SUNDAY, MARCH 6 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE F3
the region, Graser said, especial-
ly in the infamously rough Drake
Passage — giving it more range.
Its bow shape helps, too. The
front of a ship typically leans
forward and has blunt angles
that push the water away.
However, the bow on the Resolu-
tion, dubbed the X-bow, is
hooked backward, giving it
sharper angles that split the sea.
It’s meant to mimic how sea
mammals work with the water,
which also makes it more fuel-ef-
ficient.
“We’re still learning its capa-
bilities, but once we do, we’ll use
them to the max,” Verdesoto said
of the months-old ship. (Its first
sailing was in November.)
Though he’s been working in
Antarctica for more than 12
years, he still has some bucket-
list dreams, such as crossing the
Antarctic Circle on the eastern
side of the Antarctic Peninsula. It
has only been done commercial-
ly, he said, on the western side;
the area to the east usually sawtoo much ice. “But, with this
vessel, we might be able to do
that on an upcoming trip.”
Although Antarctic itineraries
are never the same — they’re
based on weather forecasts and
ice charts, so expedition leaders
often plan on the fly — the
Resolution’s enhancements open
up more opportunities to e xplore
little-visited areas and bring
photo-seeking travelers closer to
glaciers and wildlife, such as
albatross, chinstrap penguins,
orcas and leopard seals. Each
day, passengers could get off the
ship at l east twice to go k ayaking,
hiking or for a ride in a Zodiac
(an eight-person inflatable mo-
torized boat).
On one particularly memora-
ble day, we stopped in an Edenic
fjord shaped like an amphithe-
ater where glaciers calved and
bergy bits (ice shorter than 16
feet above sea level) bobbed in
the water. It was a place that
neither Graser nor Verdesoto, a
pair who have several decades ofAntarctic experience between
them, had been. But because we
could get back there, we spent
the afternoon kayaking and pho-
tographing the Weddell seals —
which looked like long, over-
stuffed cigars — that had hauled
out on the ice floes. The calm,
protected waters also made it
possible to do a polar plunge.
(Nearly everyone who dared to
jump from the mouth of the
boat came up sputtering and
cursing.)
The ship’s capabilities also
mean that the collection of biolo-
gists, ecologists and climate sci-
entists on board can conduct
important new work.
Because of Lindblad Expedi-
tions’ partnership with National
Geographic, numerous scientists
are along for the ride. Our partic-
ular sailing included Shaylyn
Potter and Brett Garner, whose
studies involve marine conserva-
tion and testing for microplas-
tics, and Javier Cotin, whose
fieldwork involves adding whaleand bird sightings to databases
from which other scientists can
pull. Other sailings this season
included John Durban and Holly
Fearnbach, a couple whose workIf You Go
Lindblad Expeditions
800-397-3348
bit.ly/journey-antarctica
Lindblad Expeditions runs three
ships to Antarctica: the older
Explorer and the newer Resolution
and Endurance. The “Journey to
Antarctica” sailing runs for 14
days and is offered from
November through February.
(There are other itineraries, too,
up to 35 days.) Amenities include
a gym, spa, library and dining
areas. Prices start at $15,380 per
person for the “Journey to
Antarctica” expedition and
include activities, meals,
drinks (including alcohol) and
crew tips.BY BAILEY BERGThe polar vessel was driving
through a sheet of pearl-colored
ice and snow like a spoon
through creme brulee.
Though we were south of the
Antarctic Circle, it was mid-Jan-
uary, late in the austral summer,
and we were lucky to have found
this several-miles-wide expanse
of shore-fastened ice. (Usually by
this point in the season, it’s
mostly m elted or b roken up.) The
goal was to get deep enough into
this inlet, to where the ice is
thickest, so we could get off the
ship and safely walk about on the
frozen landscape.
“Incredible, right?” said expe-
dition leader Lucho Verdesoto,
as I lifted my camera to capture
the scenery, almost lunar in its
starkness. “There are very few
ships that can do this.”
I was aboard Lindblad Expedi-
tions’ 126 -passenger National
Geographic Resolution for a 14-
day voyage to Antarctica.
