best Christmas Ever

As We descended the gangway into the zodiacs, everybody was so excited. Our whole group was laughing, joking, and generally just being "Those crazy college kids" The excitement was heightened by being in the most beautiful place in the world. Once we all laid eyes upon the icebergs though, we just stopped talking. There are no words whatsoever to describe the beauty and power of nature we've experienced. here is what we saw...

"The Ice Ship"

This is my favorite iceberg photo. It shall soon be a poster on my wall.

"Heart of Ice"

I literally, could not have been happier this day. I was exactly where I wanted to be and with who I wanted to be with. This iexperience raised many questions about the future and where I was going. It made me absolutely positive that I want to be a proffessional photographer and a counselor at the same time. I think the best thing about icebergs is that most of them are underwater. This can be an ultar hipster metaphore for life. The best is not yet revealed to us yet. These photos represent my undying excitement for life and the future of my friends, family, and self. Life is wonderful and nature is powerful and everywhere. I urge all who read these words to not waste one moment doing something you don't want to do. Go live a hard life full of love and curiosity.

As you can guess, I took WAY too many photos of penguins or "Penguinos" as I liked to call them. This penguin photo will always be my favorite. It is exactly as I saw the penguines. Silly, curious, and happy. The penguins live a happy life doing what they wayt to do.


After our amazing, life-changing, zodiac ride, we came back to the ship and there was a huge party waiting for us! This is all still on Christmas Eve by the way. Santa came all the way from the North Pole to wish us a Merry Christmas. It was great.

This is our Antarctica group.

The sun started to go down and eveybody proceeded to go into the ship to the bar and start the celebration. There was drinks, dancing, and lots and lots of fun. The sunset was the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen so We kept running back outside for photos. All in all it was a great party/evening. The sun only dort of went down, then it came right back up to greet the Christmas day In Antarctica. The final day we were in Antarctica we went to Deception Island, whic is an active volcanoe. This is also the place we chose to go swimming in the zero degree celcius water......it was very very cold.

I was so cold that I thought I was naked becuase I couldnt feel my bathing suit against my skin.

documentation

It's a little bit difficult to write or talk, for that matter, about Antarctica. I want to share my experience with my friends and family, but to fully do the story justice I need at least 30-50 minutes minimum to sit down and talk all about it. I have begun this post with every intention of sharing my Antarctica adventure story. Please keep in mind though, that it is a hard story to tell, because of the magnitude of the trip and its implications it had on my life. here goes...

I'd first like to say that all of my Antarctica photo are available on my flickr website which can be found here at this address: http://flickr.com/photos/fromthewillowtree
This page will be added to in the coming days with more an more photos organized into sets on the side of the page. My trip started in Miami, FL where I stayed with a lovely girl who is dating one of my best friends whom Im met both at Camp Lindenmere two summers ago. Erica and her mom showed me a great time in Miami and let me be a tourist on the beach. The next day, I went to the airport and met up with all my travel buddies. We hit it off right away and became great friends. The next day and a half consisted of our group flying 8 or 9 hours to Buenos Aires, Argentina, then another plane to Ushuaia, which is the southernmost city in the world hanging on the edge of South America.

Sasha, Teal & Me in the Tierra del Fuego national park

the water was very blue.

The departure form Ushuaia occured on deember 19th in the afternoon. We were all so excited to get out at sea! while were were on our ship, The Orlova many of us go seasick from the turmoltuous seas. Luckily, the ship's doctor providded us with seasickness medicine that the astronauts use in space. They made you feel very tired and drugged-up.

The departure

affects of drugs

On December 21st, we made our first zodiac landing and that was quite the experience. We walked down the gangway from the ship into the 10 person ruber zodiac. we went to shore and saw penguins, seals, and sea lions. we had to come back a bit early because the wind picked up and made the sea look liek this:

we were all so excited to be in Antarctica, that it was difficult to sleep for fear that were were missing something amazing. We all sort of became vampires in a way becuase of how little sleep we got. some more than others....

"the anguish of teal" or "The beautiful and the damned"

photo taken at 2:15 am Antarctcia time. needness to say, we were freaking out.


the next morning there were whales everywhere.

This is our group. I have gotten many questions about what I actually did in Antarctcia. Besides the amazing adventures to the sore to see the sights, my classmates and I all took an online class together over fall term. During this time, we had a midterm and a final. We all worked on presentations and research projects which we presented on the ship in the forward lounge. The projects had to do with our major. I gave my presentaion on the mental affects on a persons well-being while working at research stations in Antarctcia. More specifically, I focuses on cabin fever, seasonal affective disorder, and snow blindness. My classmates did a variety of topics ranging from history, biology, to politics. We are all basically Antarctic experts! We were also expected to complete Modules, or writing assignments in groups and individually. I did my mudule on ecotourism and a group project about invasive species in Antarctica where we interviewed crew and passengers about their knowledge about incvasive species proliferation and how much education had been given on the matter.

Now that the boring part is over, I can get back to the photos. Fron here on out, I will post my favorite photo from each day. Don't forget that all my Antarctica photos are available here: http://flickr.com/photos/fromthewillowtree

This was taken after leaving Devil island which had 100,000 breeding pars of penguins

I asked our expedition leader why there was a black line in that iceberg. he replied that ice acts much like rings in a tree, in that they preserve events like a time line. This piece of ice used to be a glacier that was near a volcano that blew its top. The black mark refers to the volcanic explosion where the area was covered in ash. neat huh?

View from the top!

The next day was Paulet island. That place had so many penguins that it actualy made me uncomfortable. I was all to reminded of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" way way too many penguins. Instead I shall share this photo of our captain planning the route through the islands.

I plan on writing extensively about icebergs later when I share the better photos, but for now All I must say is that ice, icebergs, and glaciers, are a photographers dream. The way tehy move and sound int he water is breathtaking and I could not help but to take literally hundreds of iceberg photos. They helped me practice composition. (The palce of objects in photos and their relation to the horizon or other objects) It was fantastic.

All this has been great, but I will do a seperate post for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. Those two days were literally the best days of my life and it needs its own story told by itself.

Endless Love,
Luke