9:00 – Anchor is up and stowed.  We leave Trinity and are now headed southeast across the Orleans Strait for the mainland. 

10:00 – We have reached the middle of the Orleans Strait and as Nick slows the boat to a stop, the six of us YEPers and Roswitha come on deck from the garage with all the scientific gear.  We begin by jotting down the current meteorological conditions, an hourly ritual we had started around eight that morning.  Vincent and Nora begin taking plankton samples in ten-meter increments.  Maria and Alex busied themselves with salinity and temperature profiles down to 100 meters.

            It was a clear blue day, the brightest we’d had, nonetheless it was cold work.  Each subsequent measurement involved us coiling up the line and then sending it back down for another tour.  This proved the trickiest for Vincent and Nora who had to do so very slowly as not to startle the plankton and krill they were pulling up.  Another challenge was the current, which caused our lines to run on angles, making accurate depth notation difficult. 

            As the rest worked, Carlien and I took the Secchi depth measurement.  Meaning, we were measuring the clarity of the water, how far we could see down.  This meant we were to drop a Secchi-disc overboard and watch the white and black pie slice disc until it sank out of sight.  Just at that point we would place clip on the line, pull up the disc and go again.  Third time is a charm, almost.  We were to test it three times and then find the mean of the entries to eliminate some error.  However, since we had a current the disc would be by the stern at the point when we could see it no longer, which made the rope length an ineffective way to measure the depth. 

After a couple more tries, I had Carlien go to the bow and toss the disc of from there as I held the spool.  This proved to work well.  The line would be running taught straight below us just as we could no longer see the disc.  After calculating the mean of the second, more accurate set of date, our numbers (which I don’t have in front of me and cannot remember) showed that Antarctic waters are surprisingly very clear.  The two of us then returned to help the plankton measuring Swiss who were still working at their required slow speed.  It was now eleven and time to take meteorological measurements again.

12:00 – We have arrived in Charcot Bay and start making our way in to a small cove lined with two thousand foot tall peaks and a low lying saddle between.  Nick begins to pilot the boat into the thick of the ice flow and boat sized bergs as Mike stands on the anchor and signals directions with his raised hand.  Putting at a knot or two, Nick wheels Pangaea around several thirty-foot icebergs, which begin to fill in our path behind us.  After some time of this we reach within twenty yards of shoreline but there is a cluster of seven or so icebergs packed densely between us and shore.  We will not be making it ashore from this approach.  However, seizing the moment, Nick pushes Pangaea’s nose onto one mole hill shaped berg and one by one we all jump ashore for a group photo on the bobbing ball of ice. 

            As we all climbed onto the anchor and aboard the iceberg shifted and the boat drifted out, stranding the mountain guides and Celeste on the floating island.  Fred seized the moment and began pegging us young explorers, who were lined up on the handrail, with snowballs taken from the top of the iceberg.  Despite the onslaught of snowballs, Tristan insisted we return to get Celeste; he didn’t want to go the rest of the trip without a cook.  Nose back on the iceberg and all were aboard. 

The departure from the cove proved more challenging, as the icebergs had filled in behind us, forcing Nick to re-navigate the passage.  Back out in the greater bay and we could see a storm front moving in on the distance.  A wall of dark black clouds was creeping on the horizon, contrasting the startling white ice flow that met it on the horizon.

As we moved to a new cove, there was particularly interesting shaped iceberg that caught all of our attentions.  It was composed of two great walls, which ran to the water.  Connecting the walls was a smooth basin, which held a lake of the brightest rich green-blue water I had ever seen.  It was a lake floating on top of the ocean, wild.

1:00 – After another failed attempt to get on the icy continent, we were leaping from the zodiac to the mainland. 

1:15 - First steps on the continent.  Crampons on, tied in, we turned and the train of people began to creep up the coastal peak.  We could not have asked for better weather, a golden sun at a lowering angle, white and blue peaks all around which were beginning to cast dramatic shadows and a bay of endless white specks.  We continued climbing, one foot in front of the other, or more like swung wide in front of the other, as not to catch a crampon on a pant leg.  As we climbed, I looked behind and I could barely make out the zodiac putting towards a massive auditorium shaped iceberg.  It had a submerged turquoise plateau ten feet under the water, which ran for about fifty feet out.  I suppose it could be considered an polar sand bar.  Nonetheless the crew were having their own excursion.  After some time we reached the summit.  Pictures were in order; team Switzerland with red cross flag in hand, other combinations of people, and finally the entire group. 

