Did you know that in addition to being an expert physical therapist, ACCESS PT’s Michael Dombrowski, PT, DPT is also a world traveler who has visited all seven continents? When we heard he recently went to Antarctica, we just had to know more! Check out the Q&A with Michael below.
Why Antarctica?
Honestly, lots of reasons. I heard good stories about the landscape and wildlife from other people who had already been to Antarctica. I absolutely love to travel, and this was the last continent that I hadn’t visited, so it was on my bucket list. My parents as well as a cousin and his wife were eager to go too, so we were able to make it into a family trip, which was a great experience.
Antarctica is remote, to say the least. Tell us about the process of getting there.
I waited to take this trip for quite some time. We actually booked it in 2018, and were supposed to travel in 2020 but it was postponed due to COVID. Once things opened back up, we were on the second cruise for this vessel.
The entire trip takes about 2 weeks. The first leg of the trip is a flight from the U.S. to South America, where we landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then we caught a flight on a much smaller plane to the world’s southernmost town, Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America, where the cruise departs.
From Cape Horn, it takes about two days to cruise across the Drake Passage, and that is one wild ride! The Drake Passage is at the intersection of 3 oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern/Antarctic), so there is a lot of turbulence due to the collisions between so many different currents. The winds are absolutely crazy, and waves can reach 40 feet. Apparently, some very brave people rent sailboats and sail across the Drake Channel. It’s kind of like the Mount Everest of sailing.
Did you have to do any training or conditioning before your trip?
You need to be physically fit, but there’s no formal training required. There are prepared paths to help people avoid crevasses, but it definitely helps to be sure footed because you are still walking on snow and ice.
What did you do once you were in Antarctica?
Just taking in the scenery is amazing – it’s so different from anywhere else in the world. It’s such a pristine environment, and everything is really about wildlife and natural history. Dinosaurs once lived on Antarctica, so we got to see some fossils. I also went on a kayaking tour to look for wildlife and saw penguins, whales, seals, and a lot of shorebirds.
As a physical therapist, one of my favorite things was at the abandoned whaling station on Mikkelsen Harbor – Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica. There were a ton of whale vertebrae there, and I was able to take lots of photos to send to colleagues.
The ship also had two mini-submarines that each held six people. I was fortunate enough to get on one of those on the last day. I’m a scuba diver, but couldn’t dive on this trip due to water temperatures, so I was really excited about the submarine dive. My group saw some really interesting snails on the ocean floor. I’m a bit jealous, because the two groups that went right before me went through a krill swarm and got to see the penguins swimming through them in a feeding frenzy!
Was there anything surprising about the trip?
It wasn’t as cold as I expected. We were there in January, which is “summer” in Antarctica. It was about 32 degrees on the coast, but a bit colder further inland.
Because the wildlife has so little experience with humans, they seem to be more curious about us than scared of us. Penguins will just walk up to you and poke you in the leg. Seals sleep on the beach and completely ignore us. Whales will swim right up to kayaks. It’s amazing.
Any closing thoughts?
I can’t emphasize enough that it is a really vast, majestic landscape and being there feels like you are standing at the end of the world. It really makes you feel small because it is so remote. I’m still just amazed that I actually got to go to Antarctica – the whole thing is kind of surreal.
