Shackleton Expedition
Whenever someone goes to Antarctica they hear of the Shackleton Expedition. We're on a cruise right now in the area. I did some research on the Expedition and wrote up what I learned at https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2025-3Antarctica-03.htm
I think the story is pretty interesting.
If you're interested in our trip, you can see it at https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2025-3Antarctica-01.htm
[Incidently, I have Starlink Internet access and it's been very good.]
1
Comments
Mike, if you don't mind sharing, was the Starling Internet included or was it an add-on. If it was an add-on what was its cost?
The Starlink Internet access came free with every cabin, but there were two levels: the standard level and the premium level. We had the premium level because of our cabin level.
I asked what it would cost for someone who had the standard level to upgrade to the premium level. The answer was that the cost declines each day because there are less days left in the cruise. The front desk only had information for the day I asked the question (which was not the first day) but they estimated that it would be about $400 per device at the start of our 18 day cruise.
If you were on a shorter cruise, say seven days, the cost would be significantly less.
If you wanted to upgrade for one day, the cost was $29 per device.
I don't have any experience with the standard level, but I assume they throttle you to limit your usage. You may not be able to stream a movie, for example, with the standard level. For things like email, and maybe web access, I would guess that the standard level would be quite adequate.
Last trip to Antarctica (2021-22 holiday cruise) the ship used a geosynchronous satellite and Internet access was much slower because of the propagation delay to and from the satellite. We had premium access on that cruise, also. What they did was put the packets for premium access ahead of standard access. So if you were using the standard Internet at 3am when everyone was asleep, you had pretty good access.
[Added note: Your IP address could change many times while you were on the ship so they used the interface MAC address to know who had premium access. I assume the Starlink system does it the same way.]
Did Shackleton check a bag or just take a carry-on?
He definitely checked a bag. He had a lot of supplies because he was planning to cross the continent. So when they were trapped in the ice they were not in danger of starving. They did hunt seals and penguins to supplement their stores.
Once they took to the lifeboats things were a bit more difficult because they could only carry a limted amount of supplies. On Elephant Island they ate a lot of seal and penguin.
I wonder if penguin taste like chicken or fish. [Update: I searched for what Penguin meat taste like and the answer was "fishy and not very good."]
[Penguins are flightless birds. There are no penguins in the Arctic because of polar bears. The polar bears would eat all the penguins. There are only flying birds in the Arctic.]
Wonder what would happen if you transplanted some polar bears to Antarctica?
There is a great documentary film on Nat Geo about the story of the Endurance and lots of great books, I’ve read a lot of them. Same with Scott.Scott”s son Peter was a TV presenter of wildlife when I was a child.
Mike, was this a Tauck trip?
We are going to Greenland in July and Starlink will be available.
No, it's not, but I expect Starlink is similar on most cruise ships. We took another cruise that used Starlink and the performance was the same (I had the premium access on that ship, also). You might send a note to Tauck and ask them if the ship you're on provides two classes of Internet access. But unless you have some unusual Internet needs, standard access will probalby be fine.
I tend to the premium access because I need to upload my blog. On that previous cruise, the standard Internet access blocked port 22 which is used for secure FTP which would block me from updating. They gave me the premium access free so I could update.