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S/Y FIREBIRD🔥

@sailfirebird

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Follow our adventure as we circumnavigate the globe | A heavily customised @oysteryachts powered by @elvstrom_sails | #SailFirebird
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𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 - 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 I’m deeply aggrieved about what’s happened to my vessel, FIREBIRD. Close to 2 months ago, she was seized in Chile on mere suspicion of commercial operation – no proper evidence has ever been shown. The unplanned cost has been brutal: legal fees, crew salaries, sunk costs for guides and season preparation, for a season that has now effectively been ruined. Let me be clear: FIREBIRD has never operated commercially in Chile. She’s UK-flagged, flies the Red Ensign, and is registered - and run - as a private recreational vessel. My crew, my lawyers, and I have handed over every document needed to clear this up in days. Yet she’s still impounded, with no strong legal basis given. Here’s what gets missed: over 2.5 seasons, FIREBIRD has pumped hundreds of thousands of USD into the local Chilean economy - crew spend, provisioning, marina services, local contractors. When foreign vessels like mine can’t justify coming back, local communities are the ones who lose. I’ll get this sorted - whatever it takes. And I’ll make sure the yachting community knows exactly what happened. We are pursuing every legal avenue to get FIREBIRD released. Andrey . . . #syfirebird #firebird #superyacht #expeditionyacht #sailingyacht @oysteryachts @boatinternational @thesuperyachtgroup @superyachttimes @natgeotravel by @sailfirebird
18
11 days ago
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Leith Peak, Antarctic Peninsula. 🇦🇶 One of those climbs that ends up on most bucket lists, and it is not hard to see why. Pulkas loaded, gear checked, and off. The snow underfoot was packed rather than fresh, firm enough to hold an edge and demanding enough to keep you honest. Good conditions for the climb ahead. Hours of trekking followed, the silence broken only by the sound of moving through it. From a distance the team is little more than a scatter of dots against a wall of white. Camp went up while the light was still with us. Familiar tents, pitched in a place unlike anywhere else they have stood. A moment taken for the view before the work of coming back down began. Blue sky, clear visibility, glassy water far below. Conditions do not often line up this well. Back to sea level, back to Firebird, the crew exactly where we left them. 🏔️ . . . #sailfirebird #antarcticpeninsula #antarctica #skitouring #polarexpedition #expeditionsailing #oyster885 #sailingyacht #mountaineering #skimountaineering #alpinetouring #polarsailing #expeditionvessel #sailinglife #yachtlife #wildernesstravel #farsouth #adventuresailing #offshoresailing #belowfreezing #beyondthemap #basecamp #expeditioncamp #summitview #pulka #polarhike #uncharted #expeditionyacht #firstascent #mountainexpedition @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
0
a day ago
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Melchior Islands 🇦🇶 sit tucked into the Palmer Archipelago, a cluster of small islands and skerries that shelter some of the calmest anchorages on this stretch of coast. @sailfirebird anchored among the rocks here, close enough to shore that the seals barely bothered to look up. The whales did most of the talking. Humpbacks worked the bay in pairs, surfacing, diving, surfacing again, each fluke lift photographed roughly four hundred times by everyone aboard and still somehow a surprise every time. One came up close enough to count the barnacles. Kayaks went out into water so still it barely counted as sea, weaving between icebergs stranded on the shallows and past crabeater seals hauled out on the rocks with the settled indifference of landlords who have seen enough tenants come and go. One seal held its ground apart from the rest, dark against the ice, a fur seal among a raft of crabeaters and in no hurry to explain itself. This is what a quiet day at Melchior looks like. Turns out quiet is relative when there are whales in it. 🐋 . . . #sailfirebird #oysteryachts #boatinternational #natgeotravel #everythingantarctica #antarcticapeninsula #melchiorislands #palmerarchipelago #antarctica #humpbackwhale #whalewatching #seakayaking #furseal #crabeaterseal #antarcticwildlife #polarexpedition #sailingyacht #expeditionyacht #antarcticexpedition #iceberg #antarcticsummer #wildlifephotography #oceanconservation #southernocean #sailinglife #yachtlife #antarcticcruising #polarsailing #remotetravel @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust taken in Antarctica by @sailfirebird
