Word: antarctica
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...TRAVEL Antarctica: Going with the Floe...
...develop, with the 1990-91 season setting a then record of 4,698 shipborne arrivals. Some predict that by 2005 as many as 22,000 people annually will notch up a visit, all on hardy hulks like the Akademik Ioffe. Air travel is costly and almost impossible, due to Antarctica's furious climate, which plays more havoc with schedules than any who advisory could ever do. (The weather can delay flights for two weeks or longer, with no flights at all during the evil winter...
...moment, the brain-numbing magnitude of Antarctica?it's more than one-and-a-half times larger than Australia?makes regulating tourism there almost impossible. "We do this all on the honor system," said Bill, a crew member with a face nicely crisped by the omnipresent UV (Antarctica lies directly beneath the ozone hole). "No one monitors us, so it's up to us to do this kind of tourism safely and responsibly...
...told me about the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, a voluntary organization created in 1991 that encourages member companies to minimize the impact of tourism on the continent by following strict environmental guidelines. Nearly every Antarctica tour operator complies, but that could easily change as more companies elbow their way into this lucrative market, charging die-hard travelers up to $20,000 for the trip...
...hard to set a price on Antarctica's allure, though. What British explorer Ernest Shackleton called "Antarctica fever" is there for all to see in the eyes of the Canadian, Australian and American guides on the Akademik Ioffe. It leads them back time and again to the great, blinding white south. It is also utterly contagious, for after a few days of this heartbreakingly beautiful landscape, pure light and incredibly clear water, no one is immune. Taking in the ethereal magnificence from the relative protection of my kayak (wet suit carefully donned), I felt like I had left the earth...