I already had a full day of zodiac riding and visiting the Antarctica Post Office but there was still a whole adventure ahead of me tonight.

On this type of cruise, the Antarctica In Depth cruise, your time down here is extended a couple of days over the more common Classic Antarctica cruise.

Originally when I was looking at what cruises I wanted to do I had always thought I’d be doing the basic Classic cruise because, well, frankly, it’s the cheapest option.

When I started asking about different tour companies if they had an overnight camping option, it became apparent to me that it just wasn’t available on the basic cruise and I’d have to book the more expensive In Depth cruise.

Which is what I did because, well, for me, camping on an Antarctic island is an experience of a lifetime so I ponied up the $500 plus dollars and now the day had arrived.

Anticipation

After our daily recap meeting, the dining area was opened up to us.

Time to fill our bellies before heading onto land for the night.

Because of a time crunch, instead of the usual multi course dinner we’d been receiving it was an Italian buffet instead.

There were both pizza and pasta stations which I just kind of walked pass cause, well, you know, gluten.

And then there was a buffet of all sorts of great Italian foods.

Can’t go wrong with Italian, ya know – they just know good food.

I sat down with Mark a 67 year old retired guy from Toronto and naturally we got talking about retirement and travels.   It’s nice to be meeting new people each day.

The crew made it seem like we had to race through dinner as our landing would be imminent but it would be almost 2 hours until we got the call.

In the meantime, I just hung out in the cabin with Harper who tried valiantly to try to teach me the rules of canasta.

Now that is an intricate card game.

He and I would be sharing a tent tonight and thought that playing cards would be a good way to pass away the night.

Setting up

Finally at just before 8:30 we were called down to the gangway to board our zodiacs taking us to land.

There are 131 passengers on board and only space for 60 of us to sign up for camping.

I signed up when I booked my ticket way back in July so I was good and paid for but there were 6 people who were on the waiting list desperately hoping to be called.

Turns out 2 people backed out and so a couple of lucky souls joined us tonight.

Each person was paired with someone so there were two to a tent and we each were given a sleeping bag and one tent kit between the two of us.

My tentmate was Harper who I’ve also been sharing a room with this entire time.

He’s big into the outdoors and camping and I’m, well, let’s just say I’m an uber novice.

The poor guy was thrown into a leadership role as I kind of clumsily figured out what to do.

But soon, with mostly Harper’s effort and a little bit of mine, we had managed to build our tent.

One by one, all thirty tents were erected in the marked out snow area the expedition team had designated for camping tonight.

The area was probably about 50 to 100 feet away from the shoreline and you could see penguins off in the distance.

In fact, while everyone was setting up their tents, a couple of penguins just decided to stop on by and walk through our camp.

It’s funny to see us all straddle the line between wanting to be up close to take photos and videos and also constantly backing away to give them the required 5m distance from them.

Once of the girls also had a “My 7th continent” towel that she shared with anyone who wanted to take a photo with themselves holding it up.

I hadn’t realized it until I actually started this trip but this is, indeed, my 7th continent I’ve travelled to.

Quite a feat to be sure but what’s really interesting is that quite a few us held up that towel.

A quick exploration

After everyone had set up their tents we all climbed up to the top of the hill north of the campsite.

Wow, what a view!

From up there our little collection of tents looked so small and the ship docked in the bay even smaller.

And, of course, there were more penguins just looking at us curiously.

“What is this species of humans clad in matching puffy red jackets doing?” they must be wondering.

Apparently just staring at you with big grins on our faces.

Back down the hill I christened the portable toilet that was set up behind a shed.

It’s affectionally called the “yum yum” and it’s basically a little grey plastic box with another “storage” box underneath it to collect, uh, stuff.

To your right is a makeshift snow wall for a bit more privacy, a roll of tp, and some sanitizer.

Let me tell you, peeling off layers and sit in the cold with your ass hanging out is quite an experience.

They also had another one setup in a spot overlooking the water but I opted for the less exposed one cause you know, I’m ever so modest.

By now I had almost drank my entire water bottle but luckily one of the other campers shared some of hers and filled me up.

Honestly, there was snow all around us so it wasn’t like there wasn’t a huge supply of water but the question is whether it was alright to eat.

I asked both our camp leaders and their answers were almost identical – “eat at your own risk”.

Well, that didn’t sound reassuring.

You may be wondering what the risk is.   Well, there is guano (or penguin poo) all over and you just never know if the fresh snow you see is really fresh.

Anyway, with me being somewhat risk adverse, I still haven’t eaten any Antarctic snow.

Bed time

Down here in November the days are long with the sun rising at 3:30 in the morning and setting at 10:30 at night.

It wasn’t long until it was 10:30 and the sun was setting in the sky.

Even when the sun goes down, however, the night sky really doesn’t get dark so a group of us just kind of gathered in the middle of camp and were chatting away.

I looked up after awhile and noticed there were only 17 people still up and about.

A few minutes later it was down to 7 and by 11pm it was just three of us.

Guess it was time for bed.

There would be no card playing tonight, just a bundled up sleep in a nice, toasty sleeping bag.

Harper was already asleep in the tent so I tried my best to quietly open the tent door, take off my boots, and go inside.

Next came the game of stripping off some of my outerwear and figuring out the best way to sleep in the sleeping bag.

Now, that’s easier said than done.

The tent had a floor and we were given sleeping pads, albeit kind of thin, so we weren’t sleeping directly on the snow but it was still a hard ground.

After moving around for a bit and trying a few different ways, I was finally able to find a somewhat comfortable sleeping style.

Yes, my feet were pretty cold but I felt like I would be able to manage to sleep like this.

Until 1:30 anyway when I had that huge need to pee.

Sigh.

Lying in the sleeping bag with the wind rustling outside knowing that there was just no way around it – I had to get up.

Out of bag.   Open tent door.   Put on boats.   Run to bathroom.

It was a process.

I will say it was kind of cool just walking, secluded, in the middle of the Antarctic.   Most original pee in my life, that’s for sure.

The rest of the night was kind of restless for me.

It wasn’t so much the cold as it was the hardness of the ground.   I just kept feeling pain on my sides when he would stay in any position for a prolonged amount of time.

A windy morning

Eventually 5am hit and both Harper and myself were up.

They hadn’t really specifically told us what time they were picking us up but we thought it would be around 5:30 so we started the process of breaking down our tent.

By now the wind had really picked up and turned the relatively mild -4C (9F) temperature to -13C (25F) with the windchill.

There’s nothing like trying to break down a tent in the cold and the wind.

Unclipping poles while holding down on the tent so it wouldn’t blow away was a good exercise on multi-tasking.

After about a half hour, we were successful in getting it all down and stored away.

Looking around I could see others getting up and starting to break down their tents as well.

People started lining up by the water waiting for the zodiacs to come to take us back to the ship so we joined the line as well.

And waited.

And waited.

Boy, it sure is cold out.

And waited.

Finally, at 6:30, the first zodiac arrived.

I took a rough count of where we were standing in line and, based on 10 people per zodiac, saw that we’d be in the 3rd one.

In the distance I could see a second zodiac and then a third leaving from the ship.

Oh, happy days!

By 7:00 we were all back on board greeted by the crew’s friendly smiles and a cup of hot cocoa.

Overnight camping in the Antarctica has officially been crossed off the adventure list!

Edit Note: I am currently still sailing in the Antarctica with limited expensive internet.   I’ll be uploading all my photos and videos into a gallery at the end of this post when I arrive back on land.