When Philip Brocklehurst went to Antarctica, he brought back his own toes as a souvenir. In a jar. That was in the early days of Antarctic tourism (1908 as part of Ernest Shackleton’s unsuccessful attempt on the Pole). Were he to have made the trip with us in 2004, on board MS Explorer II, he’d probably just have left the toes on whatever rock they’d frozen to, and picked up a proper souvenir such as a Swarovski crystal frog — from one of the ship’s two souvenir shops.
These days a voyage to the world’s wildest frontier does not mean hardship. It means a cruise ship and luxury and unlimited cocktails and Harry Potter films showing in a little cinema and a library and leather armchairs and a gym and a turndown service and two dining rooms and five courses for dinner and kir Royale Sorbet between courses and, almost certainly, a full complement of toes on your return.
And yet the Antarctic you experience is no less magnificent than Brocklehurst’s. And it’s not all plain sailing. The Explorer departs from Ushuaia, at the foot of South America, and must first cross the Drake Passage: 650 miles of ocean between Cape Horn and the nearest bit of Antarctica — and one of the world’s roughest seas. The crossing takes about 50 hours — that’s roughly eight sickbags, for the one in five who suffer — though we had the smoothest crossing of the season.
It should be hellish, this two-day-and-two-night confinement on board, but there is a faculty-ful of academics to teach us about Antarctica — from ornithologists to meteorologists — and their lounge lectures are also relayed to all cabins on closed-circuit TV.
When you see your first iceberg everything changes. The size, you are ready for (“as big as cathedrals”, said Darwin). The shapes too: amazing — though no different from the ones you’ve seen in photos. But the colours are like nothing you’ve ever seen, not even in pictures of icebergs. Blue, blue-green, blue-blue-green, turquoise, aquamarine, green-blue, electric-blue, neon-blue, moon-blue, blue with a hint of blue … you could fill pages of a thesaurus and not define iceberg blue.
Our trip lasts 10 days, and at no point does anyone get blasé about ice. Which is just as well, since 98% of the continent is covered in it. Our first sighting of the other 2% comes at Neko harbour, and it is overwhelming: ice, snow, mountains, penguins, whales and a bitter cold.
The whales are unabashed showmen, the humpbacks ostentatiously raising their tail flukes high like a regal wave before diving. We see dozens — humpbacks, minkes, sperm and right whales — but each time is breathlessly exciting. Their grace in the water, sheer size and terrifying proximity.
Turning north and heading home again, we have one last adventure: a colossal ice field. What has brought these uncountable thousands of icebergs into one place we don’t know, but as the captain steers us skilfully through this forest of solid water, it’s like discerning shapes in clouds. Everyone sees something different in the bergs’ randomly carved forms.
There is a thin line in Antarctica between a cruel, deadly wilderness and a sublime, uplifting one. Which side of that line you stand on probably depends on whether you’re: a) staying until the relief ship arrives in the spring; or, b) on your way back to MS Explorer II for the purser’s signature hot-chocolate-with-rum-in-it. I was both grateful and profoundly sad to be in the latter group. — Â