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Postcard from Antarctica

Just get yourself to Dundee and then head North across the Tay Bridge and on your left, at Discovery Point, is a permanent exhibition to Captain Scott and his ill-fated South Polar expedition.

There are many reasons why Team Amundsen got to the South Pole first but being Norwegians and bought up on pairs of skis is probably the most telling. However having just returned from the trip of a lifetime to the tip of Antarctica, we wondered at the majesty and the harshness of this remarkable continent. It is just amazing that anyone in the early 1900’s could survive let alone explore this deep frozen, wind battered land.

Antarctica is 3000 miles across and covered with up to 3000 meters of ice. The mass of air on the ice becomes so cold it sinks and draws fresher air downwards. With the spin of the earth on its axis huge westerly winds are generated and the seas can become enormous.

We approached Antarctica by sliding down the coast of South America from Rio. The plan was to see the penguins in the Falkland Islands but then those roaring forties struck us. The wind rose and the seas with it, till we were in a force 9 gusting 10 with 12-15 metre waves making landing on the Falklands an impossibility.

Our boat the Rotterdam pitched, tossed and often crashed through the giant waves as we lurched southwards with the banshee wind howling in the rigging. The Damtuboat as I christened it, whilst retching over the side, displaced 60,000 tons. Scott’s vessel, the Discovery, was tiny, displacing a mere 1,500 tons….

Eventually the storm blew out and we reached the northern tip of Antarctica in cloud and Elephant island loomed in the gloom. Luckily we had an experienced ‘ice pilot’ on board for all around were the icebergs. But with radar as well, icebergs don’t kill ships. What killed the modern day Explorer earlier this year, and doubtless the Titanic too was a ‘growler’ Growlers are bergybits that float unseen just under the waves and if you are unlucky then they will crash through wooden or metal hulls just as easily as a knife goes through butter.

Well we survived, and the following day dawned sunny, bright and clear. It suddenly all became worthwhile. We were in another world. A world of sparkling snow and radiant sun, of glowing greeny blue ice contrasting with the dark rocky headlands, all pristine and untouched with only the few penguins who can live in this the coldest land. We all inwardly gasped at the sheer beauty of what we were seeing and some of us offered up a prayer for the privilege and began to realise why Scott and his lieutenant, the even more remarkable Shackleton, couldn’t keep away from their heaven… the deepest South..