Argentina                                                 January 28, 2006

It’s been a while since the last update, so here goes… we arrived in Buenos Aires on January 24, and stayed with Carla, Marta and Avana Speciale, a wonderful Argentinian family who had extended their hospitality towards us via a friend in Sydney (thanks for lining it up Miester!!!). Buenos Aires, or BA as it is often known, was great fun for a couple of days. We had time to soak up a bit of culture, albeit briefly, and Andrew brushed up on some Spanish that wasn’t quite as rusty as he thought it was. We had another Argentine friend to look up, Gabi, who our friend Phil had met through the excellent couchsurfing.com website. There wasn’t much time to sleep with a very early flight to Ushuaia on Friday morning. The 3:20 am start wasn’t all that welcome after the midnight dinner finish with the Speciale family. (Jetlag… what jetlag?!)
Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, is a beautiful town reminiscent of Chamonix (France), surrounded by spectacular	The boys in Ushuaia (L-R): Andrew, Gages and Stu
snow-covered peaks and full of tourists! There are some very talented people here, from the hardy southern ocean sailors running yacht charters to the Antarctic Peninsula, to computer whizzes such as Jonathan Selby, who is helping us out with website updates and software for automatic tracking of our position.   Our kayaks all turned up in one piece here in Ushuaia a couple of days ago. We were very excited as a lot of time, effort and heartache had gone into the complex problem of kayak freight. No real damage to the boats either, which is a bonus given the convoluted path they took from New South Wales to Argentina. The next few days here will be taken up with our final bit of food shopping, sorting gear and getting ready for the sail to Antarctica on February 1.

Sharks!                                                                          January 20, 2006   

Some people continue to inspire well into their later years. Ron and Valerie Taylor are legendary for their exploits in the underwater world, filming sharks and creating some amazing documentaries. I dropped around to see them recently as I'd heard that Ron was also a wizard with underwater housings. No mistake there - he had over 30 housings in the garage, all of which he'd made himself for various different projects! I was nearly bowled over with his enthusiasm as he showed me different types and how he put them together. He & wife Valerie are now nudging 70 years young, but they're still going full-pelt and I found their enthusiasm and energy a real inspiration.                                                                                                              Just a few more days now and we're off to Antarctica - well, Argentina for a few days sparring with the authorities first.

Ever traveled through a developing country with a 6 metre long kayak under your arm? Should be interesting!

Ron Taylor displays an underwater housing made for a HD video camera.