A life-changing Antarctica trip taught me the importance of travelling consciously
"It takes one person to go to the dance floor," polar explorer Sunniva Sorby tells me. "Stick your neck out and people will follow."
A self-confessed ‘accidental’ climate activist, a keynote speaker and the CEO of Hearts in the Ice, a global movement of climate ambassadors promoting social engagement and measurable action around polar issues, Sunniva is also the unpaid godmother of the ship on which I’m sailing, the HX Hurtigruten Expeditions' Frijthof Nansen – she was invited to take on the role for the way she represents the face of modern-day exploring.
A next-generation expedition ship, Frijthof Nansen is the latest in the custom-built fleet run by HX, a long-established expedition cruise operator helping pave the way for its industry with big, bold investments. As one of its two hybrid ships, Frijthof Nansen currently saves up to 25 per cent of fuel, as well as being outfitted for next-gen tech and hopefully ending up fully electric.
EXPLORE ANTARCTICA WITH HX AND CL
"We have to be honest with ourselves," Sunniva continues. "As a species we are not going to stop travelling. We are also in deep trouble, and we need to get away from the idea that we are going to fix the problem."
If that all sounds very negative, Sunniva’s view of travel is actually a positive one – for her, it’s an antidote to despair. There’s a lot of apathy out there, she feels, and travel done in the right way is a kind of connective tissue that initiations conversations – conversations that inspire people to care at a time when climate change is more divisive than ever, that make lightbulbs go on in people’s heads.
I look around me. While there’s undoubtedly a contingent of fellow passengers seeming intent on nothing more than ticking Antarctica off their bucket-list, with lots of obtrusive selfie-taking and noisy excitable squawking in a destination where one really would benefit from being silent – for the wildlife, and to fully appreciate this otherworldly place – there are many who come because HX resonates with their values. And much of the appeal for these lies in HX’s research program, which includes the oldest citizen science project in the world.
As part of my life-changing trip to Antarctica, I head out on a zodiac boat with some of the ship’s marine biology team to help them collect data for scientists. While we filter plankton in the midst of icebergs as a blizzard swirls around us and our inflatable boat shudders on the icy waters, the biologists explain to us that because the Frijthof Nansen comes back to the same place every 10 days (the length of our cruise), we can take timed data that is extremely helpful to scientists.
CL'S EXCLUSIVE ANTARCTICA ADVENTURE
Additionally, HX donates 1,800 bed nights a year to research scientists, whether as guests on board its own ships or on research stations. Science is important because, as Sunni puts it, the polar regions serve as an early-warning system about what will happen to the rest of the planet.
Although tourism is increasing in Antartica, it’s also the most regulated place on the planet, and Sunniva says that the code of practice established for all expedition leaders and operators is "working, and a beautiful thing." In her view, the case for coming to Antartica is that people become passionate about conserving things they have seen with their own eyes.
For Sunniva, science education is as important as the science itself. To that end, the Frijthof Nansen (like the rest of the HX fleet) has an incredible, state-of-the-art Science and Education Centre where you can spend as much of your stay as you like – attending thought-provoking lectures, joining in with workshops, and even just chatting with scientists and visiting researchers while they work, for instance preparing the newly collected samples for transport or storage.
Intrigued by Sunniva’s own history of polar exploration and scientific research and also by the number of female crew on board the Frijthof Nansen (45 out of about 150, including scientists), I attend a fascinating lecture about the gnarly history of women in Antarctica. It’s given by one of the ship’s female scientists; they range from glaciologists to cetologists.
But going to Antartica also feels like a very personal kind of odyssey – albeit one in which I am reminded I am just a tiny speck in something much bigger and more important than myself. Aside when giving birth to another human being, I’ve genuinely never felt as awed as I do when, after crossing the infamous Drake Passage to get to the Antarctic Peninsula, I open my curtains on Day 3 of our cruise to see vast icebergs looming up around me like castles and penguins flying out of the icy waters as they swim across a shimmering white landscape. This leaves me feeling as if I’ve landed on another planet.
For the first time in years, I find myself leaving my headphones in my suite and instead of listening to music nearly every waking hour of my day, as I do back home, I spend as much time as possible simply absorbing the silence and reconnecting with my own thoughts and moods.
Whereas much travel feels like a rush from place to place, from sight to sight, I feel able to just sit and gaze, immersed in the peacefulness of a place where there are no shops, no ads, nothing to buy – no consumerism! You can’t take anything onto Antarctica, and you can’t take anything away.
Often while on the ship I lose my geographical bearings, not looking at the map to see where precisely we were, whereas in life I’m obsessed with knowing where I am in relation to everything and everyone else. Here it doesn’t matter, for a time.
I also challenge myself to do a couple of hard – in truth, really quite painful – things. Never a fan of oh-so-hip cold-water immersion, I amaze myself by doing – and loving! – the Polar Plunge. This involves running headlong into 0.8°C water off one of the black volcanic beaches of the former whaling station of Deception Island as chinstrap and gentoo penguins waddle and totter nearby, probably wondering what these weird human creatures are playing at.
One night, my friend and I also join a select group (decided by a lottery, and at extra charge) who camp out on Antarctica. Sped by zodiac to our camp site, we have to pull a heavy pulka (polar expedition sled) laden with our tent and sleeping bags up a steep hill covered in several feet of snow, constantly losing our footing as our legs plunge into the knee-deep drifts. Cue lots of swearing.
Having set up our own tent on the unstable snowfield and waved an incredulous goodbye to the Fridtjhof Nansen as it sailed off for the night, we watch a pair of humpback whales questing for food across the bay and the sun lowering itself towards the horizon but rising again before reaching it (there is no night-time at this time of year). Then we have a fitful few hours’ sleep punctuated by the sound of glaciers calving around us, with only nearby slumbering seals for company.
It isn’t cold (we’re very well insulated) but it is deeply uncomfortable, and also it’s light. It’s both hideous and one of the most thrilling, intense and unforgettable experiences of my life. When we are wakened at 5.30am to return to the zodiac, it’s snowed so much I can’t even seen our tent pegs to take the thing down. Cue more swearing. A breakfast Tia Maria back on the Fridtjhof Nansen works its magic, as do a few hours’ shut-eye back in my suite.
Did I lose my ego in Antarctica, as Sunniva said we all would and should? I won’t go that far, but I did in a sense 'meet myself' as she also promised, in that – so far from anywhere and from domestic responsibilities – I had the space and time to ponder my relationships, my work, and the great mysteries of life. And while much of that came from Antarctica itself, a lot of it came from the connections that Sunniva talked about.
Because an HX cruise can also be an incredibly sociable experience. On my trip to Antarctica, I made friends with like-minded, inquisitive travellers from around the world, and I was also attended to by some of the most friendly, likeable staff I have met anywhere on my travels, some of whom ended up feeling like friends, shared confidences with us, and even joined us singing and dancing around the piano in the bar one evening. And it’s those human connections that are the real gold and that rekindle your faith in humanity, for all its failings.
Country Living has an exclusive cruise to Antarctica with HX Hurtigruten Expeditions, with a 25 per cent discount on selected departures.
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