2
5 days ago
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Leith Peak 🗻 takes longer than the summit shots admit. Many hours of roped travel across the glacier first, pulkas hauled over terrain that hides more than it shows, each step tested before the next one earns any trust. The reward, eventually, is a wall of blue ice carved into overhangs and dripping icicles, and a summit with the whole Peninsula laid out below it, peaks receding until they're indistinguishable from the clouds behind them. Getting there is most of the story. Nobody debates whether it was worth it up there. That conversation happens later, back on @sailfirebird. . . . #sailfirebird #firebirdexpeditions #oysteryachts #boatinternational #natgeotravel #everythingantarctica #antarcticapeninsula #leithpeak #leithcove #paradiseharbour #dancocoast #grahamland #skimountaineering #skitouring #glaciertravel #ropedtravel #antarcticexpedition #polarexpedition #sailingantarctica #expeditionsailing #antarcticapeaks #summitday #glacierskiing #antarcticwilderness #polarsailing #antarcticsailing #skitheantarctica #antarcticadventure #sailboatlife #remoteexpedition @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust taken in Antarctica by @sailfirebird
0
9 days ago
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Neko Harbour. 🇦🇶 A familiar sight by now, Firebird at anchor in icy water while the Zodiac finds its way ashore. Neko Harbour is known for two things, a glacier that calves often and loudly, and a gentoo penguin colony that has made the hillside its own. The ascent is steep from the start. Poles and ropes come out early and stay out, the ice underfoot changing its mood with every metre gained. The grey moves in fast up here, and a break to refuel is never wasted. From the top, the reason for the climb is obvious. A quiet moment, and one worth feeling grateful for. Back on the water, the crew on watch keep Firebird clear of the ice drifting through, the quieter half of the same afternoon. 🧊 . . . #sailfirebird #antarcticpeninsula #antarctica #nekoharbour #glacialcalving #gentoopenguins #expeditionsailing #oyster885 #sailingyacht #polarsailing #expeditionvessel #sailinglife #yachtlife #antarcticwildlife #farsouth #adventuresailing #offshoresailing #polarexpedition #uncharted #beyondthemap #zodiaclanding #icewatch #crewlife #steepascent #polarhike #wildernesstravel #expeditionyacht #glaciers #belowfreezing #penguincolony @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
1
13 days ago
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From @sailfirebird the mountains of Antarctica 🇦🇶 often blur into a single white horizon. Peak folds into peak until the range becomes one long argument about where the sky starts, and from the deck it's less a matter of naming summits than accepting that Antarctica has decided to keep several hundred of them roughly anonymous. Climbing one changes that, if only in a small way. A mountain stops being scenery once you've felt its rock underfoot and worked out which sections hold weight and which don't, and something that was background an hour earlier becomes, briefly, known. Then there are the ones that stand out even from the water. This one rises clear of its neighbours, catching the light while everything around it stays in shadow, dark rock and pale snow arranged like something that knows exactly how it wants to be photographed. It doesn't share the ridge with anything. It doesn't need to. There's no good reason a mountain should have a personality, and yet some of them clearly do. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #antarcticpeninsula #polarexpedition #sailingyacht #oysteryachts #expeditionyacht #mountaineering #alpineclimbing #skitouring #summit #mountainrange #polarsailing #adventuresailing #southernocean #wildantarctica #remoteexpedition #frozencontinent #glacierlandscape #iceberg #expeditionlife #polarexploration #antarcticmountains #antarcticexpedition #sailinglife #yachtlife #natgeotravel #boatinternational #everythingantarctica #firebirdexpeditions @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
3
16 days ago