Though the vessel shares a name
with the first ship to cross the
Antarctic Circle, captained by
James Cook just under 250 years
ago, it’s very unlike the original
Resolution. As one of the newest
vessels in the Lindblad fleet, the
eight-deck ship is equipped with
dining areas, a spa with two hot
tubs and saunas, a gym, a li-
brary and more. But perhaps
more important, it was purpose-
built to navigate the famously
challenging Antarctic waters to
bring guests closer to the ab-
stract icebergs, otherworldly
blue glaciers and boisterous pen-
guin colonies that have long
captivated the imagination of
explorers.
Though about 50,000 people
visit Antarctica in a (normal)
year, Verdesoto said that only
roughly 1 percent voyage past the
Antarctic Circle, and perhaps
even fewer have the ability to
stroll on the ice off the shore of
the continent. The new technol-
ogy that went into building this
particular ship (and its sister, the
National Geographic Endurance,
named for Ernest Shackleton’s
191 4 Antarctic vessel) makes it
possible to travel faster and far-
ther into ice like this.
“The main idea of building
these ships was to stay away from
the crowds,” explained Captain
Martin Graser.
The ship holds a polar class
rating of PC5 Category A, making
it one of the most substantial
ice-breaking expedition ships
globally, based on an interna-
tional rating system. It also has
thrusters that can rotate the
vessel in any direction. (This is
important when it’s lodged deep
in ice.) In terms of speed, it has
engines so powerful it can slice
through the water at more than
16 knots — uncommonly fast
compared with other vessels in
focuses on whether the warming
climate is threatening the food
source of orcas. Each scientist’s
work has helped serve as a
yardstick to how quickly the
continent’s environment is being
altered by people around the
world. Each night before dinner,
the scientists would give presen-
tations on their work, putting
what we’d seen that day into
context.
With the knowledge gleaned
from one of the talks, I tried to
identify which species of pen-
guin was atop a short mountain
one morning. I was on my balco-
ny, and from that distance, even
with a telephoto lens, the scene
looked more like a negative of
the night sky: an expanse of
white where the stars (meta-
phorically and of this particular
show) were the color of mid-
night. I’d have to wait until we
got ashore to put my learning to
the test.
It didn’t take long. When the
Zodiac reached the rocky beach,
a squad of gentoo penguins wad-
dled down from their perch and
dove into the water.
Penguins have their own high-
way systems, areas where the
footfalls of the flock have beaten
down the snow between the
nesting site and the water. People
aren’t allowed to walk on them,
so to see the colony from a closer
distance, we had to blaze our
own path to the top of the
mountain. It was a slow hike up,
though not because it’s particu-
larly steep or because the myriad
layers forced a tin-soldier gait;
with each step came the desire
to stop and snap a few more
photos.
At the colony, I focused my
lens on a snoozy gentoo penguin
whose feathers shone like an oil
slick in the glow of the midmorn-
ing sun. It was like nothing else
existed but the penguin and me.
Until it wasn’t. Into the frame
came the penguin’s mate, carry-
ing a pebble. And as he gingerly
added the rock to the perimeter
of the nest, a wee downy head
peeked o ut f rom u nder the moth-
er’s protective pouch and gave a
soprano squawk.
The original Resolution didn’t
have experiences like this — at
least not to this magnitude.
Though the ship was considered
state of the art in its time, it
never made landfall on Antarcti-
ca. The famed captain wasn’t
able to confirm there was land
beyond the ice. Here, atop a
mountain nearly a quarter-mil-
lennium later, awed by the splen-
dor and immensity of the White
Continent, I realized just how
grateful I was to have caught the
ship’s second act.Berg is a writer based in Colorado
Springs. Find her on Twitter
(@baileybergs) and Instagram
(@byebaileyberg).Knot your usual ships: Vessels o≠er access to Antarctica’s little-visited areas
PHOTOS BY BAILEY BERG FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
LEFT: Unlike penguins, the Antarctic shag (sometimes known as a king cormorant) can fly. RIGHT: Midnight sun in austral summer
casts a rosy glow on this mountain. The author went on a 14-day voyage to Antarctica on the National Geographic Resolution.Nonetheless, London owes a
debt to American drinking cul-
ture. “The passion for cocktails is
truly American,” Miller says.
