Historic kayak journey

Published in 2009

Chilean explorer Cristian Donoso has completed a two-month expedition by kayak along the rugged coast of Antarctica, documenting the effects of global climate change on the isolated continent’s geography and animal life.

Photo courtesy of Cristian Donoso

Courtesy of Cristian Donoso

A 2006 Associate Laureate of the Rolex Awards, Donoso planned and led the two-man expedition, which began 25 December 2008 at the Gabriel González Chilean Air Force base and ended at midnight on 23 February 2009 when the kayakers were picked up by a ferry five kilometres at sea in the middle of Gerlache Strait between the Palmer Archipelago and the Antarctic Peninsula. It was the most extensive kayak expedition in the continent’s history.

Donoso, a lawyer when he’s not climbing mountains or kayaking through uncharted reaches, was accompanied by Claudio Scaletta, an Argentinean journalist and accomplished kayaker and climber. The two battled high winds and cold temperatures to cover 900km along the Danco Coast and around nearby Anvers and Brabante Islands.

They took all their provisions, with each kayak weighing 100 kilos at the expedition’s beginning. Every day they ate carefully measured rations of oatmeal with dried milk and sugar for breakfast and lunch, and pasta with soya and cheese for dinner. They carried all their garbage, a habit not followed by many earlier Antarctic explorers – the two discovered massive garbage dumps in the middle of penguin colonies on Brabante Island, legacy of an expedition in the 1980s that ignored international treaties protecting the continent from such contamination.

Comparing the geography they encountered with recent satellite photos, the adventurers documented the shrinkage of many glaciers in the region, where many scientists believe the climate is changing at several times the global rate. Donoso also reported that Adelia penguin colonies on Anvers island were suffering from reduced nesting sites. “Higher temperatures in the winter produce greater humidity, which means more snow along the coast. When summer arrives, there is less space available than in the past for the penguins to nest,” Donoso said.

He and Scaletta encountered baby penguins of vastly different sizes, the result, according to Donoso, of some penguins having to delay breeding, a recent development among the bird colonies. “It’s uncertain how well the penguins that are born late will be able to survive.”

Test image alt desc

Courtesy of Cristian Donoso

Donoso said the kayaks were perfect for the rugged coastline, whose shoals and rocks made it inaccessible for larger vessels. Although the temperature seldom dropped far below freezing, Donoso said one of the biggest challenges was the wind, which often produced a potentially fatal wind chill. The explorers had to wait out storms for several days in their tent, around which they often built a wall of snow and ice to break the wind, which reached 150km per hour during one fierce storm.

They also faced strong winds at sea. One day they only traveled 7km in nine hours of paddling through high waves. And one day before their journey ended, as they returned to their campsite on Trinidad Island, a strong head wind hit them with less than 1km to go. They battled for several hours, alternately gaining and losing ground, before reaching the coast where they waited out the storm in a cave.

The two also climbed several peaks along their route. During one ascent on Anvers Island, Donoso plummeted into a crevasse, but he was roped to Scaletta and managed to climb out unhurt.

One previously unclimbed peak they named ‘Antarctic Dream’ for the ship that provided their transportation to the continent and helped sponsor the expedition, including the production costs for a documentary that the two plan to make with more than 30 hours of high definition video they shot during the journey. Donoso said the film would document the natural history of the region they explored and the effects of human activity on the fragile ecosystem.

Test image alt desc

Courtesy of Cristian Donoso

Despite his deep concern at the changes happening on the icy continent, Donoso says that “being there is like being on another planet. It’s the most distinct location that one can visit on the Earth. At the beginning I had the idea that at some point the landscape would become monotonous, but that didn’t happen. Every day offered us a new and unique spectacle.”

iTunes Channel

iTunes Channel

View and download Rolex Awards videos in iTunes.

Go to iTunes