{"id":2866,"date":"2013-01-11T16:39:16","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T04:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=2866"},"modified":"2018-09-03T11:26:44","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T23:26:44","slug":"field-notes-antarctica-program-goes-whale-watching-ice-camping-and-polar-plunging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/field-notes-antarctica-program-goes-whale-watching-ice-camping-and-polar-plunging\/","title":{"rendered":"Field Notes: Antarctica program goes whale watching, ice camping and polar plunging"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUIP\u2019s Julie Allan<\/a> writes: <\/i><\/p>\n

I have been to some pretty exotic destinations in my time\u2026Morocco, Poland, Japan and Russia to name a few. But I never ever expected to find myself whale watching, ice camping and polar plunging in Antarctica.<\/p>\n

\"Minke<\/a>

Minke whale entertaining the group<\/p><\/div>\n

In December, I was lucky enough to visit the highest, driest, windiest and coldest continent on earth with AUIP\u2019s Antarctica program<\/a> with students studying through Virginia Tech<\/a> and SUNY-Brockport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sun shone our entire time in Antarctica and enabled us to complete all eleven of our scheduled landings to different locations around the continent and subantarctic islands<\/a>. We visited penguin colonies, historical sites, a research station and spent time iceberg and marine life viewing during Zodiac cruises. On one such cruise our group was entertained for over two hours by a playful minke whale<\/a> that really seemed to be interacting with our Zodiacs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A Virginia Tech student personalized the bivvy sack<\/p><\/div>\n

Another highlight was a night spent camping on the ice. After digging out a hollow in the snow in which to sleep, we set up our bivy sacks<\/a> and snuggled down. The sun never set which meant when I awoke a couple of times during the night and popped my head out of my bag, I was able to clearly see some nosy penguins wandering around the camp having a good look at everyone!<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>

Students fled the icy water after the polar plunge<\/p><\/div>\n

Lastly, an Antarctic trip would not be complete without a polar plunge. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective!) we were able to take our plunge on Christmas Day, making for a most memorable Christmas. The plunge is not for the faint-hearted, as demonstrated by only twenty or so brave souls from our ship managing the feat.<\/p>\n

Keep reading in the coming weeks for more memories from Antarctica<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AUIP\u2019s Julie Allan writes: I have been to some pretty exotic destinations in my time\u2026Morocco, Poland, Japan and Russia to name a few. But I never ever expected to find myself whale watching, ice camping and polar plunging in Antarctica. In December, I was lucky enough to visit the highest, driest, windiest and coldest continent on earth with AUIP\u2019s Antarctica…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antarctica","category-field-notes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5983,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions\/5983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}