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'Icing' the quest
Nearly two months after her voyage to Antarctica, Alain Isaac still struggles to put the experience into words.
Thumbing through an extensive collection of hundreds of striking photos taken over a three-week period, she admits they don't capture the sheer magnitude of everything she saw and heard.
A member of the Mountain Home City Council, Isaac does feel a sense of accomplishment associated with her once-in-a-lifetime voyage. It helped her complete a quest to visit every continent on the globe.
In mid-January, she left southern Idaho for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica. It concluded a globe-trotting journey that took years to complete.
Her voyage started pretty much by chance.
"My sister, Arta, wanted to go to Tanzania, Africa, and she wanted me to go along as well," she said. Isaac jumped at the opportunity not realizing this would set in motion the rest of her world tour.
Earlier in her life, she had already toured China with her mother and took other vacations to places in Europe and South America.
Her next continental visit came when she earned the opportunity to visit Christchuch, New Zealand, as part of a business development trip with her company. It allowed her to bring her sister along, which continued their tradition.
"It just went from there," Isaac said regarding her seven-continent goal. "It wasn't anything really intentional until I looked and realized the only thing I was missing -- the only continent out of seven that I was missing -- was Antarctica," she said.
However, the rising costs of this trip had pretty much put that dream out of her grasp until a travel newsletter sitting on her desk caught her eye. It provided the needed catalyst to make the trip a reality -- a two-for-one trip to Antarctica.
After consulting with one another, they jumped at the opportunity.
"We only had about two months to plan, which in international travel isn't a lot of time," she said. It barely gave them time to submit the necessary entry visas and other documentation.
Their adventure took them across the United States to Buenos Aires. From there, they caught a flight that landed them in Ushuaia, Argentina -- the world's southernmost city. Despite its relatively close proximity with Antarctica, Isaac was caught off guard by the region's warm and rainy climate.
"It was summer in South America, so it was relatively nice," she said. "We were surprised by all the color. There were roses and flowers. We were wearing coats, but there was so much flora there."
Reaching the Antarctica continent required a 2 1/2-day voyage through the Drake Passage, the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn. They sailed aboard the Russian icebreaker Akademik Ioffe, a ship normally equipped to conduct scientific research capable of transporting passengers.
But this was no luxury liner, Isaac said. Conditions on board were cramped with just one small television in the lounge. To pass the time, most passengers listened in on lectures from marine biologists, historians and other researchers making the voyage.
Very heavy seas buffeted the ship as it sailed through the Drake Passage. Even with prescription medication to prevent seasickness, the trip through the strait took its toll on the passengers.
"People lost a lot of meals going through the Drake," she said. "We'd notice that 75 percent of the people were there for breakfast and about 50 percent were at lunch. But by dinner, we were down to about 30 percent."
However, the voyage rapidly improved as they reached the outer islands of Antarctica. Over the next few days, the passengers disembarked on smaller inflatable boats known as Zodiacs to visit various points of interest in the region.
Looking through her photos, she pointed to several taken at several research stations in the region. Places like the Wordie House research station were fully restored to their original condition by conservation groups in recent years to highlight the conditions early explorers faced during their time on the world's southernmost continent.
However, it was the bountiful abundance of natural wonders that really took her breath away, she said. Isaac found it difficult to put into words the depth of the experience.
"It was stunning and breathtaking," she said.
"The water was so pure, and the air was super clean."
But it was also very quiet. Often, the loudest noise they heard was the sound of cracking ice.
"It's hard to describe. We live in such a noisy world without ever realizing it until you get to some place that's so quiet."
The colors of the region were nothing less than spectacular, she added.
"You see a lot of ice, but you can't believe the color. In an iceberg, the air is compressed out of the ice until it becomes this vivid blue. It's really beautiful, and it comes in all sizes and shapes."
The amount of wildlife in the region yielded more unexpected surprises. While people expect to see penguins, the sheer magnitude of their numbers caught Isaac off guard.
"We saw literally hundreds of thousands of them all in one place," she said. "They were everywhere."
In areas like Yankee Harbor, their numbers measured in the half-million range.
However, one of her most memorable experiences involved whale watching. On one day, a small pod of killer whales remained with the ship for about 30 minutes followed later by a larger pod of 35 humpback whales. A break in the weather gave the passengers the opportunity to get a bit closer to them.
"We all hit the deck running, grabbed all of our outdoor (survival) gear and threw on our boots," said Isaac as she described the race between the passengers. "You wanted to be the first one out there because you were so afraid that this experience would go away while you were waiting."
Their experience got them a lot closer to nature than they expected.
"That was one of the most mind-blowing experiences we had," she said. "If I could've leaned over and reached out, I would've touched them. You were eye level with them."
Isaac also remembered hearing the whales sounding to one another -- a low, deep growl that echoed beneath the water. It wasn't the whistle sound people hear on nature documentaries.
She was also amazed at seeing these massive whales rising above the water's surface to look around -- a trait known as spy hopping that whales in the region use when traveling around the ice to identify breaks in the pack so they can surface for air as needed.
"They were much larger that the Zodiacs, which in itself was awesome."
But being up close and personal with nature wasn't without its share of risks. One boat ended up being chased by a leopard seal -- the second largest species of seals in the Antarctic, Isaac said.
The only time she ever got concerned during the trip happened when they made landfall at Deception Island -- a place used during World War II to intercept enemy transmissions.
"The wind started blowing so hard that the ship had to leave," Isaac said. "It had to back off so it wouldn't run up onto the rocks. We were up there watching this saying, 'Uh... is this supposed to happen?' "
On average, it can take up to 14 hours for ships to return and pick up their passengers. In their case, they were marooned for just 90 minutes. Still, it gave them a chance to scope out the island, which still contains the remains of abandoned hangars and whaling stations.
After the icebreaker ship returned to Argentina, Isaac and her sister still had time for more sightseeing. They spent two days touring Iguazu Falls, an interconnected network of network 275 different waterfalls in Argentina noted as one of the Seven Wonder of the World.
Nearly three weeks after leaving Mountain Home, Isaac returned here Feb. 2. Today, she still remains in awe of her voyage to the world's most remote destination. When people ask her to describe the experience, she's still at a loss for words.
"It's hard to explain because people will ask me, 'Was it fun?' Fun isn't the word I would use."
The experience literally leaves you speechless, she said.
"It's visual overload. One minute, things seem rather ordinary and the next something takes your breath away because it's so stunning and unusual. It's hard to translate and relate those experiences."