            This was the first time the peak had been climbed, ever.  Our own first ascent and being proper first “ascenters” we took the liberty to name the peak Pangaea Horn.  The back side of the peak gave way to even larger mountains, which harbored glaciers that cascaded to the sea below us.  A brilliant blue sea on one side with a grey speck called Pangaea floating in it and massive, golden glacier fields on the other, we were lucky with the weather.  After the initial excitement was over, Vincent and Mike pulled out snow shovels and began to dig a snow trench to take snow measurements.  Admittedly, Mike really did most of the digging and whether Vincent had been helping or not, the trench was dug in a matter of minutes. 

            Meteorological measurements and a GPS waypoint were in order and then we all turned to the snow measurements.  Alex played scribe as the rest of us took different jobs.  Roswitha passed off snow for Carlien and Maria to analyze and determine crystal size and type under magnification.  Vincent measured ten-centimeter intervals, I weighed snow density, hanging the tube on a scale.  Nora did something, I can’t remember what.  We all worked thoroughly and quickly, while watching our footing, for we were working five feet or so from a likely cornice fault line.  Finishing an hour and a half of work, the sun was getting lower and we were getting equally colder. 

            We turned back down the mountain and soon were back on the zodiac.  I was first load aboard.  As I sat taking my boots off on deck, the second trip returned and started boarding onto Pangaea’s stern.  Suddenly, the zodiac’s stern was shoved forward by the drifting iceberg behind it and Pangaea, oppositely, was drifting backwards, sandwiching and lifting the boat from the water.  Yells from the passengers alerted me from my boots and to the problem, however Nick arrived just in time and throttled Pangaea forward. 

5:00 – The weather from the north is now getting closer and we move to the northern end of the bay to seek better shelter. 

7:00 – A quick meal and we are suited up in our gear again and heading ashore on the zodiac.  Headlamps switched on, we stand steady on a small outcrop of rock and snow as we wait to rope in and climb the cornice that lies between us and the gentle slope above.  I am the last one before Mike and the sled.  I skirt around the corner and begin gripping the wall on my left.  Working in a pattern, I work in ones, punching the snow with my axe then fist, crampon weighted, then the other, repeat.  As I work, I look down, Antarctic ocean below, cornice above.  Continue climbing for another thirty seconds and get a “Neihce- USA,” from Fred in his La Vallée accent. 

            Sled hauled up the cornice and we begin hiking up the slope with Fred and Claude-Alain checking for crevasses in our path.  The snow and sky around us is coated in a deep navy blue as the afterglow from the setting sun disappears and our train of headlamps bobs in line up the mountain.  Behind us, Pangaea’s cabin lights begin to grow small.  Eventually, we reach the top, pack the snow with our feet, fists, and shovels until it is flat and hard enough to raise the massive, sixteen-person tent.  We all get in, boots off at the door.  Settle in, eat a little soup and I fall asleep.  Lying in the warmth of my sleeping bag, surrounded by laughing friends and the smell of boiling water, it’s hard not to feel content and drift off.  My last thoughts were summarized as a newfound respect for scientists and their line of work.  It is a meticulous job that demands, patience, repetition and precision, something that is very demanding in a laboratory and even more so out in the field. 

7:00 – Pops and pangs as the tide came back in, lifting the boat from where it had settled on our shoal.  I lay waking to the seaward sounds, as a rumble in the distance echoed over Trinity Island towards us.  In my head I pictured the huge tower of ice freefalling towards the ocean below it.  I rolled out of bed just as swell from the calving ice lifted the boat an inch and rocked, crunching onto new rocks. 

8:00 – I now find myself back on the penguin colony, most of which is vacated by its fishing residence.  We prepare the scientific gear with Roswitha on shore while the crew tries to abandon the shoal.  While my expedition mates are waving meteorological measuring equipment in front of me and odd spinning three pronged, cup ended antennae are lifted from a black bag of gear, the sun finally shows itself in full for the first time.  Our world is raised from grey tones into a brilliant white contrasting a thick blue sky.  Sunscreen was a good choice; Vincent who believed himself better than such creams is definitely beginning to burn.   I laugh. 

