So we have now joined the exclusive club of people who have visited all 7 continents on the planet - Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, North America, Australasia and Antarctica. We are following in the footsteps of of the great Antarctic explorers Shackleton, Drake, Amundsen, Scott and Magellan and we now perfectly understand why they risked life and limb to come to Antarctica repeatedly. Our own journey began by boarding our ship the MS Andrea in the port of Ushuaia to begin a 46 hour journey crossing the Drake Passage, one of the most fearsome bodies of water in the world. This is where the mighty Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans collide to create extreme and unpredictable seas. The infamous Drake Passage was named after Sir Francis Drake who discovered the passage in his 1577 expedition aboard the Pelican. Crossing the passage is often referred to as the "Drake Shake". More than 100 ships have been lost to these tumultuous waters. The journey lived up to its expectations with large swells and very rough seas culminating in passengers being thrown off their feet, tables flying across the room and all accompanied by the orchestral melody of crashing crockery and shattering glass. Sleeping at night posed its own problems as the beds rolled from side to side it was hard to avoid being thrown out. Fed up of holding onto the bed all night, Chris's answer was to throw the mattress on the floor and sleep there, where no further harm could come. The ships Doctor (a Croation vascular surgeon!) had thoughtfully packed his bag with a bulk purchase of seasickness pills - all gratefully received by the passengers. The only other hint that we may be in for a rough crossing were the thoughtfully placed sick bags inside and outside our rooms. Thankfully, none of which were needed by the old salty sea dog Hosey family. The first indication that we had reached the Antarctic was the drop in sea temperature to 0 degrees C. Once this had been achieved the competition was on for the first siting of an iceberg - in our opinion unfairly won by Ivan the Ice Captain who had radar to his advantage! Antarctica is a landscape of ice, rock, water and sky and is the most isolated place on earth. When you look at it on the map it resembles a stingray, with its tail snaking up to Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of Argentina. Without that it is roughly circular with a diameter of 4,500km, a surface area of 14.2 square km and 30,500km's of coastline, making it about one and a half times the size of the USA. About 98% of this continent is covered by ice and in some places is 3 miles deep. Unbelieveably, is holds 90% of the worlds ice and 70% of its fresh water. If it were a country it would be the second largest behind Russia and if all the ice melted the seas of the world would rise by 70m. However, the surprising thing is that it is also one of the driest places on earth, with the annual snowfall beiong equivalent to less than 5cm of rain per year. Around 200m years ago Antarctica was attached to Australia, Africa, India, South AMerica and New Zealand as part of a supercontinent called Godwana. By 40m years ago, through tectonic activity, all its connections with the other continents were broken and each land mass had pretty much drifted into their current positions. It was at this point that Drake Passage opened at the tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula and the Antarctic Conintent began to cool significantly. The weather here can be fearsome, a testament to many sunken ships and failed expeditions. The wind can reach speeds of up to 320km per hour and in the most extreme places temperatures have been recorded as low as -89 degrees C. So, not surprisingly there are no indigenous people here. In fact no-one officially owns the continent, though several have staked a claim incase any future interests are discovered. Throughout the whole trip to the area we saw amazing shapes of icebergs that had been carved by the erosion effects of the winds and the seas. Like the glacier we saw in El Calafate, the ice is a beautiful shade of blue, as all other rays of light are absorbed by the ice. There are some beautiful 'photos on the site of icebrg fields backed by the heady pink tinges of the setting sun, though to be honest you could easily read a book at 3am in the morning as the sun never seemed to completly disappear. We have to thank some of the other passengers and Expedition team as we have also used some of their photos from the trip - Doug, Hannah, Kim, Sonja, Nanette, d*** and Gustavo. The Expedition team also did a great job of keeping is well informed of the wildlife and glacial aspects by way of daily lectures on board. The schedule