Title – Road Block
Date – December 2006
Location - Antarctica
Sometimes you have to know when to give up. There are many times you will come across obstacles that can be overcome but sometimes you just have to know when to cut your losses and run. Remembering that anything you leave behind unseen can be revisited another day.
Fortunately the captain of this ship knows exactly how far and hard he can push the ship and his expertise will ensure a safe return from Antarctica to South America where the cruise started. No Casino or Swimming pool on this cruise though, this is hard terrain and the seas can get very rough, your small cabin with its basic amenities will have to suffice, but if you ever feel claustrophobic, just step onto deck.
Beyond The Blue runs workshops to help you gain the skills you will need to navigate your travel experience. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop guides those attending through all the planning stages and the various mazes that will face you on arrival and well into your trip itself. The experience of our instructors enables them to put all your questions into context allowing you to understand some of the pitfalls, without the need to actually experience them yourself.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – © Heather Spalton
Title – Iceberg Flow
Date – December 2006
Location - Antarctica
The age old saying:
Only dead fish go with the flow…
…is equally true with icebergs; except when it’s an ice berg, everything else has to get out of the way.
At Beyond the Blue we run Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshops to help the individuals attending to gain the skills to travel safely wherever they choose to go in the world. We don’t believe that age old sayings are always right; there is sometimes a need to go with the flow and sometimes it can take the anxiety out of a decision, if someone else makes it for you, but the key is to know when to stop going with the flow and go your own way.
Our workshop covers all aspects of personal safety from a low impact perspective; we don’t teach personal safety techniques that require force. We teach techniques that are subtle, easy to learn and easy to remember, all our techniques are perfect for you no matter what your gender, size or strength.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – ©Peter Mayhew
Title – Exploring Icebergs
Date – December 2006
Location - Antarctica
Getting up close and personal with an iceberg is best done with a small boat that can manoeuvre round them rather than a large sea going vessel that will never stop in time; here in Antarctica the experts know how to show you this final frontier in adventure travel.
Icebergs this size are commonly know to be nine times as big below the water as they are above it and happily float around on the currents occasionally bumping in to each other. So every morning you wake up, the landscape has changed.
Beyond The Blue is a company that was set up to allow it’s experienced instructors to pass on their knowledge and treasure trove of tricks and tips to people planning on travelling for the first time. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop covers every aspect of the travelling experience prior to your departure, so that you can set off fully prepared for what you might encounter, but without any loss to the experiences, when you actually have them.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – © Heather Spalton
Title – Perspective
Date – December 2006
Location - Perito Moraneo Glacier - Argentina
The 30km long Perito Moraneo Glacier is one of Argentina’s main tourist attractions and for good reason. It is one of only three glaciers in the country that is currently not retreating and the spectacular 5km wide wall regularly looses great chunks of ice that crash down its 60m and into the lake below. Most people who visit this glacier do so in the vain hope that a spectacular breach will occur just as they happen to be there.
A breach is an event that happens on an irregular basis, anywhere between every two and ten years and with the previous five occurring in 1980, 1984, 1988, 2004 and the last one in March 2006 (Information correct as of August 2006) you really would have to get lucky to see one. A breach occurs when the glacier flows right across of the lake and through to the other side creating a natural dam. The water on one side of the dam can rise to height 30m above the level of the other side and eventually the pressure reaches critical point and smashes through the glacier barrier to equalise the lake once again and prepare for the cycle to start all over.
The size of this glacier and the pressures involved are simply incomprehensible, but perspective is everything and as this photograph demonstrates, you have to go to these places to appreciate them properly.
Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop is designed to help individuals go and see these wonders for themselves. Beyond The Blue believes in the powerful effect travelling can have on peoples lives; the perspective they gain can change their lives completely. We are on hand to help you to make a start and gain the confidence, to not only take the giant leap into the unknown, but to understand the nature of the unknown itself.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – © Heather Spalton
Title – Elephant Seals
Date – December 2006
Location - Antarctica
Elephant Seals got their name from the small trunk the males have and that they use when fighting other males for the right to breed. During these often vicious battles between males, which can grow to 7 meters in length and weight over 2 tonnes, they rear up on their stomachs, so they stand over 3 meters tall and slam their trunk onto opponents with their full weight behind them. The outcomes determines who the ‘beach master will be, who rules this section of the beach and controls his harem of up to fifty cows, like these on the shore in Antarctica.
At Beyond The Blue we recognise that these types of demonstrations of strength are not limited to the ‘animal’ world. You can find yourself in the middle of the human versions of these confrontations in a club or bar anywhere in the world and the further away from home you are the more magnified they can seem. On our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop we train those attending in conflict management and personal safety techniques to help them recognise the signs and symptoms of aggression and either to defuse the situation or when that is not possible, to remove themselves from the area of risk.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com
Image – ©Heather Spalton