Across the Orleans Strait the mainland of Antarctica sat before us, startling in the newfound sun.  I have never seen anything like it in my entire life.  It is still hard to take in.  All of what I could see of the Peninsula was tooth like, 6,000ft tall rocky peaks rising drastically from the ocean.  Connecting the triangular peaks was ice and only ice.  Mammoth glaciers filled the gaps between the peaks, each one easily rising near to the tips of the mountains enclosing them.  Massive dark blue lines ran haywire across and down the glaciers, crevasses that could enclose entire skyscrapers.  Yeah I had heard that it was a continent of ice, but I do not think it is something easily comprehendible until you actually see it. 

All I can think about is, what if all of this does actually melts?  This coastline is only the start of a glacier that fluctuates between 10,000 feet and peaks reaching 18,000ft spanning an entire continent bigger than the United States.  The rise in sea level would displace something like more than half of the entire world’s population.  Billions of dislocated people by an irreversibly high sea and with it the plummet of any world economy.  The only thing that I can see resulting from such a predicament is war, but not war as we know it today, a power vacuum in the wake of all political balance being thrown off and chaos engulfing each region.  I do not mean to sound apocalyptic, however I do not think anyone can argue that our problems will not be dire if the ice does all melt. 

“Henry…  Henry!  Hold the plankton net.”  I looked down from the peaks and returned to helping the group.

8:30 – Pangaea sails past, free of the shoal and is sitting higher in the water as a result of the weight we dumped. 

10:30 – Return to Pangaea and find myself on deck taking pictures of brilliant aquamarine iceberg that is floating a boat length away.  A couple clicks of the camera shutter and Erwan Le Lann hustled past suited up to go ashore.  As he hopped in the rub he turned calling up that he could use a hand on land.  I rand downstairs quickly putting on my rubber boots and the rest and ran through the hatch at the stern, clanking powerfully as I unbolted it.  Seconds later I was in the zodiac, putting ashore and plowing through the bergybits with Erwan and Robert. 

11:00 - Jumped from the bow of the zodiac onto a patch of dark slick rock, a welcome landing on a coast of four-foot cornices.  Mike, Claude-Alain, Fred and Alexis were already dragging Mike’s expedition sleds full of gear back and forth across the penguin colony.  The boat was now anchored on the other side of the small island and meant the tonnage of gear had to endure a 200 yard trip across the penguin colony to the other coast where it was then loaded on the rub and to Pangaea where it was subsequently stowed.  I reached the pile of gear and loaded a sled and then pushed and steadied the cargo from flipping as Claude-Alain pulled.  The process was efficient enough and proved welcome exercise after several days aboard. 

The first transport was obviously the hardest as I had never done this before.  Being in the back, aside from pushing, my job was on the downhill to keep the sled from running out of control, flipping, and maybe taking out a high mountain guide and a penguin or two.  Considering the island was made up of four rolling hills, I got a lot of practice.  Once we reached the other coast we had to slow the sled before the icy waters.  Then we had to haul the heavy weight from the snow ledge onto the rock two feet below then to the zodiac, which was being kept nose to shore.  This proved the trickiest part, for it is a fine balance, passing off heavy objects over a cold sea while wearing gumboots in snow.  I quickly discovered rubber boots are not the best choice on snow, as an occasional slip of foot reminded me while pushing and pulling.

This process continued for several hours while the weather turned and wind started to pick up and whip snow around.  As we hauled gear to and from, the penguins who had been jumping in precision now started to return ashore with what I assume were full bellies.  As they gathered, they turned into our audience and all stood in rows watching us with curiosity.  I think some were simply enjoying a change of pace, others we’re catching up on the second part of the saga they had watched the day before.  I think some were generally amused.  Some stood in place for hours, only turning their heads back and forth, as we walked by, as to follow the show. The gentoos were generous enough to leave the path we had been using clear, every once in a while one would get in front of our sled and trot along ahead, joining in on the parade. 

