We catch up with our Antarctic reader as her journey draws to a much warmer close...
Wednesday 28th February
Freezing…! I woke up this morning after sleeping on the ice. No, not because I had passed out there after one too many, but becuase we had actually chosen to camp out on Antarctica overnight.
About 25 of us took 2 man tents and a sleeping bag each, armed with copius amounts of spirits (for medicinal reasons obviously - to keep us warm) and set up camp on the ice on a stunning part of the penninsular. I had literally 5 layers on (plus 2 hats!) and still woke up freezing. However, it was a great experience and probably my favourite of the whole trip, it was great to get a break from filming.
I took the sunset photo here, and the sunset went on for over an hour, it was incredible seeing the ice turning different colours.
We are leaving Antarctica for Drakes passage tonight!
Friday 2nd March
The last day of the trip and I am so looking forward to getting off this ship tomorrow!
We had a slightly worse crossing this time, but there were fewer casualties - I think most people must have found their sea legs.
Icebergs stopped floating past us as soon as we left on Wednesday and we only spotted land late this afternoon, so no great photographic opportunities sadly - this would have been a great time as we had nothing to do!
The Fujifilm F30 has held up incredibly well in the cold - I only charged it twice the whole 2 weeks. The video camera on the other hand didnt last 15 minutes and constantly needed batteries changing on the radio mics. There were no problems with condensation (again, unlike the video camera) - its great!
I am spending a few days in Argentina after this trip - I am looking forward to testing more functionalities of the camera.
From Cold to Hot
Its so good being in the sun again! Ben met me in Buenos Aires and we spent a couple of days there before heading up to Iguazu falls - they are spectacular.
This subtropical environment really allowed me to start playing with the camera, and I do feel I have improved slightly! The butterfly picture was taken with the macro setting (flower), the detail is beautiful - we never saw species 1-87!
I have also included an image of a toucan, I really liked the colour definition and also one of the falls themselves.
The most fun we had was with the underwater casing, the quality was great and the video option even had sound! I was particularly impressed that Fuji had managed to incorporate all the camera´s function buttons through the casing and it was so easy to seal.
I´m really looking forward to getting back and printing my photos. The last few I have been sending back not compressed and it is taking forever here on the local computers!!
