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Voyage to
the end of
the earth

By Lin and Bruce Schoening

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LIN AND BRUCE SCHOENING

Fulfilling a long-held dream for both, Sun City Texas couple Bruce and Lin Schoening made the journey to
Antarctica in January 2016.

Antarctic cruise a bucket list thrill for Sun City couple

Being residents of Sun City Texas, purpose from espionage to ecological Our stateroom was an experience. We had
you might guess that we are at an research. At 6,450 tons, the ship was not bunks that were directed across the beam
age where we are considering the an ice breaker, but rather “ice hardened” of the ship, causing us to roll sideways
items on our Bucket List. Until recently, so as to be capable of navigating around in rough seas when the bow followed the
one of the items on that list was to visit and through areas with a lot of floating ice swells up and down. Everything in the
the seventh continent and travel into the but not pushing into ice covered areas or room had to be secured and all doors had
Antarctic Circle. Luckily for us, a recent splitting thick ice. At 117 meters in length to be latched. The bathroom was tiny,
trip allowed us to cross this item off our and 18 meters wide, this 96-passenger and showering was difficult, as you had
list. expedition cruise vessel was well-suited to constantly cling to the grab bar in case
for our voyage. the ship decided to pitch or roll.
On January 18, 2016, Lin and I embarked
on a two-week voyage to the Antarctic One unique aspect of this cruise was that Temperatures could vary from 32-45
Circle aboard the Akademik Ioffe. Along the bridge was open to everyone nearly degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind blowing
with its sister ship, the Akademik Sergey round-the-clock. A set of binoculars was across the snow, ice and water was what
Vavilov, the Akademik Ioffe was built available for passenger use, and the flying really determined our clothing choices.
in Finland in 1989. Designed for low bridges made great platforms for pictures Packing consisted of three layers of very
frequency communications experiments, (even though they were, at times, really cold weather clothing: a base layer (such
the end of the Cold War shifted the ship’s cold and windy). as long underwear), a second layer and

96 | SUNRAYS APRIL 2016 ONLINE: SCTEXAS.ORG