Antarctica -- October-November 2010

The wooden box contained a commerative bottle of liquor, special-made (supposedly), individually numbered, etc. For various reasons, it was left behind. However, took photos to capture the thought.

Memory is that this was the national drink of Norway (aqua vita) and this batch had been made for the shipping line from melted sea ice taken from both the Artic and Antarctic Oceans.

The reasons this was left behind included lack of space and available weight allowance in luggage. That was, in part, because I took too many clothes -- and the clothes I took were too bulky (principally heavy sweaters). Turned out it really was't extremely cold (there were a couple cold-seeming days because of wind, but it probably never got below around 18 F). Another reason I felt dumb about taking the sweaters was that they had some really nice "Norwegian-type" cable-knit sweaters for sale in the gift shop on the ship. I couldn't buy one (even if I wanted) due to lack of available luggage space and weight allowance.