14 Mar 2017

The Journey Comes to an End.

Our Final Blog for the southern season. Tomorrow morning (the 15th March) we will arrive in Lyttelton. Passengers and staff will disperse to their families and homes around the world. The Spirit of Enderby will go into dry dock in Lyttelton for its annual survey and maintenance before starting its voyage back through the Pacific and into Russia.

As I reflect on this last expedition .. there is only one way to describe it .. absolutely amazing in every possible sense. We have achieved so much, seen so much, experienced so much and in the course of doing that we set a new world record for the furthest  south for a vessel.  The thousands of photos taken and the entries in the personal journals and logbooks will tell of an amazing story. It is a story of a journey to the historic heartland of Antarctica where very few people have been privileged to visit, it is a story of Penguins (we have seen 10 species of Penguin on this one expedition), of whales and seals, of ice and of icebergs and of albatrosses and seabirds. This expedition has fulfilled the lifelong dreams of all those who participated but it has also created new dreams and new friends…. that is one of the joys of travel.