12:00 – Now am moving a sled with Mike.  I am pushing sleds of gear between penguins on an island in Antarctica with Mike Horn, one of the best explorers in the world.  It sounds like a statement from a dream, haha, but it is real.  The wind is whipping snow around us again.  It was the same epiphany from the day before but today simply reconfirmed it.  I am on an expedition in Antarctica. 

1:00 – By now all gear is stowed on the boat and we return to an incredible lunch aboard and I find myself sleeping next to my empty bowl. 

2:00 – Martin and Mike came into the conference room and gave us a briefing on the climb we were headed into.  Up to make base camp, summit in the morning.  Meeting dismissed, the six of us flooded downstairs where the guides, Dario and Gabriella were already suiting up.  A packing frenzy engulfed us for the next half hour as boots were laced, goggles lowered, sleeping bags shoved, desperately tried to close bags and then ultimately repacked by some. 

3:00 - On deck in the snowstorm, we await the return of the zodiac.  The weather worsens, visibility decreases and the wind increases.  Finally, after a half hour the rub returns. 

4:00 - We rush to stern to grab the painter, the zodiac has taken on a good six inches of water.  Fred, Gabriella, Nick, and Erwan step on deck, drenched from head to foot.  The ice debris, which had been floating around Pangaea, had been blown into a impenetrably thick, fragmented pack in Mikkelson Harbor.  This made it impossible for Nick to push the zodiac through and get to shore.  Searching for an alternate route, they then headed around the point of the harbor as the wind picked up and encountered large swells, which crashed over the bow and left the boat swamped as we found it.  We aren’t climbing today. 

5:00 – After regaining his warmth, I find Nick scouring over maps in the deckhouse.  Looking through the storm outside, I see the same iceberg I had been taking pictures of earlier.  It is still floating in the same place.  Nick explains that if you anchor in iceberg waters, the key is to anchor is shallow water, which draws less than the bergs themselves.  Therefore, the icebergs won’t be able to drift into the boat.  However they can become stranded dauntingly close, as the one I was watching was.

9:00 – As the storm continues, dark settles in, and the ice flow drifts thick around us.  We sit inside eating dinner, as the wind howls outside and the rigging pangs in the forty-five knot winds.  The feeling is very Shakleton-esque.  I am glad I am onboard tonight.

0:00 – Coffee. We have now sailed into iceberg territory.  The warning target zone set two nautical miles ahead of us on the radar keeps going off due to wave clutter, which keeps us on edge.  We can see King George Island on radar and GPS and goggling over maps we discuss possible ascents on Trinity Island and the peninsula.  Eventually, Nick and I begin to ponder over how incredibly nuts the early explorers like Amundsen, Scott and even Byrd were to come down here without all the navigation equipment and knowledge we have now.  To them I am grateful for giving our generation what they knew.  Utmost respect.

8:00 – Land ho!  Came on deck to find floating ice cathedrals drifting past, the most spectacular shapes I have ever seen.  The shapes they present are hard to describe, curious needles and oblong curves that drift into the sea.  They look like some self proclaimed profound sculptor has spent years shaping them to turn heads, however are just random breaks of ice melting under the influence of sun and ocean.  Beyond the statues of ice, the heavy fog occasionally thins to give us glimpses of icebound volcanic spires, letting my imagination run wild.  Finally, after weeks of preparation and months of hoping and years of dreaming Antarctica lies just in front of me.  The secret land, as some of the early explorers referred to it as, it seems fitting, tucked behind the fog and forgotten about by most of the world.

10:00 – We wrap around the south end of Trinity Island and drop sails as we enter a large cove.  As we enter, I stare at the ocean ends of both shores that are lined with tooth like spires of volcanic rock, ominous looking structures.  As we come closer, an orange structure presents itself on a smaller island within the cove.  It is an Argentinean structure, which in its prime was used for scientific purposes.  However, its original human inhabitants have long left and moving dots around it suggest that the penguins are now in charge.  Distracted, I stand on the bow, taking in everything, in memory and on camera as the crew search for a place with good depth to anchor. 

