South Georgia sits about 900 miles east of the Falklands, and there's no airport, so a ship is the only way in. It's a little over two and a half days at sea with no land in between, at about 13 knots, which is around 15 miles an hour, in six- to ten-foot seas.

The seas were rough the whole way. A lot of people got seasick and stayed in their cabins until mealtime, and plenty skipped meals altogether. The tables were bolted to the floor and had rails along the edges. When the ship rolled, you grabbed the rail so you didn't tip over in your chair.

Getting around wasn't much easier. The walkways were narrow, and the stairs were worse. On a big roll you'd get thrown around like a rag doll, so you always kept one hand on a railing. If you didn't, the ship would pitch you into a wall without warning.

This was the first trip I've ever gotten seaskick. I put on a patch, slept it off, and was fine for the rest of the trip. Others weren't so lucky.

Most of the time I was in the observation lounge at the front of the ship. It had big windows, and people would gather there to talk and watch the waves go by. It's hard not to think about Shackleton out there. In 1916 he crossed the Southern Ocean to South Georgia from Elephant Island in a 23-foot lifeboat, and we were struggling to walk down a hallway.

On the morning of the third day, we saw the first big icebergs from the deck. After that, there were a lot of them. Some were the size of a bus, and some were the size of a city block. Watching them go by became the main source of entertainment.

Then South Georgia came into view. I wasn't ready for how mountainous it was. The peaks come straight up out of the ocean. They were so big that at first I didn't notice the penguins. When I looked closer, there were thousands of them, all over the beaches.