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Posts Tagged Antarctica expeditions

Chimu Adventures Launches Win a Trip to Antarctica Competition!

Jan 7

Posted by dillon in Antarctica Cruises | 2 Comments

Win Antarctica on the MS Expedition!

Win Antarctica on the MS Expedition!

Chimu Adventures has launched their ‘win a trip to Antarctica’ competition on their website. The prize includes a birth on an 11 day cruise to Antarctica on the MS Expedition including all meals, excursions, guides, lectures, port transfers and one night accommodation in Ushuaia, Argentina. Total prize value is GBP 4,929. To be eligible for the price, all people have to do is sign up to the monthly newsletter. For more details email info@chimuadventures.com, or click HERE.

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Penguins adapting for Survival in Antarctica!

Oct 26

Posted by dillon in Antarctica Cruises | No Comments

Antarctica is home to an amazing range of wildlife that has developed some incredible adaptations in order to survive the harsh conditions they face.

There are no mammals or birds that spend all year living on Antarctica. Penguins are the closest to permanent residents, and emperor penguins are the only animal on Earth that can survive temperatures as low as -50 °C.

Penguins are believed to have evolved from flying birds more than 40 million years ago. To live in the marine environment, they became more streamlined, developing waterproof feathers, short strong legs and webbed feet. Penguins walk upright because their legs are closer to their backs than their stomachs, which assist streamlining. Their flippers are wings that have become flat and broad, with the elbow joint and wrist nearly fused to make strong paddles.

To keep warm in the extreme cold, penguins have adapted in two ways; their physical appearance, and the way their bodies process energy.

Like all animals that live in very cold climates, penguins have large bodies and small appendages (feet, wings or flippers). By keeping feet and flippers close to the body, it is easier to keep warm. They have an amazing number of feathers (approximately ten per square centimetre), which are packed tightly together.

Penguins in Antarctica

Penguins in Antarctica

The physiology of a penguin has also adapted to the extreme cold. When it consumes food in winter, in converts most of the energy into keeping itself warm. However, when a penguin is a chick, it is kept warm by its parent’s body, and instead uses its energy to grow as fast as it can. As it grows older, it relies on its energy less for growing and more for warmth.

The colouration of penguins provides the perfect camouflage while they’re in the water. From above the water, predators find the penguins hard to see because they blend in with the dark depths of the ocean, and from below, predators see the penguin’s white stomach, which blends in with the surface of the sea and underside of icebergs.

Out of the water however, penguins are very conspicuous. Luckily for them, their only land predator is the leopard seal, which is deadly in the water but heavy and slow on the ice.

It is this lack of land predators that has made penguins the most successful animal species in Antarctica. There are around 24 million penguins in Antarctica and the sub Antarctic islands.

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The MV Ushuaia

Mar 18

Posted by dillon in Antarctica Cruises | No Comments

The MV Ushuaia is a steel hulled, ice-strengthened vessel built originally for oceanographic research. She was recently converted to passenger voyages. Navigation and communication equipment has been newly upgraded and cabins were refurbished to provide comfortable accommodations for Antarctic expedition cruises.

MV Ushuaia

MV Ushuaia

The Ushuaia holds 80 passengers which places her well amongst other expedition ships. Small enough to land all passengers on shore at any one time, she is also larger than the 50 passenger vessels allowing her to carry passengers at a lower cost. The Ushuaia has more than ample deck space for all passengers to view the passing scenery, as well as a large bridge where passengers can watch the ships captain and crew in action. She carries a  sufficient fleet of zodiacs to allow passengers to get ashore quickly.

Unlike many other expedition ships the Ushuaia has a dining room large enough to seat all passengers in one sitting, as well as a lecture theatre with capacity for all guests. Cabins are basic, but neat and tidy. Lower deck C cabins are the most economical and have a shared bathroom between two cabins. The next cabin category is a B cabin which benefits from a porthole also with shared facilities. A cabins have a porthole and private facilities. These 3 cabin types all are bunk bed style. Superior cabins and suites are located on the upper deck and benefit from large windows, and double or twin beds (some of these cabins can take 3 passengers comfortably). The Ushuaia is not a luxury ship but she is very comfortable and well built for Antarctic conditions. The crew onboard the Ushuaia have served on her for many seasons, and the expedition leader and captain have around 500 voyages to the white continent between them. With the boom in Antarctic tourism, it is difficult to find these days a more experienced crew, with first hand knowledge of sea and ice conditions, as well as having the intimate knowledge on where to go and when. All cruises depart from the city with the same name – Ushuaia, on the southern tip of the South American continent.

Chimu Adventures sells the Ushuaia on the Images of Antarctica 11 day Peninsula cruise. Prices start from $AUD 4,795 and we do have availability for the coming season in 2010/11.

She is deservedly one of our preferred ships for Antarctic Peninsula cruises, and one of our most favoured for Chimu Adventures Antarctica passengers.

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Ushuaia – The Most Southerly City in the World

Mar 3

Posted by dillon in South American Tours | 1 Comment

Chimu adventures’ Miles Buesst describes Ushuaia – right at the very bottom of Argentina.

Population: 74,000

No. of Irish pubs: 2

Ushuaia, as everyone knows, declares itself as ‘the most southerly city in the World’ and gateway for Antarctica expeditions. Its remoteness made it an ideal spot for a prison colony from 1884 to 1947: the inhospitality of the surrounding terrain was a sufficient deterrent to escape, just like Devil’s Island for the French or Tasmania for the British.

It also gives marketers an ideal opportunity for evocative names, one of the most notable being El Tren del Fin del Mundo – the End of the World Train – a narrow-gauge railway built by prisoners in order to help with the transport of materials, mainly wood, from the surrounding forest to the burgeoning town. Now, artfully converted into a tourist

Ushuaia

Ushuaia

attraction, it is a very pleasant hour-long journey through the Fuegino countryside, with a history of the train piped into the carriages with a trilingual voiceover: the English voice used is so posh, it would embarrass the Queen!

The train ride is combined with a trip to Tierra del Fuego (‘Land of Fire’ – another slogan-writer’s dream!) National Park, which is wonderfully located, abutting the Beagle Channel, the Martial Range, which are part of the Andes, and the frontier with Chile. There are countless sensational walks to be had here and a must on an Ushuaia tour; and this is also where the Pan-American Highway ends (or begins, depending on how you look at it), so be on the lookout for motor homes, cyclists or motorcyclists making this classic, trans-Continental journey. Their state of bedragglement should indicate whether they are starting or ending their journey!

Overall, the city is a wonderfully interesting destination and perfect for an Ushuaia stopover tour before or after an Antarctic expediton.

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