            Just then the bow jutted up out of the waterline and skipped heavily three times up onto a ledge.  Each jolt made a scraping noise that gave off the same sensation as fingernails on a chalkboard, then amplified by at least ten, shocking all of us on the bow out of our winter wonderland state of being.  I would learn later from Nick that the ocean floor had risen from over fifty meters to two meters in a matter of seconds, an unwanted surprise and a problem for a boat that draws over two meters.  We had unintentionally discovered our own uncharted secret land.

Our cards had been dealt.  No matter how much we throttled the engines, rotated the rudders, and weight we relocated, the stern only obliged to move back and forth as the bow shifted and crunched on the rock, we weren’t leaving this shoal.  Luckily, Pangaea is a boat that has been meticulously thought through.  It is equipped with a one-inch, triple reinforced, aluminum hull, which compared to the standard quarter inch hull is beastly.  Therefore it is made to withstand a beating, i.e. intended and unintended beachings, icebergs.  Another factor of the moment, we had popped up on the shoal just as the tide was turning and the harbor was beginning to empty itself out to sea.  We would have to wait twelve hours until our next chance.

11:00 – It was decided we would move all excess gear ashore, dump our fresh water, and us YEPers were to sleep up on the glacier.  This would rid the boat of all the excess weight possible, making it more buoyant and giving us a better shot of getting it back into deeper water.  If that still did not work, we would radio in for “the” Russian icebreaker to come pull us out.  Only did we find out on the last day in King George Island from a Chilean admiral that there was no Russian icebreaker.  Until then we had some time to burn, why not spend it with penguins?  As we hopped in the zodiac, the irony of the situation set in. We were sitting on the only part of the cove that was exposed at low tide, Pangaea’s turquoise hull above us only rubbed it in our faces more.

12:00 – Gentoo Penguins were about all I could see for several hours.  Hundreds had lined up on the hills of their colony to gawk at us, amused at our fumble on the shoal they were all too familiar with, probably their fishing ground. Curious little dudes, they are the most extreme chillers.  All of us were astounded at their disregard, perhaps nonchalance of our presence.  We could literally walk between them, be close enough to reach down at give ‘em a pat on the head.  However, I think a penguin would find this a demeaning gesture, for although small; they hold themselves with dignity and have perhaps a hint of a Napoleon complex.  Yet, it is hard to take them seriously when they waddle around, but their egos are undoubtedly understandable when they get in the water.  They maneuver through the near frozen waters with incredible precision, pursuing fish at high speeds and hairpin turns, they leave white jet streams behind them in the deep blue water.  Here and again a penguin would leap from the water, getting mad ups and some style points from us humans in the crowd.  Nonetheless, the penguins were impressively warm hosts, in this cold cold climate.  Maybe their one draw back is the absolute and inescapable stench surrounding their colonies, thanks to the snow stained red from the once krill and shrimp.

            We continued on to explore the remaining Argentinean shelter.  The penguins did not complain at our intrusion.  It was surprisingly hospitable inside, quite the contrary to its outward appearance of ramshackle.  The food stores were quite complete, pasta that expired in 2000, partially frozen bottled water, an array of canned vegetables.  I figured it was all still edible due to the year round refrigerator temperatures.  Continuing my tour through the building, a complete medicine cabinet, hammers, rakes, mattresses on the beds, boarded up yet still glassed windows, a newspaper from 1979, a dead bird.  It wasn’t so bad, I found myself wandering off in my head.  I was back here in two years for the summer, I had put on a new door and patched a bit of the ceiling, just living.  I liked the thought, still do. 

            Shortly after I reappeared from the building, Mike came around the corner and told us to follow him to a seal and her pup.  After a stalking approach to the Weddell Seal and her pup, we realized our stealth skills were unneeded.  Like the penguins, the seal and her pup were completely relaxed and pleasantly looked up at us with a happy tired smile and returned to their sunbathing naps.  I had seen many a seal at home, but never had one been comfortable with me sitting an arms length from.  It is really is an incredible to have a place in the world where animals and humans live in harmony.  Maybe, I’m looking for coexistence, a coexistence that doesn’t involve you or it running into a bush, up a tree, or swerving a lane.