for any trip of the Antarctic is set by the sea, wind and floes of ice, which on our first day at the Peninsula proved a challenge for the expedition team to find a location that the ship could navigate safely. Eventually we were able to land on Half Moon Island for our first encounter with the amusing 'weeble' like penguins.The indigenous animals here are still relatively unafraid of people, despite the appalling whaling and sealing that was conducted here only 50 years ago, so it was easy to walk among them. As we walked along the beach towards the gentle snow slopes and avenue to the other side of the island, the penguins chose to keep a few feet away, waddling across the stones with their wings held out for balance. We could have watched them for ours (and on some occasions did so). They seem completly unsuited for the Antarctic terrain. They only come here in the summer months when the melting ice sheet gives them access to their rookeries (breeding grounds). They are athletic and streamlined , in the water, swimming up to 150km per day in search of food for themselves and their young. It is a different story on land. Their tiny webbed feet have little flexibility for the steep climbs to the exposed rocks at the top of the snow covered mountains where they hatch their eggs, though somehow they manage to make their way up the penguin motorways, carved out by successive climbers. The trip down is equally hilarious, with many falls along the way, with many eventually choosing to slide down the mountain on their stomachs, using their feet as propellors on the snow to help them on their way. We saw 3 of the 5 types of penguin resident in Antarctica, the Gentoo, Adelie and Chinstrap, each as cute as each other. They are also friendly to those patient enough to sit a while and watch, growing increasingly curious and wandering up to have a closer look at you. As we walked over the ridge of Half Moon Island, we weren't quite prepared for the depth of snow that covers pretty much most of the places that we visited in the area. Every step had us sinking to our knees and sometimes waist in soft snow, before hitting the ice beneath - not an easy task when you are walking up hill - though the welly's were a good purchase before we set off. Over the ridge we came across our first bunch of seals, basking in the sunshine, with the snow cap laid out as their blanket. We kept a respectful distance to all the seals we came across. Whilst only the Leopard seal has any record of aggressively killing a human, it is still not a good idea to get in the way of a 3 tonne mass of blubber hurtling itself towards you in fright. Most of the time they stay peacefully asleep, perhaps daining to open an eye or raise they heads at the figures standing around them, but rarely did they move. We were fortunate enough to see 3 types of seal whilst we were there, the Weddell, the Crabeater and the Leopard. All were as beautiful in the flesh as the doe eyed photos you see at home ( though we admit that the Leopard did have an evil grin!) The scenery of all the places that we visited on the Peninsula was stunning, awesome, overwhelming - there isn't an adjective to describe the majesty of this place. The icy glacial waters are backed by regal snow capped mountains that rise up from the snow and ice below and reflect the light from the summer sun to show a pristine land, untouched by the rubbish and pollution of every day life. Long may it stay like this. That night the weather changed dramatically as we set sail around the Peninsula again. Force 10 gales (55 knots) lashed the ship causing us to list badly to starboard side. To put this into context, the highest score on the Beaufort Scale is a 12, which is a hurricane. Chris tried to brave a trip to the top deck but found it impossible to move against the force of the wind. He decided to head back to the bridge to ensure the Captain had everything under control, as this was the crews first trip to Antarctica and their first on a passenger ship!. The next day we were able to take advantage of a rare opportunity and head into the Weddell Sea, which is normally covered by sea ice most of the year round. It was in the Weddell Sea that Shackelton's ship, the Endurance, was crushed by the sea ice. Ivan the Ice Captain regaled a story to Chris of how even a modern day ice breaker in the Arctic, befell the same fate and was sank within 7 minutes when the ice reformed around the ship, crushing the hull. So in the spirit of adventure we proceeded to Devils island and Pavlett island in the Erebus and Terror Gulfs. This gave us an opportunity to penguin spot and hike some of the ridges. The following day we were again reliant on the skill of the Captain and the crew as we arrived at