One night, the quietness of the ship was interrupted by the loud cracking sounds of the very thick and very expansive sea ice surrounding us. I ran to photograph it from the top deck, where I was greeted by a sky of eerily dark blue known only to a polar twilight, as it was mid summer then and the days were long and night never truly settled.
Through the mist, I found a kindred spirit also hypnotized by the late-night sea ice. Originally from Germany, she was deep into a three-year Pan-American Highway honeymoon-turned-lifestyle with her Canadian husband. Alone together on the top deck, we talked openly about our desires to follow our intuition, and what it means to walk away from our most comfortable existence when something deep inside calling us to follow a more unconventional path. It's a desire I had been wrestling with for the past year and found myself constantly seeking out permission to explore, not knowing I would finally find it in Antarctica.
On our second day cruising the peninsula, David Bowie sang “Ground Control to Major Tom...” over the speaker system as we all gathered on the snow-covered AFT deck, counting down to the very moment we would cross the Antarctic Circle. A surprise flurry of snow had arrived since the early morning, which we delighted in by building tiny snowmen with the guides.
At the exact moment of crossing, there was no land in sight, just endless gray skies and water as far as the eye could see. “No line,” my dad joked. But there it was on the GPS: 66°33’S, the Antarctic Circle. The furthest south I’d ever been, and now an imaginary explorer badge I can carry with me forever.
Another explorer badge came in the experience of camping in Antarctica—or rather, on it—which I was promised would be a meditative experience, if nothing else. “If you’re lucky,” one guide said, “you might hear some Antarctica thunder or see Antarctic fire.” Though the curiosity captured my attention it was not enough to entice my dad, who opted out due to lack of comfort. For a split second, I considered that staying in my warm, climate-controlled cabin could actually be the more sensible choice, but the chance at getting eight full hours to be alone with Antarctica was too tempting for me to pass up. I was there to learn from the land, after all.
Our supplies were minimal: one sleeping bag, one fleece blanket, one bivy (to keep us dry), and a shovel to dig a “snow coffin” with—clearly a guide joke—and substitute for our lack of tent. I settled in for the night, with no intention to sleep. The snow would end up seeping through the bivy by 4 A.M. anyway, so the best distraction for cold toes was taking in the view, which was spectacular.
The Antarctic thunder (glacial calving) pulsed the night’s soundtrack, along with the distant conversational growls of neighboring crabeater seals. Antarctic fire revealed itself, too, marking the first sunset I was able to see on the trip. It was unlike any other sunset I had seen before: soft, luminous, multi-dimensional, everlasting. At one point, a sliver of light crested the glacier across the bay like a highlighter to a page. I couldn’t stop staring, as it if was telling me, “remember this, it’s important."
On land, it was always made clear to us to keep to the path flagged out by our guides, as one false step could lead us into a crevasse that we could not see. Our one true continent landing was also the most pristine and untouched of the whole trip, nestled against a steep mountain that Adélie penguins managed to climb up and down with ease, despite their always awkward balancing acts in the snow.
The penguins, we decided, were endlessly amusing and we would never grow tired of them. Dad found a rocky seat that looked out over a small crested bay, where he sat for over an hour watching the water lap up against the shore as the penguins came and went. “This is my favorite spot,” he said. In that moment, a memory of him sitting on a deck overlooking the Amazon river in Ecuador years before flashed before me, and I was immediately transported back to him saying the same thing as he mused about his love of rivers.