19:00 – Helped the crew drag all the excess expedition gear, general provisions and unused sails and sheets to the stern of the boat.  From there, the gear was loaded into the zodiac and Robert putted into shore, where the mountain guides had congregated to drag the gear up onto the penguin colony island.  As we dragged, pulled, heaved, carried, and pushed the sun set and the wind whipped, numbing my nose and stinging my eyes.  Headlamps were switched on and we kept going.  It was only then that it fully settled in that I was actually on an expedition in Antarctica.  This was no tourism trip, we were already hitting the unexpected.  The unexpected, the unplanned for, those elements that no matter the planning still arise, those are what truly make, shape, and define a trip.  They remind you that we aren’t in control, we can try to be, do the best we can to be, but on a journey, to some degree the journey itself dictates what will come to pass.

21:00 – Finished moving the gear, came inside to eat and find the meaning of warmth again.  Soon turned to my sleeping bag.  It had been a long, full day.  Even in our circumstance, I feel asleep with a sense of accomplishment after moving all of that weight, a sense of place.  Not much more can describe my feeling than: I am on an expedition in Antarctica. Incredible.

0:00 – Stood up in the garage and the to my surprise the feeling in my stomach was quite calm as the boat continued to rock.  My seasickness was gone, glorious!  No longer would this sea monster cripple me.  However, due to the paleness of my sleeping friends, I could tell some were still feeling the effects of the ocean. 

Found my way up to the deckhouse where Fabrizio and Robert were already on watch.  The two were full of conversation about jumping icebergs, a misplaced screw that held the boat together, and the properties of decaf coffee and the people that drink it.  Their aimless conversation certainly did make the time go faster.  As the night went on, Erwan and I watched enviously as Tritin, who had missed dinner, made a cheese something or other that smelled incredible.  As Erwan and I talked, I learned about his sponsored days with Petzl and The North Face, and his ankle breaking BASE jump that he had only recovered from recently.  Crazy.  While he told me stories of mountaineering madness, I looked up into the southern sky, something I had never seen before, it truly was incredible.

8:00 – Snow has arrived.  Incase we had forgotten, the weather outside was reminding us that Antarctica was getting close.  The world outside is getting colder, quieter, and greyer.  All my preconceived thoughts of this part of the world are becoming realized.  I step outside in my Eider windbreaker and carharts, barefoot into the inch of snow, and wonder how much colder it will get?  A lot.

It is almost law that where there is a first snow a snowball will be thrown.  Of course we couldn’t disprove it and Erwan’s video camera got caught in the crossfire.  Certainly my first snowball fight on a boat. 

We just past latitude 60, close, I put anticipation on hold for sanity’s sake.  The snow continues and the world is white on grey and falls to the bluest blue sea around us.  Ironically, Antarctica is one of the driest places in the world, I feel privileged to see it snowing.

16:00 – The clouds burned off and gave way to sunshine, an oily sea, and an inch of snow on deck.  Naturally, this led to barefoot snowball fights and the construction of the most loved and photographed snowman.  Nick made sure to add every last detail and tend to his every need.  Saw our first Gentoo Penguins jumping in schools out of the ocean and some grease ice forming on the cold ocean.  The temperature feels surprisingly warm for where we are headed, but the penguins and ice tell us we are on the right track.

0:00 – First Watch.  The deckhouse, or as we New England sailors say doghouse, looks like a war room from a science fiction film with lit up knobs and switches, computer screens, and the glow of red filtered navigation lights which send off an eerie luminescence on anyone caught under them.  The room at night feels fitted to do much more than sail the boat, maybe make it fly.  It feels more like the cockpit of a plane and all we can see out the window is the occasional star, which plays even more with my imagination. 

Not yet knowing the crew well, we sit and laugh while keeping an eye on the boat and it’s whereabouts as we move down the Beagle Passage.  The mood that has settled over our little nocturnal group is suddenly disrupted when the Chilean coastguard crackles in over channel sixteen.  It is their habit to monitor all traffic moving through the passage due to a little extra tension between the two countries sharing the body of water.  After Claudio, our resident Doctor, switched to channel ten and confirmed our whereabouts, we returned to our stories, coffee, and the control panels.  Yet, with all the night’s distractions, it never left my mind that every minute we were moving closer and closer to Antarctica.  A weird feeling. 