Deception Island. The entrance to the bay is only 250m wide and is known as Neptunes Bellows, because of the winds that blow across the entrance. To make matters more difficult it is necessary to aviod a submerged rock, less than 2m below the surface, in the middle of the bellows and the wreck of the Southern Hunter, a British whaling ship that ran aground avoiding the Argentinian Navy in 1957. Our first port of call was Pendulum Cove, where we performed the crazy act of a 7am swim in the icy Antarctica waters! However, this wasn't quite as mad as it may sound as Deception Island is the home to a dormant volcano that warms the waters on the edge of the beach. Nonetheless, it was damn cold. Later on we climbed the craters of the volcano, at Telefon Bay, seeing the luna landscape with smoke still rising from the volcano craters, that last erupted in 1971. Further round the island was Whalers Bay, which was used as a whaling station and which ceased operation in 1931. However it was used by the British as an Antarctic station until 1967 when a volcanic eruption forced a rapid evacuation. As we headed to Selvick Cove, for our first landing on the continent itself, we spotted Orca's (killer whales) out at sea. Their huge black dorsal fin would break the waters as they dived for food in the depths below. They are actually the largest member of the dolphin family, rather than whales, and commonly eat penguins and seals, though will hunt together in packs to attack and kill whales. Next step was Cuverville Island, to see the 5,000 pairs of breeding Gentoo penguins. After a steep climb through the knee deep snow we were afforded amazing views of the pack ice and fantastic icebergs, sculpted by the sea and wind. The Antarctic ice sheet is basically the iceberg factory of the Southern Ocean. Over 2,300 cubic km of ice is carved from the ice sheet every year, creating up to 30,000 icebergs at any one time in the Southern Ocean. Up to 70% of the icebergs created are more than 1km in length and there are around five superbergs which are over 100km long. They have to be tracked by satellite so that ships in the area can be warned of their locations. The large icebergs are tabular in shape and show 30/40 m of ice above the water and 300m of ice below it. Many of the icebergs circumnavigate the Antartic continent but all the big ones eventually move their way to warmer northern waters, breaking up into nothing over 3/4 years. That evening we were invited to the second wedding of our trip, as two of the ships passengers, Jessica and David, tied the knot in Orne Harbour, on the Antarctic mainland. It was strange to see the bride and groom and guests, waist deep in snow, as they braved the cold to exchange vows. Carol weeped throughout as the Croatian Captain declared them 'man and wife' under the laws of Liberia, whilst standing on the Antarctic Continent. As Chris had become the ships unofficial Chief Technical Officer, fixing peoples' cameras, the ships sound system and peoples computers, he was asked to be the videographer 'for the ceremony. As the glorious sunshine we had enjoyed over the last few days continued, we headed through the Gerlache Strait to Enterprise Island. Here we saw the sunken whaling ship Gubernorn, which caught fire with a full cargo of whale oil and the crew had to scupper the ship to put out the fire. The ship still contains the original harpoons with explosive heads, used for catching their prey, an example of which protrudes through the hull. That same day we had the greatest fortune of all and had our ambitions realised for this trip, by seeing Hump Back and Minke Whales. The Hump backs were just off the bow of the ship when we spotted them spouting before giving a giant flip of their tail before diving to the depths to catch their feed of krill. Thankfully they move much slower than many other whales so we were able to catch some great photos of them. Later in the afternoon we rode out in the Zodiacs (inflatible boats) to take a look at the coastline glaciers when we spotted a Minke Whale. These are much smaller and faster than the Hump Back, but also surprisingly very playfull. Our three Zodiacs came together in the water and the Minke took it in turns to skim around each of us having a good look at us. At one point it came within a foot of our boat, no more than a foot below the surface and turning on it's side, it gave a piercing glare to each of us as we swooned to look at it over the side of the boat. That evening, we set sail back to Ushuaia, with very heavy hearts, sad to leave Antarctica and the great Company of the many new friends we had made on board. But we have promised ourselves that one day we will return. Now it is onto a new country and all too soon a new continent.