Yesterday began my four-day journey NORTH to go home. There were no morning announcements waking us up for a COVID test, no announcements to report to the mudroom to get ready for a landing, and no announcements regarding breakfast. I was able to sleep until 9am – which was quite a luxury on this trip. Also, since no passengers or staff have tested positive since day 1, we were not mandated to take COVID test today! Our noses got a much-needed reprieve from being stabbed.
Since I slept so late today, I missed my normal breakfast sitting. That was alright since things were rather lax at this point. I sat down at the second sitting and tried to enjoy what time I had left this far south.
After breakfast, I started gathering the contact information of my newfound friends – Bai, Eva, Maria, Linda, and Tom. After such an adventure, we surely wanted to stay in touch about future marathons and adventures.
Much of the next two days would be lazy with the opportunity to listen to lectures on various subjects.
The first lecture I went to was by Sara. She has a passion for studying wildlife in Antarctica, and she told us about HappyWhale.org. This site tracks the location of individual animals like whales and leopard seals by their markings. Every animal has unique markings much like human fingerprints. You go there, upload a photo of whatever animal(s) you have with the location, and you are updated when a future sighting occurs. I showed Sara some of the pictures I had of leopard seals and she was excited. She thought that the markings were definitely good enough to track and encouraged me to submit them. (I will, but have yet to do that). I was curious about this, so I looked at the leopard seal pictures that I got on day #12 in Cierva Cove. Excitingly enough, there were TWO different leopard seals, not just one! I would have never known that had I not attended Sara’s lecture.
With the completion of the Antarctica Marathon, I now have completed a full marathon on SIX continents. The last continent for me to “conquer” is Africa. There was much talk on this trip about who has completed what continent and what race they did on that continent. For me, I want to run the Big 5 marathon because I want to go on some game drives. I have very little interest in running the Capetown marathon. I want to rough it! After lunch, Jeff of Marathon Tours did a briefing on the state of various races that they travel to. Capetown came up and he gave some interesting information as it is a popular race. Apparently, they are on a three-year trial and if they pass, they will be granted world major status! I want to keep up with all the world majors, so I asked if I were to complete Capetown BEFORE it is admitted to the World Major club, whether it would count toward completing all SEVEN majors. His answer was an emphatical, YES. The precedent has already been set, and he actually suggested that you run it BEFORE it becomes a major so that there are no problems getting into it. This actually changed my mind, because why not double-dip and get credit for both Africa and a world major all in one shot? Capetown is run in October, so this year is out (I have both Chicago and Marine Corps, so stuffing a third marathon in seems like overkill). I will plan on doing Capetown in October 2023.
Every year after the Antarctica Marathon, Marathon tours holds an auction, with all proceeds benefitting Oceanities. I knew this, and have had my eye on the start/finish line banner since I signed up in 2017. It would be quite a souvenir to have. Not only was this banner at the race, but it polar plunged TWICE on Deception Island. I NEEDED to have this banner 🙂
On the last day of sailing, the auction was set to happen. Here is a partial list of items that were to be auctioned off.
- Unsponsored mile markers from the race (I sponsored mile 20)
- Penguin crossing signs
- Uruguay turnaround sign
- China turnaround sign (which was put at the start line)
- The 13-mile marker from the half marathon
- The 26-mile marker from the full marathon
- A zodiac propeller that was broken from hitting rocks on a landing
- 2 bottles of water that were melted from 10,000-year-old glacial ice
- The captain’s map of our voyage that plotted our course, along with dates
- The finish line banner
Jeff, being the competitive person he is (remember the polar plunge challenge?) told us that the first voyage raised about $17,000 in the first auction. He wanted to beat that BADLY. Previous to the trip, I had done some intel gathering and found that the start/finish line banner had gone in the past for $2,000 – $3,000. I asked about the price on the first voyage and was told it had sold for $3,000. I was prepared to go to $3,000 without thinking, probably $4,000 and PERHAPS $5,000 (although that is getting to be a lot). A lot of my new friends knew that I wanted the banner BADLY. My new friend Bai casually asked me if I had run the half marathon, would I want to have mile marker 1 or 13 for a souvenir. I told her without a doubt, mile 13.
The auction started and the unclaimed miles, penguin crossing, and turnaround signs all went for about $500 each. The glacial water went for $500 per bottle, the broken propeller for $300.
Then came the 13-mile marker from the half marathon. Interested party #1 was my friend Bai. Interested party #2 was a gentleman who had finished his seventh continent at the half-marathon distance. Bidding started at $500. Bai bid. The guy bid $600. Bai bid $800. The guy bid $900. Every time the guy bid, Bai upped the ante, not by $100, but by $200. This went back and forth for quite a while. When the dust settled, Bai won the 13-mile marker for $3,800! Everybody in the room was absolutely floored. I asked Bai how high she was going to bid. Her response was, “I did not have a limit. I was going to buy it. I give a lot more than that to charity every year.” I thought that was nice, but I did feel bad for the guy who had finished his 7th continent at the half-marathon distance. The 26-mile marker for the full marathon was a lot less interesting. It sold for $600.
Next up was the captain’s map of our voyage. There were two people who REALLY wanted this map and it ended up going for $5,500!
I was kind of in shock. Two items from our auction went for over HALF of the total in the first voyage. I was getting a pit in my stomach wondering how much I was going to have to shell out for this damn finish line banner (I was envisioning $7,000 – $8,000 for the winning bid).
After the captain’s map was the last item – the one that I have been waiting for since 2017. I told myself that if I win the banner, I am going to ask everybody to sign it as a fun little thing to do. Jeff usually opened bidding at $200, but he jumped straight to $1,000. Sitting in the front row, I eagerly raised my hand and had the first bid. I was determined not to even blink until $3,000 (and most likely $4,000). Bid increments were typically $100, but he jumped the next bid to $1,300. Somebody in the back bid. The next bid was $1,600. I could not get my hand up quickly enough. Once again, I was the highest bidder. The next bid was called at $1,900. I waited for the person in the back to bid. And I waited. Nothing happened. I thought to myself, “Is this actually going to happen? Am I going to get this for $1,600? OH PLEASE OH PLEASE!!” Jeff tied to stir up more interest. To my sheer AMAZEMENT, nobody else bid and I took home the prize for $1,600 and was the proud owner of the banner that I have wanted for FIVE YEARS at HALF the price I was willing to go! I lined up for a photo with the banner and everybody congratulated me. As I filled out the paperwork, Paul said that on the other voyages, the winners typically had everybody sign the banner! I laughed and said that I planned to do that exact thing.
I put the banner on 2 long tables by the bar and the staff made an announcement for me asking everybody to sign it. I stood by the banner encouraging people to sign. The first few were hesitant, but after I told them that it was what I wanted, they signed. Soon, nobody needed prompted and I had a LOT of signatures. I do not know if everybody signed, but I think MOST people did.
Later that night if you were flying straight out, you needed to get a PCR test. They arranged for a boat to meet these people to get a sample that was to be analyzed by a lab and given to us in the morning. Since I was flying straight through with no extra days in Buenos Aires, I had to get a PCR test. Later that night, we docked in Ushuaia, but we were not permitted to get off the boat until morning. I spent the rest of the night packing up and getting ready to leave. While packing, my cabin phone rang. It was Alyssa, one of the Marathon Tours staff. She said that since I was one of the 9 people who were not on the charter flight and since we had 5 or so hours to kill before we needed to be in the airport, Jeff was arranging a hike in the National Park for anybody who was interested. Heck yeah, I was interested! We had to tag our luggage separately and we would get on a separate van in the morning.