6:00 – Was awoken two hours before my watch in a schedule confusion and was greeted with a churning sensation in the pit of my stomach, brought on by the big ocean swells of the Drake Passage.  I gathered myself and came on deck to help role out the sails for the first time of our trip.  All that was left of the Americas were the grey tooth like peaks of Cape Horn on the horizon aft of us.  I would have spent more time getting excited about the prospect of being on the open ocean but tiredness won over and I went back below.

8:00 – Back on deck, we had set a bearing of almost directly 180 degrees south and all I could make out were big swells and an empty horizon where nothing interrupted the convergence of ocean and sky. 

Our bearing made me momentarily wander back to a childhood memory.  My grandfather, who is the best navigator I have ever come across and still a diehard sailor at 85, was eager to train up his grandchildren into his personal minion of sailors, so naturally lessons started about when I could communicate and walk.  One day we were north and slightly west of Brown’s Cove, where we anchor, in a particularly thick fog.  My grandfather asked me what bearing he should take to get home.  Not fully understating the concept yet I responded, “Go south, 180?”  Laughing, he warned that if we did that we would miss our target and eventually end up in Antarctica.  Needless to say I didn’t think that was a very good idea at the time. However, now here I was, going on the bearing that my grandfather had warned against.  We would see if his theory was right.

I shook myself from the thought and turned to find Nick in his element.  We had winged visitors swooping all around us.  Royal Albatross and various types of Petrels as Nick explained.  There was one Royal Albatross in particular that was the most impressive bird I have ever seen.  It looked past its prime and had sailed the winds to all seven of the seas.  It was pocked and fiercely stained with patches of grey and white on its usual brown plumage and flew with a strange dignity around Pangaea.  Nick and Mike explained that they spend over twenty years without ever touching down.  Just before my watch was over I followed my albatross as it soared around the boat and landed in the water to starboard.  I watched him until I lost sight of him in the swells lifting the boat from side to side.

16:00 – The cold front that had been growing grey on the edge of our bluebird day finally whipped in.  As the winds picked up we rolled up one of the jibs and accidentally let the boat drift a little upwind, adding strain on the sails.  Correcting ourselves, the storm past in all of five minutes.  It had merely been a short commercial break from our perfect day. 

We, a handful of crew, Mike, guides and YEP, spent the beautiful afternoon telling stories of the north pole, engine rooms, and living life unconventionally.  Or rather I should say they spent the afternoon telling, I spent it listening.  I listened, trying to take it all in, knowledge.  It would be a waste not to, these are some of the most talented in their field.  I have been given the biggest break getting into this sub world and have to take in all that I can.  Eventually, the conversation ends and I decide to get some sleep before my next watch.

I quickly interrupted my sleep for some of Celeste’s dinner, and come into the conference room to find Alexis and the Horn girls looking through the movie collection.  I laugh that we should put on Happy Feet due to its relevance to our expedition.  I think Alexis secretly really wanted to watch it and soon we were.  Sleep.

20:00 – It’s real.  We’ve pushed off from the dock, leaving the handful of waving people and turned with Antarctica in mind.  We split Argentina to the east and Chile to the west as the sun sets and dims behind the mountains that Ushuaia is nestled in front of.  As the deep blue of night comes into full affect, the lights of the town turn on golden and streak the black water aft of us.  In the deckhouse, Cap'n Nick points out the lights that make up Port Williams, the most southern settlement in the world.  We really are leaving it all behind.  Somewhat like Mike’s first step onto the ice on the opposite pole, this is the point where we can’t really turn back.  Naturally, I think about what I am possibly getting myself into however the drive to explore pushes that fear out of my head.

Since my return from the wondrous Antarctic I have devoted two entire days to editing pictures from the expedition.  I have loaded some onto the community but if you would like to see them in full, friend me on Facebook for seven albums worth of pictures.  You can find me under Henry Winslow Perkins Stanislaw, I think I’m the only one?  I hope. 

Now I have turned my focus to understanding my awful handwriting from my diary I kept aboard Pangaea.  Once I translate it all and have it typed up in a word document I will post day-by-day accounts of “what went down” aboard on the community.  Be expecting them in the next few days.

