The Great Southern Ocean
The old English noun ‘travel’ (in the sense of a journey) was originally the same as ‘travail’ (meaning ‘trouble’, ‘work’ or ‘torment’). “The traveler was an active man at work… The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sight-seeing’, expecting everything to be done for him.” As we near the end of our voyage of discovery we well understand the subtle difference between the two. We traveled in the wake of explorers who came to uncover the secrets of Antarctica. Men like Charcot, Cook, Mawson, and Shackleton all sailed these waters in the name of science and of discovery. We made our own scientific observations. We saw several species of marine mammals but perhaps the most exciting of all was the sighting of two blue whales. With a vast collective experience of expeditions to the southern oceans no one on board had seen blues here before. Many of our guests participated in the census conducted by our Oceanities representative. The data collected by this non-profit organization helps to establish baseline information valuable to a number of organizations with an interest in the future of Antarctica. Our own Endeavour is indeed an exploration ship. We have state of the art sonar equipment that allows us to go into uncharted waters and we visited places other ships would avoid. The sounding data collected aboard the Endeavour is incorporated into the new navigational publications of the British Hydrographic Office.
Captain Cook’s ship, Endeavour, was the flagship for one of his voyages of discovery. This model of his ship greets us each time we enter our dining room. He sailed tens of thousands of miles discovering new land and charting new coasts and while he never sighted Antarctica he reached 70° south latitude and he had little to say about ‘Terra Australis’. He felt that no one would ever venture that far south again and that there was no benefit in doing so.
We found quite the opposite! We were fortunate to encounter five species of whales and two of dolphins. We saw seven species of penguins numbering in the millions, five species of seals and a great variety of sea birds. For many of us perhaps the most spectacular and compelling sights were the hundreds of icebergs in every size and configuration imaginable. We leave the Southern Ocean and The Great White Continent with new perspectives and a sense of wonder, the rewards we bring home with us greater that the sum of all our photos.
The old English noun ‘travel’ (in the sense of a journey) was originally the same as ‘travail’ (meaning ‘trouble’, ‘work’ or ‘torment’). “The traveler was an active man at work… The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sight-seeing’, expecting everything to be done for him.” As we near the end of our voyage of discovery we well understand the subtle difference between the two. We traveled in the wake of explorers who came to uncover the secrets of Antarctica. Men like Charcot, Cook, Mawson, and Shackleton all sailed these waters in the name of science and of discovery. We made our own scientific observations. We saw several species of marine mammals but perhaps the most exciting of all was the sighting of two blue whales. With a vast collective experience of expeditions to the southern oceans no one on board had seen blues here before. Many of our guests participated in the census conducted by our Oceanities representative. The data collected by this non-profit organization helps to establish baseline information valuable to a number of organizations with an interest in the future of Antarctica. Our own Endeavour is indeed an exploration ship. We have state of the art sonar equipment that allows us to go into uncharted waters and we visited places other ships would avoid. The sounding data collected aboard the Endeavour is incorporated into the new navigational publications of the British Hydrographic Office.
Captain Cook’s ship, Endeavour, was the flagship for one of his voyages of discovery. This model of his ship greets us each time we enter our dining room. He sailed tens of thousands of miles discovering new land and charting new coasts and while he never sighted Antarctica he reached 70° south latitude and he had little to say about ‘Terra Australis’. He felt that no one would ever venture that far south again and that there was no benefit in doing so.
We found quite the opposite! We were fortunate to encounter five species of whales and two of dolphins. We saw seven species of penguins numbering in the millions, five species of seals and a great variety of sea birds. For many of us perhaps the most spectacular and compelling sights were the hundreds of icebergs in every size and configuration imaginable. We leave the Southern Ocean and The Great White Continent with new perspectives and a sense of wonder, the rewards we bring home with us greater that the sum of all our photos.
