Feb 4, 2008
A southern adventure: Wilton teen intrigued by Antarctica's beauty
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Shipley Foltz is a 13-year-old who’s been to six continents, though she admits she was too young to remember her time in the Philippines.
Instead of spending the holidays with her family, Shipley recently set foot in her fifth and sixth continents, traveling to Antarctica via Argentina to study the chilly continent’s history, geography, flora and fauna and environmental issues facing it today. She arrived back in America on Jan. 8.
“It was amazing,” Shipley said of her trip, which was organized by People to People and Students on Ice, two educational organizations. “It’s really, really beautiful there.”
Shipley left Wilton on Christmas Day, flying to Miami with her father, where she met up with other students. There, the group flew to Ushuaia, Argentina, before proceeding through the Drake Passage to Antarctica.
Shipley said she and many of the other students got seasick during their initial voyage, and at that time, she wished she stayed home. But once she recovered, Shipley said she was very grateful she stuck it out.
“It was the most amazing experience of my life,” Shipley said. “I definitely want to go back, and soon.”
The group of 64 students from countries like the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Mexico and Japan took three or four day trips to land each day, where they would go hiking, Shipley said. The students would take Zodiac boats to shore.
“We hiked up glaciers,” Shipley said. “There was one covered in snow that we got to slide down.”
This wasn’t Shipley’s first trip with the People to People organization. As a fifth grader, she traveled to Australia. Two years ago, she went to Europe. But Antarctica was very different, she said.
“It’s just so pretty there, it’s practically untouched by human mistakes,” Shipley said. “I wish everywhere looked like that.”
The group saw “billions and billions” of penguins, she said. “I thought we’d see a couple, but they were stretched out as far as you can see.” Penguins turned out to be rather social animals, she said.
Shipley said that although the students ranged in age from 13 to 19, “everybody became friends with everybody else.”
Other animals spotted by the students include seals and whales, with albatrosses flying over their boat and sometimes sitting on the water, she said.
The trip was held during the austral summer, when the weather is best on the icy continent. But summer in Antarctica is certainly different from summer closer to the equator.
“We took the ship into a volcano crater that filled with water,” she said. “They told us it was going to be warm” and we could go swimming. When we got in, “it was five degrees above freezing.”
“I would definitely encourage people to visit it, but I really want it to stay pristine,” she said of Antarctica.
Shipley said she still keeps in touch with friends she made on her trip and would like to have a reunion, though it would be difficult because everyone lives far apart.
As for the future, Shipley wants to have stepped foot in all seven continents as soon as possible.
“I want to go to South Africa next winter,” she said, adding she wants to go back to continental Asia because she doesn’t really remember the Philippines.
Information: studentambassadors.org, studentsonice.com
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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