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Sophie Rocks Antarctica. 🇦🇶 The line from anchorage to summit rarely runs straight down here. It starts on the water, a RIB run across open channel, weaving between brash ice and the odd stray berg that didn't get the memo about right of way. From the shore, the route follows a narrow strip of moraine wedged between blue ice and open water, then opens onto the glacier proper, where roped pairs move together across ground that hides its crevasses well. Nobody down here believes in shortcuts; the glacier has opinions about that. Where the ridge steepens, a couloir cuts up through dark, broken rock, narrow, exposed, and climbed in a slow rhythm with crampons and axes doing the work. The rope between climbers is less a formality than a strongly worded suggestion to stay alive. The summit, when it arrives, is a spine of rock clear of the snow, the Southern Ocean opening out below, threaded with icebergs. Earned the hard way, pitch by pitch, with the bonus that nobody's selling t-shirts at the top. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #antarcticpeninsula #mountaineering #alpineclimbing #skimountaineering #glaciertravel #ropedtravel #crevasserescue #couloirclimbing #summitday #polarexpedition #expeditionlife #climbingantarctica #southernocean #iceandrock #sailingyacht #highlatitude #polarclimbing #yachttravel #mountainlife #adventuretravel #wildplaces #endoftheearth #climbing #mountaineeringlife #polarexploration #antarcticexpedition #farsouth #rockandice @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
1
18 days ago
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Most of the terrain we cross here looks solid until it isn't. 🇦🇶 Antarctica's glaciers are riddled with crevasses, deep fractures in the ice, often bridged by a thin lid of wind-packed snow that gives no warning before it gives way. Walk that ground alone and a single step through a hidden bridge can mean a fall with no one there to stop it. Roped together, that same fall becomes a catch: the rope comes tight, the second drives in an axe or drops to the snow to hold the load, and a potential burial or a long drop becomes a recoverable incident instead of a fatal one. It's the difference between disappearing and being found in seconds. The steeper ground carries its own risk. Couloirs and open slopes here can avalanche, and a slide takes the rope team's margin for error down with it. Speed matters, terrain choice matters, and moving together as a unit means decisions get made as a team rather than gambled on individually. None of this is about sentiment. The rope is a piece of safety equipment, no different from a harness or an ice axe, and it only works if everyone on it understands the ground, communicates, and trusts the person on the other end. Out here, that trust is what gets a team up a mountain and back down again. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #crevasserescue #glaciertravel #avalanchesafety #mountainsafety #alpineclimbing #polarexpedition #expeditionlife #teamwork #mountaineering #skimountaineering #glaciertravelsafety #crevassedanger #alpinerisk #mountainguide #polarexploration #antarcticpeninsula #safetyfirst #ropeteam #icefall #hiddendanger #trustyourpartner #mountainlife #highconsequence #alpinism #survivalskills #expeditionsafety #farsouth #polarclimbing @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
4
a month ago
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The pulkas, our lifeline south 🇦🇶. Everything we need to survive out here; tent, stove, fuel, food, rope, hardware, all rides behind us on a sledge. On the approach to Leith Peak, the pulkas came into their own. Loaded at the shoreline where the RIB dropped us, they followed us up through the crevassed lower glacier, across the open plateau, and into camp, each stride a small negotiation between the sledge's inertia and the mountain's tilt. Skis on, harness tight, rope taut between us. This is how you move through Antarctica when the terrain won't allow anything faster. It's easy, from a photograph, to read the scene as scale, two dark specks on an endless white shoulder. But zoom in and it's logistics. Everything that keeps you alive up here, packed, lashed, and hauled by hand. The pulka isn't just gear transport. It's the tent you'll sleep in tonight, the food that gets you home, the margin between a good trip and a bad one. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #pulka #pulkhauling #polarexpedition #expeditionlife #antarcticpeninsula #leithpeak #skimountaineering #skitouring #glaciertravel #polarexploration #mountaineering #crevasseterrain #wintercamping #tentlife #ropedtravel #adventuretravel #southernocean #iceandsnow #expeditionskiing #polarlife #antarcticexpedition #mountaineeringlife #alpineclimbing #survivalgear #logistics #wildplaces #farsouth #endoftheearth @oysteryachts @blackcrows_skis @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust by @sailfirebird
1
a month ago
