We boarded a cruise to ANTARCTICA (FULL SHIP TOUR)

Our own private balcony, this huge. I could do a cartwheel. I think we'd be excited about whatever.

We are doing right now.

But the fact that it's Antarctica and.

Our seventh continent, so surreal. I feel so grateful.

Me too. I can't wait.

We're Karen.

Nate.

We've been traveling the world full time for over four years. So far, this incredible journey has taken us to six of the world's seven continents. Now that we've reached our goal of visiting 100 countries, we're beginning the adventure of a lifetime to reach our seventh and final continent of Antarctica.

Three days ago, we left our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. And after a long time on airplanes, a short stop in the capital city of Argentina and then another short flight, we made it to Usua, also known as the southernmost city in the world.

Wow.

You can see the town of Ushuaia, the mountains, the Beagle Channel. And most importantly, our home for the next two weeks is out there.

One of those.

Seriously. Nate and I never have trouble sleeping, especially in big, fluffy hotel beds. But we could not go to sleep last night because we were just filled with excitement and nervous energy. Excitement because we're finally boarding the ship today and. And nervous because some of the roughest seas in the world lie ahead.

So even though we've already been traveling for the last few days, today is the official start of the expedition. We are about to make our way to the ship that we will be calling home for the next two weeks. We passed our coronavirus test. We're allowed to get on the ship. So it's actually happening. We going the right way?

I have no idea.

Just a quick secondary screening to make sure we don't have the.

Words we won't speak of. We have made it to the port, and apparently this is summer in Ushuaia.

I have these, like, really nervous dinners right now.

There's 1, 2, 3, 4, potentially 5 boats here that are going to Antarctica. You have this one, this one. There's. There's one back there.

This one, and the Hridian sky.

So this is the boat that we're gonna be on for the next two weeks. It's also the smallest boat.

She's a beaut.

Which feels a little scary right now as we're about to embark to Antarctica. But I think it's gonna be a good thing because it means less people on the boat. Less people on excursions. Yes.

Than.

Yeah. I always get really nervous when we're about to see the place that we're gonna live for a long period of time.

Here we go.

Is this your room?

No.

This is our cabin. Oh, my gosh, it's huge. And.

Our own private balcony. This huge balcony. This is great. Can you hear me? I could do a cartwheel. Oh, go.

This is nuts. Okay, okay.

Okay. Now let me give you a proper room tour. Our room is on the top deck, and that's because we booked very last minute. And the only thing available was one of the few penthouse suites on the ship, which we were not sad about. So let me show you around. This is our big, beautiful bedroom with.

Privacy, gardens.

Very shortly, we will be having our abandoned ship drill. So all crew involved in the passenger drill, if you could please proceed to your muster stations.

Yeah. Hurry.

In this corner we have this little vanity area with a big closet and a hair dryer. Love that. Over here, bathroom tour. Typical bathroom. Sink with running water, toilet.

Shower. Surprisingly big for a ship shower. Nice little amenities. Pretty uneventful bathroom tour, which is always a good thing.

Huge closet.

Yes.

Oh. Oh, this is awkward. The hangers are. Hold on. Frozen slippers. This is a real cruise. Love these things. So two weeks is a long time for us to be in one place. So I'm actually gonna unpack my stuff and use this closet, which is a huge deal. Last but not least, this is our living room. Most important thing in here, of course, is the espresso machine. And everyone on the ship got these really cool parkas and these giant waterproof boots. So I feel like if we forgot something, if all we wore, put clothes on our back with these, I think we would survive.

This means that the captain would like to muster all passengers to the muster station.

It's only a drone.

Four. You would die.

We ask you now to collect your life jackets from your cabins. The life jacket is equipped with a whistle and light.

Oh, no lighting.

Defect of your life jackets.

I undid this, though.

Oh, she doesn't have to use one of these. Might not make it.

We completed the safety briefing, we completed the emergency drill, and we have officially departed for Antarctica. These mountains are the last sight of an inhabited continent that we are going to see for the next two weeks.

