Cruise Ship Runs Aground
Grounding In Gerlache Strait, Antarctica
M/V Ushuaia - December 4, 2008
The 278-foot-long M/V Ushuaia, named after an Argentine city is a steel hulled, ice-strengthened vessel built originally for oceanographic research. She was recently converted to passenger voyages for Antarppy Expeditions.
The ship grounded today off the coast of Antarctica while on an 11-day Classic Antarctica cruise.
There are 122 passengers and crew aboard the grounded vessel.
All 89 passengers and 33 crew members are aboard the cruise ship awaiting rescue. Currently there are two Chilean naval vessels in the area who are going to engage in the rescue.
The Panamanian registered ship is said to be leaking fuel and taking on water in the Gerlache Strait about 186 miles southwest of the Argentine Marambio Naval Base on the Antarctic Peninsula.
The ship originally departed from the southern Argentine city of Ushuaia.
Passengers pay between $4,000 and $7,000 per person for the cruise on the Ushuaia. They spend two days crossing the Drake Passage, then four days exploring the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, before heading back into the Drake Passage and disembarking.
The Drake Passage is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica.
It connects the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean (Scotia Sea) with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean and extends into the Southern Ocean.
Ushuaia is the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego and is said to be the southernmost city in the world.
The video below is described as:
"This video was taken on board a Russian vessel crossing the Drake Passage between Ushuaia (Argentina) and the Antarctic Peninsula. The Drake Passage is known as the roughest sea on earth with severe storms almost at any times and extremely huge waves. We were hit by a storm sailing north that lasted two days with 14m waves." (about 46 feet high)
Why do people go there? To see the penguins of course. It is such a shame to pollute their environment with spilled fuel. The film maker says:
"Rules are: you can't go within 3 metres of wildlife - but if they come to you its different. I sat on a rock and they came to me, I had an Antarctic Official watching the whole time. At no time was the bird doing anything it didn't choose to do."
