Antarctica: Summery White Christmas

Over winter break 2018, my family took a trip of a lifetime, to the last frontier on Earth —  Antarctica. Our flight from California stopped in Mexico City for a few hours then continued on to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We spent two nights there, where I practiced my Spanish by stopping to talk to some chatty taxi-drivers, checking-in to the hotel, and ordering the delicious grass-fed beef, a local specialty. Then finally, we flew to Ushuaia, also known as the “End of the World,” to begin our Antarctic expedition.
 
Before boarding The National Geographic Explorer, we toured the Beagle Channel on a catamaran. I met a man wearing a Google Glass. When Dad asked him about it, we found out he was actually the founder of the Google Glass and a CS professor at Georgia Tech who teaches AI. When I expressed my interest in the topic, Thad Starner seemed excited and offered to teach me the foundations later on during the trip.
 
The first two days of the journey, we crossed the Drake Passage, renowned for being the roughest waters in the world. However, we had it quite light and I never got sick, due to a seasickness patch. The expedition leader, a friendly French man named Jonathan, made regular announcements keeping us posted about the daily plans and wildlife sightings. One of the naturalists and geology professor, Joe Holliday, lead a group of the kids in a learning group called the “Young Explorers.” Someone different would teach a lesson relating to what we saw each day. For example, we learned the three types of penguins we would see on the expedition. The first is Chinstrap penguins, that live in the islands farther out from the peninsula and eat krill. The second is the Adelie penguins, that live on the east side of the peninsula along the Weddell Sea, where the water is cooler, and eat krill and fish. Last is the Gentoo penguins that live on the west side of the peninsula and eat fish and krill.
 
Every day, there were one to two outings to go onto the land, spot some penguins, and enjoy the landscape. We were provided with two layers of cozy jackets, a soft inner layer, and a bright orange outer layer to ensure we could be seen miles away. After pulling on waterproof pants and boots, then bundled with hats, scarves, and gloves, we were ready to go. Zodiacs zoomed to shore since there are obviously no ports and the Antarctic Treaty dictates that only 100 people are permitted in an area at a time. Sometimes, when conditions were too icy, we would have purely zodiac tours where we got some closeup views of impressive iceberg sculptures and menacing leopard seals. Between the daily outings, there were frequent talks from naturalists and guest speakers. Will Steiger shared with us about his historic dogsled journey across Antarctica. National Geographic photographer Todd Gipstein held a seminar on photography almost daily. Others talked about the wildlife, penguins, seals, even the lichens and rocks. 
 
Our first outing was to Half Moon Island where we saw a small colony of Chinstraps. The following outing was a zodiac ride, where we were able to see some amazing icebergs, and saw over 40,000 Adelie penguins, swimming in the water, fishing, and jumping. Two even jumped into our zodiac!
 
One day, we visited Fort Lockroy, a station in the Antarctic consisting of a museum showcasing the same station in the early 20th century when the naturalists first came. There was also a colony of Gentoo penguins with red beaks. These penguins were quite stinky, and they screamed noisily. Despite this, I think they were the most attractive looking penguins we saw. These little guys had roads known as penguin highways in the snow, indentations where penguins had made the exact same trip nest to nest, that the floor was dyed pink from their krilly guano.
 
Another day, we had an expedition to a snowy mountain of Danco Island to see some Gentoos. After hiking up the trail, we realized we were cornered. Four Gentoos had wandered into our path between two groups of people! Dad gave me a narrow-angle zoom lens that day, and I managed to get some striking photos. After they left, to get back we slid on our backs down the hill in the snow. There was a bit too much friction, but I had a lot of fun. 

That zoom lens came in handy again during a zodiac ride around Neko Harbour. There was a playful humpback whale that came very near and showing off its fluke. I caught some nice shots as it came straight towards our tiny zodiac then made a sharp turn a few yards away before fluking. Meanwhile, there were hundreds of Gentoos porpoising all around.
 
Christmas Day was our final day near the Antarctic continent before crossing the Drake Passage back again. We made an outing to Snow Hill Island where there were many elephant seals. The baby elephant seals were so cute, all sleeping and relaxing on the rocks.
 
I made a friend, another artist named Sarah from Sweden, and we would often explore the ship together and draw after the daily activities were over. Sarah’s sister, Elizabeth, worked at the store on the ship, and she would often eat dinner with us. In fact, the night before Christmas Eve, Elizabeth gave us a wonderful opportunity to decorate gingerbread in the kitchen. Only Sarah and I were given this opportunity! It was a ton of fun and I enjoyed making funny looking cookies. Since many of the kitchen crew are Swedish, I had some nice exposure to Swedish holiday traditions and cuisine.
 
Unfortunately, I had to take an exam in the middle of the trip, since my online school semester wasn’t technically over yet. Before we left, my parents negotiated with the hotel manager and arranged for one of the naturalists, Dr. Dennis Cornejo, to be my proctor. Dennis was a real character, and many of the naturalists often commented it was hard to give a talk after him because his talk was always so shocking. After painful studying for a few nights, it was finally time. I skipped the usual dinner in the dining room to eat in the officer’s mess, a faster dinner, then Dennis set up my exam. I found him to be extremely kind and helpful, despite the fact that a lot of the crew had told me that he was ‘weird but the good kind weird.” My exam went okay. I finished in a hurry because the room was getting noisy as everyone was preparing for a night outing to let people walk on frozen sea ice in the Weddell Sea. If that place sounds familiar, it’s where Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance met its demise. That was a fun outing that ended with lovely Swedish ginger snaps and hot cider.
 
The evening after I finally finished my exam, Sarah and I were sitting in the observation lounge. Then, Thad came by and asked if he could give us an introductory lesson into AI. We were delighted, and he taught us the conceptual side of AI based on predictions, without complex math. He showed us the nearest neighbor method of prediction, which despite how it seems, can be a very reliable method of prediction. We had an engaging almost two-hour lesson, and I felt so excited about the subject afterward, that I got a nosebleed and couldn’t stop talking about it. This was an amazing opportunity. Thad was a really good teacher, and he really exposed us to the world of AI.
 
This Antarctic expedition is a perfect example of how my learning as a homeschooler is not bounded by traditional settings. Science was covered as I learned about the biology and geology of Antarctica through the first-hand experience. Thanks to the daily talks on board, I learned a bit about photography from National Geographic staff and some history from Will Steiger’s talk. Foreign language was used in a practical setting as I conversed in Spanish to navigate Buenos Aires. Serendipitously, from my fellow passengers, I learned about Swedish culture from Sarah and AI from Professor Starner. And even though the C++ course was taken at an online school, how often do you hear about students taking a final exam proctored in Antarctica then walking on sea ice immediately afterward?