The heart of the Road Scholar Antarctica tour is a 9-day voyage on an “Expedition Class” ship, the Ocean Victory.  The ship’s schedule is fixed; when it departs the dock, there is no taxi or flight to catch it at the next stop– “that ship has sailed”.

Road Scholar knows that travel arrangements to reach the gangway and board the ship can go awry, especially for international flights to destinations with unreliable services.  So they structure their tours to include a few days of activities before boarding in order to resolve any such problems.  And in fact, one of our tour group members had a flight cancelled in the U.S. (for harsh weather) and required an additional two days to join us.  On top of that stroke of bad luck, her luggage was lost, and she was forced to purchase all the clothing she would need for a visit to Antarctica during the few hours she had access to stores.  Fortunately, the departure city, Ushuaia, is a supply center for expeditions to the Patagonian mountains, and the equipment she needed was readily available (albeit at elevated expense).

Ushuaia is a town on a waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Beagle Channel, which hosts a protected harbor for ships working their way around Cape Horn.  It is a center for tourist ships and is known as the gateway to Antarctica.  The ships are resupplied here and take on a shipload of passengers (in our case 164, 23 of whom are in our Road Scholar group), all excited to be heading to the last continent.  

Ushuaia is the southernmost city on Earth, and takes pride in its moniker, “Fin del Mundo”, the End of the World.  And here we were, about to go beyond!

Here is a photo album that shows our first day onboard the Ocean Victory :

And for those who can’t get enough of someone else’s travel photos, here is a link to the full set of them: