If the Fed vacation in a sunny and cosmopolitan resort, if you're looking for a greenfield site in the only piece of the planet who do not belong to anyone they want what Bill Clinton that the Antarctic is «the place that would like to visited more than anyone else ». But surely the trip to South eschatia Blanc is a destination curiosity imagination.
Breaks blanket
Heat underwear, waterproof trousers, socks double, double gloves, boots oreivatikes, antianemiko jacket, skoufos, scarves, sunglasses and a lifebuoy is necessary accessories for the 18-day magical, romantic and challenging journey. And around 12,000 euros including the return to Greece.
First we go to London and from there we arrive by air in Buenos Aires. Then with another plane fly to Santiago de Chile. We charter with the Falkland Islands and finally we are on the ship that will take us two days later, on the Antarctic peninsula.
The Antarctic is the fifth largest continent with the highest altitude, the less water and lower temperatures in the world. Covered by ice arriving at a depth of up to 2.5 kilometres pressing in many cases the Earth's crust to fall. Surrounded by South Frozen Ocean, which separated from the Antarctic parallel. Covering an area of fifty million square kilometres, as far as 1 / 10 of land on Earth and 1 / 10 of the oceans. The 98% of the area covered by ice-90% ice whole world is here! The thicker ice bank reaches 4,800 metres, forming the youngest aged 150,000 years and older is 3 billion years. It has been estimated that if some elionan the endless glaciers would increase by 70 metres to sea level.
The temperatures of the frozen continent reach -123 degrees Celsius. Winds pneoun intensity of 300-400 kilometres per hour. It is dark half time. The summer sun combines with the east without mediate west. It is more cold and from the top of Everest. It is more dry and the Sahara. Located in the dark eight months a year.
When the sun appears again and transparent light of Antarctica covers the vast area, the region does not seem so bad.
When the sun appears again and transparent light of Antarctica covers the vast area, the region seems not so bad
Outside, on ice, the silence is so complete you can hear the blood passes through your arteries. What tourist will want to travel in this isolated section of the Earth, the icy waters of the South Pole and anametrithei with icebergs? However tourism in Antarctica is in bloom. Rising steadily in the list of popular tourist destinations. The past decade has increased by 500% and the upward trend is maintained. Ten thousand people traveled by ship in the Antarctic last «tourist season», which lasts four months there, and the summer, from mid-November to early March.
Most go with cruise ships starting from South America. Prices start at 2,695 euros in standard cabin in the "M / V ORLOVA" for 11 days. Others arrive by air in 14 hours from Australia. It is not a small thing to swim in the freezer, make climbing the icebergs, dokimazeis sea kayak or make progress with several days skiing in the South Pole. Nowhere on Earth can not travel to such an extent latitude - 54 from the south to 69 the southern and comments directly to changes in temperature, ultraviolet radiation and water. Dozens of cruise ships carrying tourists, together with a decommissioned Russian ice-breakers and with increasing frequency.
First stop Kingk George Island
The first stop of our sea voyage was on the island Kingk George, 62 in the southern parallel. It has a combined population of 13 people, one woman and 12 men, all Polish, all scientists. Around 80 scientific teams diacheimazoun Antarctic. Thanks to the Treaty of 1959, which was initially signed by 12 countries, Antarctica remains an area «peace and science», remains exactly as it was before three million years, no one except the expanding ozone hole, the research stations and tourist boats.
The 1996 British consortium renovated the old base in Port Lokroi. This ruins of the decade of 1940, the old anchorage falainothiron, turned into a modern museum, which has a gift shop and mail. Now evolved and became one of the most popular attractions of the Antarctic, attracting 7,000 tourists each summer.
The fauna is one of the strongest attractions of the Antarctic. One defining principle and without end, the only color white, with the whiteness to create the illusion that the landscape is immobile. Icebergs that can reach the size of Belgium. Before 270 million years the region was full of forests, tundra, swamps and part of an immense continent with the name Gkrontvana.
Today the archipelago of islands Tera Firma is only Colobanthus quithensis, the southernmost flower in the world and Deschampsia Antarctika, the only grass of the White South. Fish are few because of overfishing.
Thousands of tons caught annually, mostly black cod and haddock Antarctic. But the marine ecosystem is threatened by over 100,000 tonnes of krill a year, a tiny plasma resemble shrimp and a main food of newborns pigkouinon.
More than 1,300,000 whales have been killed in 20 century. From the forty species of birds 90% do not fly and are pigkouinoi. Approximately 75% of its spend their lives at sea but reproduce on land. The couples are monogamika animals and spend many years together. Also believe in equality of the sexes because male and female epoazoun eggs in the series. Inside the water moving at speeds up to 12 kilometers time. The seals are 6 types: Both birth ashore the fur seal and sea elephants and 4 species breed in ice.
Imperial (and certainly impressive) pigkouinoi, albatrosses, seals, whales megapteres, thalassovates, sea Leopards. Special guides, as geologists, Geographers and biologists will tell you that zefgaronoun the albatross, seals and pigkouinoi. The male elephant seals (sea elephant) is the biggest seal of the world. The males weigh up to 3.5 tonnes and reach a length of 5 metres. The females are more elegant: weighing up to 900 kg and not exceeding a length of 3 metres. The island Makouori there are thousands of royal pigkouinoi and pigkouinoi Antelie. The Imperial is fewer but excel in beauty.
In the region found deposits of anthracite, iron, mica, graphite, beryllium, gold, uranium, molybdenum, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, silver, titanium and natural oil. But because of special circumstances there seems to be no outlet for any exploitation of mineral wealth. Besides since 1991 has signed an international treaty under which suspended the farm until 2048.
In the Antarctic scientists with huge telescopes collect important information about what is happening on our planet. The area affected by the weather across the southern hemisphere and sea currents of the world. In addition serves as a marker for the ozone hole, observed for the first time in 1985. Employees at the South Pole with 250 planes arrive each summer. They are eight-hour flight from New Zealand by M c M urdo, the large U.S. base located on the edge of Antarctica. From there, another small aircraft type «The ercules» transports them other 850 miles in the heart of the continent, passing over the mountainous areas of Antarctica.
The aircraft landing on skis on the ice runway and the pilots keep their engines switched, as long as the supply. Italy, France and America have several billion. each year for their research centres. The heart of U.S. power is a geodiaitos dome (inside the earth), made of aluminum, painted blue zafeireniou, the amount does not exceed 15 metres. From flies over the American flag, surrounded by a forest of antennas and underneath a tunnel leading to six young heated buildings with doors, like those that have ... cabinets. From the scientific stations Ukrainian Verntanski basis, monitor the ozone layer.
The island of King George (950 kilometres from South America) have bases and Argentina, Brazil, China, South Korea, Uruguay, Poland, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic. Thanks to the sparse atmosphere the South Pole offers better visibility from Earth to space, so the astronomers have installed several telescopes. «From here we can look back 13 billion years», says features the astrophysical Jeffery Peterson.
Sunset in Antarctica
The average annual temperature is minus 49 degrees Celsius. Nothing works in this cold. The metal freezes, tools nekronoun. Friday However many people are working outside the station, trying to carry snow to have water or to maintain machinery and tools.
The isolation and darkness is devastating for the psychology of human beings. There is a depression for 72% of cases and anger and aggression for 65% of people who live there. During a winter in Antarctica, a Russian killed a colleague with an axe by ice on a row for a lot of chess (and not something similar happen again, the authorities banned the chess).
«Oh my God, this is the most awful part of world», wrote the Captain Scott, the calendar, in 1912, when it reached for the first time at the South Pole. Although since then has spent nearly a century, complete technological discoveries and scientific achievements, winter in South Pole remains awful and afiloxenos. The Antarctic continent is the highest and, together, the more cold, dry more and more wild. It is a deathly desert, which occupies one-tenth of the total surface of the Earth and where there is no trace of terrestrial life. The survival in this cold, even for a few days, is certainly a challenge. Water and ice, blue and tirkouaz in all shades.
A copy maps ancient Greek who designed the 1737 French academic Filip Bya, presents Antarctica consist of two islands, which was discovered only in 1958. The Greeks had earlier centuries ago… The term Erevos, homonym of the place where the dead went according to mythology, a height of 4 km above sea Ross. The journey may find your way in the yacht Golden Fleece (Chrysomalo Deras), which explores the waters for 30 years.
Shopping: You can get as enthymio the trip to the South eschatia shirts, cards, posters, caps, konkardes, ties, kaskol.
The best time to make the unusual trip is February. The warmest month of the year, namely summer. The temperature around minus 10 degrees. If you want to know how cold do in the South Pole Diadyktiakos place www.spole.gov is only as a click away. Other addresses on the Internet with useful information and fascinating images from the White South