And in other news, I have devoted the past two days and the next two to volunteering in New Hampshire for Obama until election day.  Knock on wood, things are looking good, however remain tight in NH.

Peace,

H

REI, what a glorious store, every piece of gear a crunchy nature junky could ever want.  It's one of those places where you secretly want your materialism to run rampant and purchase one set of everything for sale.  "Mum, I clearly need this professional grade white-water kayak and every type of technical ice axe they carry."  Unfortunately she didn't see my reasoning.  After a short confusion as to insulated verses non-insulated mountaineering boots I successfully purchased all my gear. Word.  Putting on my down puffy is like wearing a sleeping bag.  When I put it on I strike a cunning resemblance to the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Michelin Man, I can't complain they seem like chillers.  Also updated my gore-tex jacket, my old one had met one too many mountains, bears, and washing machines and isn't up to the daunting south.

I then went to my local hardware store to find some rubber gloves, no luck there.  When I asked for some assistance, I got two useless, bloodshot, teenagers who proceeded to "go long" and reenact the winning touchdown of the previous nights Patriots victory.

So now I play a waiting game, zippers are being slid shut and name tags are being assembled as I mentally prepare for the coming excursion.

I'm out,

H

After a couple of days with the Obama Campaign in New Hampshire I learned a couple of things.  I was able to persuade a couple of people over the phone about Senator Obama and was got over fifty students on the street to pledge on paper that they would vote democratic come November 4th. However, 160 persuasion calls and six hours locking student votes on the streets of UNH later, it is obvious that people are much more concerned about economic tidings than the environment at present.  It is natural to think about yourself before you stop to think about what we are doing to the world, it is an ingrained priority on our list of survival.  Borrowing a little knowledge from HMI: when prioritizing, how an event will play out for you, you the person come first, then the people around you, then infrastructure, then the environment.  Yet, I don't think we or I can afford this selfish thinking.  The environment is so heavily linked to the first three on the list that it should be weighted much more heavily.  So whatever happens in the new presidential term, and hopefully run by prior referred to candidate, I hope that green energies do not get put on hold due to developments of the moment.  It can't be.  I suppose that's why we are here.  

On that thought, I have been asked to speak to a group in Bath, Maine after the expedition in the Antarctic.  The group is trying to make Bath, a shipyard town, more green, and hopefully my learnings will give them a new breath of enthusiasm to keep going.  I may also be talking at a North Shore Community Seminar in Beverly, Massachusetts when I return, which would be huge.  A lot of people come to those, a lot.  I still have yet to get in contact with the some of the schools I am planning to talk to, but slowly things are falling into place.

Training has been going well, i wend for an eight and half mile run yesterday, gorgeous.  The fall colors are coming into bloom, potent fire reds, brilliant yellows, tangy oranges, deep crimsons, a blue bird sky and a glistening yellow sea.  It is pretty hard to not keeping going when the weather is so, just to see around the next bend.

Get out and do it.

Henry

Coming back to a regular pattern of life is welcome after the ten days in Switzerland.  I spent a day catching up on sleep, something we all were short of in Chateau D’Oex, and now the real fun starts.  Training.  For me it’s all about finding music that will keep you going and going and going, like the energizer rabbit.  Oddly the music that does the trick for me is German electro.  Well, I guess it makes sense, it’s designed to keep you dancing for twelve hours straight so the pace is steady and moderately slow as not to blow you out.  Anyways I don’t know why I am talking about rabbits or German warehouse parties, my point is that I have now entered the personal training stage as I prepare for Antarctica.

The other news, very current news, is that I am about to head up to New Hampshire in twenty minutes to volunteer for the Obama Campaign for a couple of days.  Why Obama and not McCain?  From a purely environmental standpoint they both pledge to break America’s dependence on foreign oil.  However, the key difference is McCain aims to replace our addiction on foreign oil with an addiction on domestic oil, i.e. offshore drilling.  Obama wants to replace imported oil with renewable energy, mainly wind and solar.  The more renewables equals less carbon emissions, and a lesser chance of us actually realizing the scenarios we are on course for.  Maybe I can persuade a couple of people in the battleground state of New Hampshire, maybe I can’t, at least I will have tried.

That is all folks.

Henry