Two weeks is a long time. But now it is time.

Give me the good stuff to take.

Motion sickness medicine.

I don't take care of them.

All right. Hope that works.

I think we should have taken that a little earlier. Theoretically, the water should be pretty smooth for the next few hours because we're going to be sailing through the Beagle Channel. It won't be till later tonight that we reach the Drake Passage. Where things could get interesting.

Wow, that bird is huge. Our first spot is wildlife.

Well, we're about 30 minutes in and we should be wearing our waterproof jackets that we got.

It's already getting so cold and windy.

This weather just feels right.

It does.

So incredible.

I've never been so excited to be so cold.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Well, after we set sail, we enjoyed a delicious dinner and now it is already 10pm I think Kara's dramming medicine is kicking in. So we're gonna call it an early night. But we are supposed to exit the Beagle Channel sometime around midnight. We're already feeling the boat rocking a little bit but I expect when we wake up in the morning that it will be a lot more noticeable.

Noticeable? It's pretty noticeable right now. I think it's rocking me to sleep, like I feel fine. I just.

We've heard we're supposed to have better than average conditions somewhere around 4 meter swells which sounds huge anywhere else but apparently for the Drake that's pretty great, pretty tame.

Can't wait to see what that feels like.

Okay, tomorrow officially starts our Drake crossing. The part of this trip that I was most nervous about but also kind of like weirdly excited to just get to experience. See you in the morning.

Good night.

Good morning everyone. It's a quarter to eight on Sunday 16th February and we're here sailing in the Drake Passage. It's an extremely calm Drake Passage but we do have some rolling of the ship due to residual swells. So do take care as you get up this morning. One hand for the ship, one hand for yourself. It's a force four on the Beaufort scale which means that we've got a moderate breeze, we've only got two metre swells and it's a grey morning at seven degrees centigrade. Breakfast is starting up in 15 minutes time. We'll see you there.

Morning coffee is ready.

Good morning from the Drake Passage. We woke up this morning with no land in sight in in any direction. They say the swells are about 2 meters this morning, which in the camera doesn't look like much, but it's enough to make you feel very uncoordinated. There's been several times already where I've gone to take a step and either either the ground is closer or further away than I expected. There's a little bit of rain this morning but other than that it is an absolutely beautiful first day. Now we've been saying to Drake like you should know what we're talking about, but Honestly, I didn't know what it was until I started researching this trip. So I thought I'd take just a second to tell you exactly what it is and why it's a little daunting to travelers. The Drake is the body of water that sits between the tip of the South America and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Wow, that is a big bird. It is almost 600 miles long and it's the convergence of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Southern Ocean. So it's the place where all of those currents meet. And when they do meet, it has the potential to become.

A washing machine.

We shouldn't see land again for 48 hours, which means we have a lot of time at sea. So there are some talks going on today about the wildlife that we're going to see and stuff. We're going to use our free time to show you around the rest of the ship, starting with the top deck. This is the sixth floor where our room is. Still getting my seat lights. This floor is mostly cabins except for at the very end.

This is the sun deck. I don't think I'm going to be doing any sunbathing on this trip.

Cool. This is the 6 and 12 floor where it looks like they have all the kayaks and the. What do they call those? The zodiacs. Call them zodiacs.

Okay. It's cold.

And on the back of the. On the fifth floor is an outdoor bar that's not being used and an outdoor seating area which is all roped up for obvious reasons. The rest of the fifth floor is mostly cabins except for the very end. So this is the bridge where the captain is. And they told us yesterday that if this sign is red to leave him alone. But if it's green, then you can go inside and it's green. This feels so wrong.

You even have a coffee maker in here?

Yeah, it's one of the critical equipment.

Yes, it is.

It's working all the time.

Can I use the banana?

Oh, yeah.

Like, I get seasick in those so fast.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you for having us. Oh, yeah. Moving on. And on the fourth floor, there is the club, which has a bar, but most importantly, free coffee, tea and cookies 24 hours a day. There's also a library.

