The following story was published this week in the New York Times. It’s amazing how technology allows us to dig deeper and deeper into the past. In this case to help discover how a volcanic eruption 3,000 years ago may well have reverberations today. Thera, or Santorini as we call it, where this huge eruption took place, is a stop on our Greece expeditions.

In the Mediterranean, Killer Tsunami’s from an Ancient Eruption.

by William J. Broad

Published November 2, 2009

“The massive eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean Sea more than 3,000 years ago produced killer waves that raced across hundreds of miles of the Eastern Mediterranean to inundate the area that is now Israel and probably other coastal sites, a team of scientists has found.”  Click here to read the article.

Photo is an aerial view of Santorini today.

For anyone interested in the natural history of Alaska or Antarctica, Kim Heacox is of “rock star” status. He was a Special Consultant for Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. And, with Shackleton: The Antarctic Challenge, published by National Geographic, he cemented his place as a Shackleton Scholar. Since 1985 Kim has written many articles for National Geographic magazine. And, he often joins our Expedition Teams as Naturalist on select Arctic, Antarctic and Alaska expeditions.

Kim wrote the essay that accompanies Paul Nicklen’s images in the National Geographic article Deadly Beauty, which we blogged about Tuesday. Right now Kim is aboard National Geographic Explorer just about to welcome the first guests traveling to Antarctica this season. He wrote an entry for the blog.

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“With snow down to the waterline in the Beagle Passage, and the white peaks of Tierra del Fuego bold against a blue sky, the National Geographic Explorer sails for Antarctica, Terra Australis Incognita, to begin another exciting summer season in Antarctica, the land of penguins, petrels and the alpha predatory among them, the leopard seal.

I had the good fortune to write the leopard seal essay that accompanied Paul Nicklen's stunning, prize-winning photos in National Geographic magazine, September 2009 issue. Paul had the nerve to get in the water with the seals, but he got shots unlike any taken ever before or since. I find that just approaching the seals on the ship, or in a Zodiac, motoring up quietly as they sleep on an ice floe, is hugely rewarding. The seal awakens, opens his massive mouth for a big yawn, and goes back to sleep, or slips into the water to transform from a static ice-bound animal to a snake in the sea, fluid, graceful, powerful. What the lion is to Africa the leopard seal is to Antarctica. We see them on every trip.”

-Kim Heacox

Award-winning travel writer Don George recently interviewed Naturalist and long time Expedition Leader, Michelle Graves. Click here to read the interview.

LEOPARD SEALS GET A BAD RAP

This is what we hear from National Geographic Photographer Paul Nicklen. Take a look at a 3' 36" clip, both photos and video, Paul shot while on assignment for National Geographic in Antarctica. The article Deadly Beauty -- Big, fast, sleek, and lethal, leopard seals prowl for penguins along the edges of Antarctic ice is published in the September 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine. Click here to view the photos.

Photo: Leopard Seal, Paul Nicklen

On Wednesday, November 4, guests embark National Geographic Explorer for the first Antarctica expedition cruise of the season. That’s exciting for everyone involved. Some crew members have taken this voyage so many times they must feel like migratory birds returning to the southern hemisphere. Here in the New York office we all wait for the first daily expedition reports to come in to find out what Explorer and her guests have gotten up to.

Click here and take a look at the expedition itinerary. You might decide to join legendary Astronaut & Space Explorer Buzz Aldrin who is traveling to Antarctica, for the first time, on our January 7 expedition.

On the last day of every expedition, we ask each guest to complete a Comment Card. Most do. They are very valuable to us. Comments let us know if everything is moving along nicely, if something should be reevaluated and they help us plan future expeditions. However, there was one card this week that really stood out. Comment Cards like this make all of us deliriously happy.

Question: How would you summarize your expedition?

Answer: “Great. Good. Excellent. Superb. Unequalled. Beyond compare. Superior. Top Notch. Top hat. Top dog. Tops the cake. Takes the cake. Takes the blue ribbon. Takes my breath away. Outshines the sun. Jumps over the moon. Sits on a star. Carries moonbeams home in a jar. Makes my day…Thank you.”

To the guest who wrote this – We love you, too.

Both as a Lindblad expedition, Viking Saga, and as a program on the National Geographic Channel. Secrets of the Viking Warriors airs Wednesday, November 11 at 9:00am. If you’d like even more information on the Vikings get the May 2000 issue of National Geographic Magazine. There’s an article on pages 2-27 titled In Search of the Vikings where NG Photographer Sisse Brimberg states, “They didn’t call him Erik Bloodaxe because he was good with children.”

If you have any questions about this statement, ask her. She’ll be on board Viking Saga along with Astronaut & NASA legend JIM LOVELL (May 11 departure) and DAN RATHER, Journalist & former News Anchor for the CBS Evening News (May 24 departure).

It seems that, if you take Viking Saga with us aboard National Geographic Explorer, you can probably ask any question and get an immediate answer…whether it’s about Vikings or anything else.

by Naturalist Richard White aboard National Geographic Explorer

In this modern world the speed of travel by jet airplane has compressed the distance between continents into a matter of hours. On board the National Geographic Explorer are approach is radically different. We are travelling at about 16 miles per hour instead of hundreds of miles per hour and gaining a real appreciation of the scale of our journey. There is also great pleasure in having the luxury of time to make the transition at a less hurried pace, although we are grateful for our engines pushing us steadily along rather than relying on sails and winds as many who made this journey before us would have done...

"Cruise Critic"  editors picked us as "Best for Adventure." That's a delight we didn't expect. Click here to go to their site.