Jon Bowermaster: Another Antarctic Tourist Ship In Trouble!
December 5, 2008
Some of you may remember Jon Bowermaster’s epic reports last year about a tourist ship that ran into some ice and sank in the frigid Antarctic waters. The Explorer was carrying 154 people when this accident occured. Luckily, all 154 people were rescued. Jon Bowermaster was on a nearby ship that had been exploring and documenting the effects of global warming in the region and was one of the first people to arrive on the scene. With Jon’s help and the help of his National Geographic team members, everyone was safely rescued.
Jump Forward One Year
Jon Bowermaster is back in the Antarctic waters, still filming for an upcoming documentary for National Geographic. Leave it to Jon to come across and become involved with ANOTHER Antarctic tourist ship in trouble. This ship, the MV Ushuaia has hit some ice and become grounded near the entrance of Wilhelmina Bay. The Ushuaia is reporting that all passengers are safe and accounted for, but they have been forced to evacuate the ship.
The first ship to respond on the scene was the MV Antarctic Dream. Closely followed by Jon Bowermaster and company. Jon is currently giving live reports and updates through the Dot Earth Blog, a member of the New York Times community, about the ongoing process and the troubles of rescuing people on these Antarctic tourist ships.
That brings up a topic that has become quite controversial the past two years. This all began with the sinking of The Explorer, and I am sure it will continue with this new problem. Has the tourism industry taken to big of a hold in one of the world’s most desolate and dangerous places? What if there had not been aother ship around? It takes a plane close to 6 hours to reach the Antarctic continent from the closest point. Are these expeditions needlessly putting tourists at risk by offering these Antarctic voyages?
It will be interesting to see how this latest incident plays out in the media. You can bet that Jon has his cameras rolling and we should be geting some more specific details in the hours and days ahead.
It is interesting that this latest incident happened to pop-up this week. It was roughly one year ago exactly that The Explorer sank. Five days ago I posted about his event on my other site, Xtreme Adventurer. Isn’t it odd how history always seems to repeat itself?
Kraig, over at The Adventure Blog has made a good point about this latest incident: How many times will this happen before people do end up dead? These have both been very, very lucky situations. The next one might not be.
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Written by Jason A. Hendricks · Filed Under Antarctica |
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