I was desperately trying to hold back tears. But these were happy, joyous, thankful tears. We were finally in the Zodiac heading to shore to step foot on Antarctica for the first time. I was still pinching myself and couldn’t quite believe it was actually happening.

Our first landing was to be a baptism of fire. We had sleet, cold wind, low temperatures and then a constant light rain. I was not sure if I would last the 50 minutes that had been allocated for us to stay on shore. However, glancing around at the hundreds of penguins in all directions I could not hide the smile and the weather conditions seemed to fade into the background.

We had landed at Yankee Harbor, and the time just flew by as we wandered around the snowy landscape taking photo after photo of this magical environment. Later as we returned to the ship, we realized some of the photos had sleet and rain marks from the lens – so that helped us prepare better for next time.

That first landing was so memorable and something that will stay with me forever. It is truly hard to describe the magic that makes up this part of the world.