So in my daily browsing a couple days back I read an interesting bit on Jon Bowermaster’s website looking back on the sinking of a tourist ship called the Explorer off the Antarctic Peninsula on November 23, 2007. John mentions that 2007 was a big season for tourism in Antarctica with over 24,000 visitors. Yet the story is not really all that new.

In fact it was sort of coincidental that this morning I was moving some old magazines (from one pile to another) when a bit of text on the cover of one caught my eye. It was the May 2003 issue of National Geographic Adventure Magazine. On the cover it said, “Antarctica Update: Too Many Tourists? “.  Wouldn’t you know that when I opened it up I’d find an article discussing the then booming tourism industry in Antarctica and questioning not only the safety, but also if the frozen continent could possibly withstand the tourism industry. Bet you can’t guess who wrote that article!

Now here I am just a few hours later reading through the news of the day. You can imagine my surprise to read that a cruise ship called the Ushuaia has struck ice and is taking on water on the Antarctic coast right this minute. The ship is carrying 89 passengers and 33 crew members. Apparently the weather is nasty as you may expect with “violent gusts” of wind to make things challenging. We just hope that everyone will be rescued safely.

In that 2003 issue of Adventure Magazine, JB (oops a hint!) quotes the Chilean Navy who said then that rescues were up 50% from the year before.  Wow, that was 5 years ago.   Hey JB, Did you ever get the feeling you were shouting into the wind?  Seems like there’s a lot of that going on down there. . .

* image of the now sunk Explorer by Mila Zinkova

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