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‘Straight Down To The Bottom Of The World’: Maltese Sailor Travelling Halfway Across The Globe Documents His ‘Mind-Blowing Adventure’

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There are bucket list journeys, then there are bucket list journeys. Marc Calascione of RLR Yachting is part of a crew that will be sailing on a 134 foot Alloy Yacht called Destination. His job is to get the boat from Mallorca to New Zealand, which is nearly 20,000 kilometres in a straight line, half the equatorial circumference of the entire planet. But the crew is taking the long way round… and there’s an epic Antarctica stop in between.

The crew will be steering the boat across three major oceans as they pass through the North and South Atlantic Sea to then sail across Cape Horn and then cross the South Pacific Ocean to end up in New Zealand.

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The 134 ft Alloy Yacht,  ‘Destination’

Marc is the offspring of a legacy of sailors, as his own father and grandfather were nautical adventurers themselves. But he’s certainly the first of his line to make his way so far South through the Antarctic to Cape Horn.

“In the now 8°C water, the chance of survival if one were to fall in to the water with the kind of seas we are experiencing is most certainly zero. No heroics, as Nanna always says.”

Calascione, who is officially employed on the yacht as an engineer, told Lovin Malta the crew will be spending 10 days in Antarctica and are nearly a week into the trip already.

These glorious days are spent whale and seal watching with the Antarctica Ice Pilot who joined them for this leg of the trip.

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Some of the Marine life that the crew has spotted as they sail around the Antarctic

“Most of the day consists of Ice watch and checking that we are not going to sail into any chunks of ice. We also spend our time whale watching, traversing through narrow fjords with ancient glaciers either side of us cracking away, seal watching and penguin watching.”

So far, they have been accompanied by blue whales and humpback whales, albatrosses, elephant seals and gentu penguins. The temperature across the Antarctic is as chilly as it gets, frequently fluctuating between -1 and -10 degrees.

“Its reputation as the coldest and windiest place on the planet is understandable,” comments Marc.

“An eerie silence has come over the boat, the distant voices of all the souls lost in these waters seem to haunt the rocky pillars.”

It hasn’t been smooth sailing throughout. Plummeting temperatures, rough weather and rocky formations that make it difficult for the crew to steer have all tensed moments at times throughout the journey.

Nonetheless, Marc talks about how every challenge has earned him a wealth of wisdom. And he’ll surely be repeating this route some time in the future. “Something tells me I will be back here to make the North-South crossing again, this is what it means to be alive,” he writes in his online blog.

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From Patagonia to Antarctica: the crew experiences extreme in climates in a matter of days

Once the crew has travelled across Antarctica, they will sail up the south western coast of Chile and cross the Pacific, and hope to visit Easter Island, Tahiti and Fiji before New Zealand.

Marc’s days are largely spent admiring all of the Antarctica that the boat is sailing around. They’re doing a few shore expeditions in the 10 days that they are there to really get to appreciate the glacial blue icebergs and serene marine life of the icy wonderland of Antarctica.

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Oh hi Marc!

Next up in the journey is Marc’s “mind-blowing adventure” in the Pacific for the final leg of their three-oceans adventure. You can follow his insane adventure as he blogs about it on his website.

Best of luck for the rest of your journey, Marc. And as you take Lovin Malta’s name all the way to the South along with you, please know that we’re all insanely jealous.

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