“They love cocktails. We resisted
cocktails [in Britain] until the
1930 s ...” Brown picks up the
thread. “Even then, there was
this whole understanding, espe-
cially in the ’30s, that Brits would
come in [to a London hotel bar]
and order a whiskey soda, orperhaps a gin and tonic. Virtually
all cocktail consumption was
American visitors. It was Ameri-
cans who made [cocktail-drink-
ing] part of drink history in
Britain.”
And not just history, b ut every-
day life. Cocktails are everywhere
now. The day after chatting with
Miller and Brown, I went for a
walk through central London.
I’m more of a pubgoer thancocktail drinker, to put it mildly,
so I want to get a sense of cocktail
culture at street level. (When I’ve
visited cocktail bars, such as
Ta yer and Elementary, run by the
hyper-creative Norwegian-Czech
partnership of Monica Berg and
Alex Kratena, or Lyaness, flag-
ship of Britain’s homegrown
cocktail king Ryan Chetiyawar-
dana, I’ve enjoyed it — b ut it’s n ot
my world.)The exhortations to try this or
that drink are endless. Shored-
itch’s tangled weave of streets is
full of enticing spots, including
Callooh Callay (opened in 2008,
it was t he first of the new breed o f
New York-inspired London
speakeasies, a ccording to Brown)
and the many pubs with fruit-
based concoctions on offer. Even
amid t he somnolent gray s tone of
the City, there are opportunitiesBY WILL HAWKESI had expected to find Shan-
non Te bay at the Savoy’s Ameri-
can Bar. In August, she became
the first American head bartend-
er at this London institution,
hired to add a fresh, New York
touch to the bar’s historical lus-
ter. Given that the American Bar
has been serving up cocktails
since 1893, that seemed signifi-
cant. A bold new era, even.
But here we are, drinking cof-
fee at Grind, a cafe-cum-cocktail
bar on the south end of London
Bridge, on a chilly morning in
February. She has left the Ameri-
can Bar in search of a better fit
for her approach to mixology. “It
was a cultural mismatch” is all
Te bay, whose previous role was
head bartender at Death & Co., a
cocktail lounge in New York’s
East Village, will say on the
matter.
Luckily for the city’s cocktail
drinkers, the 36-year-old is aim-
ing to stay in London. Her short
stint at the American Bar means
she’s already stitched into the
liquid story of this city, one of the
world’s best for cocktails, but in
that respect, she’s not unusual.
London’s cocktail story is infused
with transatlantic influence,
from the American Bar to the
modern age.
No one knows more about this
than Anistatia Miller and Jared
Brown, the Anglo American au-
thors and editors (and much else
besides) behind excellent books
about mixed drinks, such as the
two-volume “Spirituous Journey:
A History of Drink” and 2020’s
“The Distiller of London.” When I
speak to them via Zoom — they
live in England’s West Country —
they emphasize that it’s a story of
cultural exchange as much as
American influence: English
roots, American assimilation,
German bartenders and much
more.
for a drink: In a modern walkway
off Ropemaker Street, for exam-
ple, there’s the Refinery, which
offers dozens of mixed drinks
(including, appropriately
enough, “Plenty of Fish in the
Sea,” made with gin, manzana
verde, blue curacao and tonic
water), and Notes, where more
traditional options, including
Aperol spritzes and old-fash-
ioneds, dominate.In Mayfair, the invitations are
less obvious — but if you know,
you know. London’s cocktail
world can be divided in a number
of ways: Mayfair vs. Shoreditch,
hotel bar vs. speakeasy-style bars,
ancient vs. modern. The Savoy
may be down on the Strand, but
many of its old-money rivals —
Dukes, Brown’s, the Langham
and the Connaught, winner of
the “World’s 50 Best Bars” list for
the past two editions — are in
and around Mayfair.
Not all hotel bars hew so
closely to the traditional model,
though. Back in Shoreditch,
Chetiyawardana is getting ready
to open his latest bar, Seed Li-
brary, in the basement of a new
hotel, One Hundred Shoreditch.
“It’s quite an industrial site but
also really warm, which reflects
SEE COCKTAILS ON F5Infusing U.S. influences for a spirited London cocktail scene
NIALL CLUTTON/THE SAVOY LONDON
The Savoy hotel’s American Bar has been serving cocktails as part of London’s liquid story since 1893.“The passion for
cocktails is truly
American. They
love cocktails. We
resisted cocktails
[in Britain] until
the 1930s.”
Anistatia Miller, author