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Multi-day camping in Antarctica 🇦🇶 comes with a fairly narrow definition of luxury. A stove that lights on the first try, boots that haven't frozen solid overnight, and a tent still standing after a night of wind all count as good fortune, and most nights out here you're grateful for one out of three. The @kailasglobal tent held its ground through every one of these expeditions. Most of the time inside these tents is spent sleeping, or waiting, for weather to break, for the next brew, for feeling to return to fingers that stopped negotiating with gloves hours ago. A thermos of something hot solves at least half of that particular equation. The camera gear propped in the doorway on the off chance the mountains do something worth remembering, accounts for the rest, and more often than not it captures nothing but the quiet trying its best to be interesting. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #antarcticpeninsula #polarexpedition #expeditionlife #campinglife #wildcamping #mountaineering #alpineclimbing #polarexpedition #expeditionyacht #oysteryachts #remotecamping #antarcticexpedition #skitouring #basecamp #frozencontinent #polarsailing #adventuresailing #southernocean #wildantarctica #glaciercamping #expeditiongear #coldweathercamping #outdoorlife #natgeotravel #everythingantarctica #antarcticexploration #remotetravel #traveltheworld @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust taken in Antarctica by @sailfirebird
3
a month ago
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Anchoring in Antarctica. 🇦🇶 Safe, sheltered spots close to shore are rare down here. When we find one, it takes the whole team to make it work. The tender goes out first, running lines to the rocks so Firebird can settle properly rather than swing all night on open water. It is not a quick job. Lines need checking, angles need adjusting, and someone is always getting their boots wet in the process. The penguins carry on regardless. Our arrival barely registers against their daily routine of feeding, squabbling and general waddling about. A quiet anchorage after a day of more dramatic water. Not something we take for granted out here. 🐧 . . . #sailfirebird #antarcticpeninsula #antarctica #expeditionsailing #oyster885 #sailingyacht #anchoring #shorelines #teamwork #polarsailing #expeditionvessel #sailinglife #yachtlife #penguins #gentoopenguin #antarcticwildlife #farsouth #adventuresailing #offshoresailing #polarexpedition #uncharted #belowfreezing #beyondthemap #shelteredwaters #tenderoperations #crewlife #wildlifephotography #polarwildlife #stillwaters #expeditionyacht @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust taken in Antarctica by @sailfirebird
3
a month ago
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A day in Antarctica looks something like this. 🇦🇶 Wildlife watching, summiting, kayaking through water still cluttered with the ice it once shed. Not for the faint hearted, and not for anyone in a hurry. Often we're roped up before breakfast has finished settling, working up a ridge where the exposure never quite lets you relax into the rhythm of it. Other days it's an @advancedelements kayak instead of a rope, sliding past ice that took decades to reach the water for a closer look at whoever's watching us back. A crabeater seal hauls out on a floe without registering that it's being photographed by someone in a considerably less comfortable position. Then there are the days a humpback decides to surface exactly where you'd hoped, unhurried about it, as though breaching for an audience were beneath its dignity. Everyone on deck stops talking at once, which for a boat full of people is its own kind of achievement. A colony of gentoos goes about its business as if the glacier calving behind them is simply weather. A skua chick studies its own footing on granite with the same seriousness the climbers gave theirs a few hours earlier, though presumably for lower stakes. . . . #sailfirebird #antarctica #antarcticpeninsula #polarexpedition #sailingyacht #oysteryachts #expeditionyacht #skitouring #mountaineering #alpineclimbing #seakayaking #kayaking #wildlifephotography #gentoopenguin #crabeaterseal #southpolarskua #glacierlandscape #iceberg #southernocean #polarsailing #adventuresailing #expeditionlife #wildantarctica #remoteexpedition #antarcticwildlife #natgeotravel #boatinternational #everythingantarctica #firebirdexpeditions #antarcticexploration @oysteryachts @everythingantarctica @natgeo @natgeotravel @antarcticaheritagetrust taken in Antarctica by @sailfirebird
3
a month ago
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