Conclusions

I’m writing this more than two months later now, and it doesn’t seem that long ago. It’s really a great privilege to go to the places we’ve been to, and it really wouldn’t be quite the same if it became much more common. The economics of it all would demand large ships which couldn’t visit some of the more out of the way places we went to.

I think the highlights for me would be:

• Deception Island, the first volcano I’ve stood on.
• The Bransfield Straight; crossing over towards the Antarctic Peninsula.
• Brown Bluff on the Antarctic continent itself.
• The cruise in the ice around Snow Hill Island.
• The penguin colony at Salisbury Plain, South Georgia
  
• Fortuna Bay, South Georgia
  

Of the places we went to I would go back to all of them, with the exceptions of Buenos Aires and (possibly) South Georgia. The former would be better replaced by Santiago to see a different South American city, and the latter, whilst very interesting, is difficult to get to. It’s OK on a cruise ship, but from what I heard about conditions on the fisheries protection vessels and destroyers that are usually used to ferry official visitors down there, it could be really uncomfortable. Other than those, I think I’d like to see the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula and spend more time in the Falklands.