REUTERS/CHILEAN NAVY
The Explorer lists in Antarctic waters yesterday after it hit some ice. The ship’s 154 passengers and crew escaped after a Norwegian boat picked them up.
UPDATE
`They promised an adventure but I don't think they ever intended to make it this good'
Now She is Lost...
The Explorer ended her 40 years of crisscrossing the Antarctica as she becomes the First Ship to sink in the frigid depth of the Ocean.
The first ship built to sail the Antarctic, she has the Firsts of many.
Operated by Toronto-based G.A.P. Adventures, Explorer is a small ship (75 meter long and 2,200 tonnes) with capacity of 100 passengers and 54 crews. But she was built to crunch ice as she plies the ice surfaced Antarctica.
All l54 passengers and crew were safely rescued by the National Geographic Expedition Ship Endeavor along with another bigger Norwegian Tourist Ship, The Nord Norge who arrived at the same time responding to the distress calls, and taken the passengers and crews on board and transported them all to Chile’s Air Force Base..
When Kruess’s ship arrived at the same, it was already four hours of waiting for the passengers and crew on board life boats and zodiacs and still dark.
There were 90 passengers, including 10 Canadian tourists, who paid Toronto's G.A.P. Adventures for a trip on its Antarctic cruise ship. Two of the crew were Canadian as well.
And here is an observation from Captain Kruess, Master of Expedition:
We experience breathtaking things down here, the landscapes, the whales, the penguins, the seals, it is difficult to describe, but this was the most dramatic thing I have ever seen,"
Kruess had worked on the Explorer for "one full Antarctic season" a few years ago, and knew many of the crew.
"We all know each other down here," he said
In an interview with the Star, Kruess called the rescue a masterful execution of seamanship and once the passengers and crew were accounted for, the shock set in that the Explorer, the ship that many of them had at one time or another worked on, was lying on her side, sinking as floes surrounded her.
And from one of the Endeavor’s crew “It was a small ship with a great crew, great camaraderie and lots of like-minded travellers. She went through some of the most incredible places in the world”.
The Explorer, she had gone places where few ships had been, finally gone to where few ships would ever want to be, under...
Read more from the pages of the toronto star, canada's largest...
--------------------And in a Sad Note:
Are we going for the Record?:
With Three Homicides (murders) in a span of 12 hours to Yesterday, the tally for this year is already 77, closing in the record of 89 in l991 and out of these, 35 were victims of guns...five more days and a month more to go and this could be one bloody year to remember..
