Advisory Council in Antarctica

In January 2008, Advisory Council members Jim Prentice, Carla Blumberg and Evan Kyba, along with their spouses, partners and friends, boarded the National Geographic Endeavor for a once-in-a-lifetime expedition across the Drake Passage to Antarctica. The sun, quite literally, never really set on their 11-day cruise, which gave them glimpses of snow-capped mountains, huge icebergs, flocks of penguins and landscapes untrammeled by humans. Prentice says that daytime temperatures hovered around 35 degrees, and they went ashore every day, where they had close and personal encounters with Chinstrap, Adelie and Gentoo penguins. He also said that, with around 110 other passengers and 11 naturalists on board, life was definitely not boring. For example, one night (the sun was still out), they plowed the boat into pack ice, and the ship’s crew played a soccer game on the snow.