David Wishart photo TRAVEL writer David Wishart found himself on an adventure of lifetime last month. Above, the cruise ship Hanseatic slips through the infamous Iceberg Aliey, where icebergs are known to reach 30 million tons. Once ina lifetime cruise THERE are cruises and then there are cruises. I’ve travelled on more than 100 vessels from 10-bed barges in Burgundy to 2000- passenger floating resorts in the Caribbean, but perhaps the most memorable ship of them all is the stout litte . Aaaseatic which has just taken me on a remarkable adventure to the Antarctic. There and back, I hasten to add, although when the 9,000-ton Hanseatic was being battered by near hurri- cane-force winds in the Drake Passage south of Cape Horn at least ane of my fellow pas- sengers was making anxious wuesses at the vessel's windage exposure (the amount of hull above the warer that the wind can push like a sail). Ir certainly was a lively ride, particularly i in the Observation Lounge high in the superstructure and close to the bows, affording fasci- nating views of the prow plunging into 30-40 ff. waves and dense sheets of spray lashing the windows and cas- cading over the pitching ship. Tr was cnough to make aman consider lashing himself to the der. Instead 1 went to the deck below, to the bridge, which on the Hanseatic is open to passengers, to be reassured by complte calm among the German officers and not an iceberg on thy radar. Captain Heinz Ave, who has been down this way 85 times, and has also dotie four Northwest Passages, was talk- ing to another passenger about the Titanic. scofling at reports that the Titanic sank because the hull plates and /or rivets were not strong cnough, “Any ship thar hits an ice- berg at ‘22 knots will sink,” said Captain Aye, “Even an icebreaker.” And so it was that the Hauseatic when 3% calmer seas the vest day, and also icebergs, was moving much more slowly despite the vessel’s strengthened “IAI Super ice-class” hull, which is as tough as they come in pas- senger ships. Later we would find ourselves in Iceberg Alley where monsters 30 mil- lion tons and more would tower above Hanseatic’s masts. Lore has it that one iceberg was the size of Belgium! Captain Ave, using binoculars to find a clear channel, would stand at the helmsman’s shoulder and call course changes every few minutes so that we zig- zagged like a carctully-driven sports car on the Corniche. The Ultimate Graduation Gift That day [ reversed my course and found a comfort: able seat in the Observation Lounge, and watched in wonder as sunshine sparkled on a huge hollowed-out ice- berg that looked uncannily like a cathedral thar had escaped from a giants’ ice- carving contest. In the back- ground the pianist played Beethoven's Moonlight Senata while my glass of whisky contributed a whimsi- cal accumpaniment of ecca- sional air bubbles escaping from pieces of vlacier ice per- haps 10,000 years old. At this point, F did nos teel the neea tor bingo. The Hanseatic does not do bingo. There ts no casino, and sequins are rarely worn. What the Hanseatic does exceptionally weil is provide luxurious transportation to the ends of the earth, in this ease the great southern conti- nent of Antarctica, a land mass more than twice the size of Australia and sporting more Mountains than any where else, including the Himalayas, Our focus was the Antarctic Peninsula, bigger than Britain, which lies {000 km (621 miles) from Cape Horn and a little more from the port of Ushuaia in Argentina, where we embarked on the Hanseatic for an [b-day adventure. The second day out the 180 passengers were fitted sur with smart red parkas and rubber boots, which came in handy right away for standing on the sprav-lashed deck watching Wandering Albatrosses soaring off the stern. We had hoped ce land on one of the South Shetland Islands but the fierce West Wind Drift was roo strony for our Zodiac rubber bogies. 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