The Ushuaia is a former US research shipnow converted for adventure cruising in polar regions. She is not very big, around 2,300 tons, but she is ice strengthened and has been doing polar regions, north and south since 2003. The pic shows her leaving the port of Ushuaia for the Antarctic. My ship, Akademik Sergey Vavilov is much bigger at 6,500 tons and being built originally for spying, she is very quiet and pretty safe. However, even the Vavilov looks tiny in that vast landscape.
Yesterday Ushuaia ran aground in Wilhelmina Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula, no doubt looking for humpback whales which can be common there. She was holed in two fuel tanks although the leakage is small, the passengers were taken off by another ship for safety. Fortunately, Ushuaia and Vavilov and other small ships like them use Marine Gas Oil (MGO) as fuel. It is quite light as fuel oils go and low in sulphur.
Regrettably, the understandable appeal of Antarctica has drawn in the cruise ships and currently the largest one operating down there, Golden Princess, weighs 119,000 tons and uses that treacle like goop, heavy fuel oil. You have all seen what that does to marine wild life and ships like that are not even ice strengthened.
I would not wish to deny anyone the experience of seeing this utterly beautiful continent but it is our last true wilderness and it must be kept as such. I left no mark there, nothing at all. I even went scurrying along the shore in a blizzard on Deception Island to recapture a tiny little plastic sleeve (for a camera memory card) that I dropped. To be honest, I'd never have bothered at home.
So what should IAATO do? Well, let's limit ship size for a start and insist on MGO. Maybe we should demand ice strengthening as well.
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