Which has computers and lots of books. There's no one in here reading. I just feel like I need to whisper because I'm in the library. Also, the fourth floor has the only deck that wraps all the way around. And they told us if you want some extra exercise, then 10 laps around equals mile we're going all the way.

No, keep going.

And the third floor is where we boarded the ship yesterday.

So there's a.

The little reception area, and the room behind me is the lounge, which is where we have all the free things. And there's a talk going on in there right now.

That's about it for the third floor. So now let's head down to the second and final floor of tour.

The front of the ship has a small hospital which hopefully we won't ever see.

Just in case. All of the hallways are lined with these, which is kind of an awkward transition to the restaurant where lunch is about to start.

This is our third meal on the ship, and so far, everything has been delicious. The restaurant is open seating, so you can sit wherever you want. There are some two person tables. There are some bigger group tables. We decided to sit by ourselves since we're making this video. But later we'll sit at a big table and make some friends.

It's getting colder. All right, we still have the whole afternoon ahead of us. We are going to attend a few of the talks, and we will pick this back up as soon as something interesting happens, which is hopefully sooner rather than later. Go, go, go, go, go, go.

Right here.

Oh, my gosh.

We are 38 hours into the Drake Passage, and we have just spotted our first iceberg.

I was not expecting it to be so close and so huge. It's, like, glowing.

That is crazy.

Wow.

Oh, it's chilly out here. Gotten a lot. Oh, it's snowing colder. It feels a lot more like Antarctica.

It looks like we are heading straight towards it right now, which makes me a little uncomfortable.

The wind is legitimately painful. Like, I have a headache from where I don't have a hat on.

This is amazing. Not only are we seeing our first iceberg, but we just saw a whale. What do you call it when they blow? We just saw a whale spout right in front of it.

I can't feel my face or my hands, but it was totally worth it.

Am I smiling right now? I can't tell you. What an incredible start to the trip. It's like the first iceberg pops up on the horizon out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden, there's a well swimming perfectly in frame right in front of it.

It was magical.

Although I do feel like the people that work on the boat are probably laughing. They're like, you're gonna see 10 million icebergs this week. And everybody's like, there it is. The.

Lamb. Ho.

Hi, little penguins. Oh, he's so cute.

That's what we smell as soon as we walked outside. There's literally just a penguin swimming through the water.

So cute.

Oh, everything is happening so quickly.

I can't wait to see more.

But after 39 and a half hours, we have spotted land for the first time. We made incredible time across the Drake Passage. It was supposed to take 48 hours, but we are just cruising past the Shetland Islands, which is our first glimpse of Antarctica.

Oh, wow. It's already really hot.

Yeah, I'm warm. Let's open the door.

So we just got word that because we made such good time across the Drake, we are actually going to get to step foot on land for the first time tonight. It wasn't supposed to be till tomorrow, but it's only 7pm here in Antarctica. The sun doesn't set to like 10 or 11 these days, so we're going out.

Carol's trying to get a little editing done, but she's also taking motion sickness medicine.

Did the Dramamine get the best of you?

I'm gonna make a rule that you can't do that before 8am.

Right now.

In the lounge we've got tea and cake and lovely afternoon tea. Lovely.

Set up some tea and.

Really heavy waterproof boots. This is our living room. Most important thing in here. This is our living room.

The people below us are gonna be like, what kind of animal is above us?

Right.

Okay. Don't kick the couch and don't kick the boots.

I'm seriously trying to say this like 10 times in our.

Okay, okay. I'm crying a little bit. Oh, it's warm in here.

Wow, I am so excited.

That's what I was thinking.

I can't believe this.

But then I was like, oh, it's just. Cuz it's been a month since we've done anything. My face is just hurting. I'm smiling. It's stuck like this.

Ah, it's so exciting. This is Antarctica. That's the new camera.

Very hard to hold still.