True North Blog

Today was a reason to celebrate: We have both been blessed with the privilege of experiencing all 7 of this world’s continents. It was exhilarating in a way that’s hard to describe. But I’ll try.

I’m learning a big lesson at this phase of my life: That is that many experiences are impossible to anticipate. I have a good imagination, but not good enough to accurately visualize every new experience ahead of time.

Antarctica has been that way. I thought I had a pretty good idea in my mind’s eye of what it would look like and feel like. I was wrong.

Antarctica is like the Grand Canyon, scuba diving, and flying. You can try to describe it or envision it, but you can’t really know until you experience it.

I’ll try to make some comparisons: The amount of snow is incredible. It’s like someone putting marshmallow topping on a sundae and falling asleep during the pour. It’s just much more than necessary. The only exposed land are the vertical rock faces and a few feet of rocky beach.

I’m a student of weather (as a pilot) but I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Somebody gave these clouds a license to party! In the photo above, I can count four or five different types of clouds and no particular organization. Oh yea, and if I took the same photo 30 minutes later it would be completely different.

Then there is the sense of “remoteness”. I think we are farther from civilization than I’ve ever been (with the possible exception of Wake Island). I now understand why we were required to get medical evacuation insurance for this trip. Any such effort would be a major expedition, and I’m still not sure how they would do it.

Finally, there is the juxtaposition of a state of the art cruise liner against the brutal and deserted landscape. It’s like being on the Starship Enterprise orbiting a far away planet. I’m typing these words from the “living room” lounge on a warm plush couch, gazing through floor to ceiling windows at the alien landscape. Adding to that analogy, the amount of clothing we don for the “beam down to the surface” truly feels like a spacesuit (and I have been in a spacesuit before). Boldly go!

Here are a few more photos from today, including two historic cabins in this Damoy Point bay.