5 weeks at sea. 8,000 nautical miles. Antarctica to
Portsmouth.
There was a rush to get on the ship. I’d been half ready to
leave for a few days. The plans had changed and changed again, all plans
hampered by the wind which had picked up and was blowing large bergs into south
cove. South station is where the wharf is located, and where the ship was
moored. While the ship was moored it was at the mercy of these icebergs and
being unable to manoeuvre it was in fact hit by one. But if the ship cast off
it would have great difficulty getting back in again. So, what had been planned
for the following morning now suddenly became the evening before. We had 15
minutes to get ourselves and all our bags on board. This was not how I had envisaged
leaving station having spent the last two and a half months there. I’d been
asleep, having a really long afternoon nap, when my roommate came in and told
me that it was time for us to leave. It was one of those tired, deep sleeps
that can take hours to wake up from, and I was stumbling around trying to get
my last bits of kit together – still slightly confused as to what was going on.
A few minutes later we were making our way down to south station, not really
much of a walk at all, but in the growing darkness and with a bitter wind
blowing snow and ice into your pores it felt like quite the expedition. The
lights from the ship not so much guided but blinded us, but there it was, and
we were welcomed onboard to what would be our home for the next five weeks, for
the slow journey home. I remember saying hurried goodbyes to the winter team of
23 who would be staying behind. I remember seeing my friend Katy trying to get
enough shelter from the wind to smoke a cigarette – the tiny, bright embers
adding a fleeting warmth to the world. It’s a strange place for goodbyes, maybe
easier somehow because they are so clear cut for a time. As things turned out,
despite the rush, we didn’t actually cast off until the following morning – but
at least we had the option if required. In the end it was even slightly delayed
– divers were sent down to check what if any damage had been caused to the hull
from where the iceberg hit. You don’t want to be heading out to sea, into the
Drake Passage least of all if the ship is anything less than sound. Thankfully,
it was all ok. I was very much ready to go home even if it was going to take a
long time to get there. The first few days were rough, I spent hours curled up
on the toilet floor throwing my guts up, hoping for even the briefest moment of
relief. We were two days delayed in getting to the Falkland Islands (our first
stop to refuel). The weather in the Drake Passage was so bad, the sea state
showing ten metre swells, that we took shelter behind the South Shetland
Islands for a couple of nights. The sea sickness pills kicked in, think I might
have even overdone them, they make you drowsy and I just seemed to be sleeping
all the time after that. And in sleep on the ship I would be visited by the
most vivid of dreams. I dreamt that I was hurtling around the streets of
Seascale in a tractor – in a mad rush to find a dentist so that I could get my
covid vaccination. Another time, I was walking around the deck and got thrown
overboard as the ship flipped 90° in order to give the starboard side a clean.
I was adrift in the water but out of nowhere appeared Foxfield train station,
Cumbria. I was able to drag myself up onto the platform from where I radioed
the captain of the ship and they turned around to pick me up. The dreams and
the sleep made a pleasant change from constantly feeling sick. The first week
on board, the first ten days I’d say, were pretty tough at times mentally and
physically. I went through periods where I felt utterly alone, and all I could
seem to do was sit in my cabin and cry. I rarely cry, and certainly not like
that, so I was left to wonder what was going on. Perhaps it was simply the
realisation that on this journey there would be no get out, I would have no
choice but to go through whatever I was going through. It’s pretty scary to
face up to things and to have no option of running away. As it turns out it was
all ok and I was ok. Maybe it’s that old saying that the fear of something is
worse than the thing itself. I don’t know if that was true in this case, I don’t
know if that was what was going on. Maybe we just need to retreat into the
shadows from time to time. It’s funny in that respect, the only place we can
find to exist when we feel as if there is nowhere in the world that we could
possibly be. The feeling of being alone, though – well I think that may always
come and go. But, after many days and nights at sea, after so much time that
you reasonably come to assume that the world must be made up entirely of ocean
and sky, I thought perhaps that it might just be enough that each morning I
wake up and that each night I go to sleep that it’s the same endless sky above
my head and the same earth somewhere far below my feet as one elsewhere in the
world whom I love. It’s not much to hold onto, but what else is there in a
world where it’s hard to know what’s real anymore. The longer I spent at sea
the less time meant anything to me. I once asked what day it was, and although
they said it was Sunday, they could have said any day, they could have even
said a made-up word and it would have all been the same to me. There was really
nothing I had to think about at all, and often I didn’t. I think I would have
given in entirely to just watching an endless amount of mindless TV dramas if
it wasn’t for deciding to run/walk a virtual West Highland Way around the deck.
This was followed up by a virtual Great Glen Way. The laps of the deck numbered
over a thousand by the end of the voyage. But it was something to do. Even just
the aspect of counting kept me occupied. And it gave me a sense of movement
when the world around me seemed so unchanging. Being outside helped with the
seasickness, too.
I knew though, that when it was all said and done, there
would be something about the ocean that I would miss. And the thing about it
which I would miss would be the thing about it which I didn’t understand –
which I don’t even think I could try to explain. Perhaps it’s the sheer
enormity of it – ocean for as far as you could see, and even if you could see further,
it would look no different anyway. And then there was the world beneath you, the
world below the surface of the water. A world that we floating above it could neither
see nor know nothing about. Occasionally a creature would rise from the depths,
a flying fish appearing on the crest of a wave, zooming above the sea for a
seemingly impossible amount of time before disappearing once more into the endless
blue. Other times we would glimpse a distant whale, and we were welcomed by a
pod of dolphins into the English Chanel. These sightings from the world below
only added to the mystery of that place and the mystery of the journey as a
whole. In a day and age which seems increasingly high speed and instantaneous, where
there are so few places on the planet which you couldn’t reach within a day, it
made this voyage seem impossibly long. It was a wonderful reminder of just how
vast this planet is, of how much there is to treasure and protect. It’s a sense
of scale so hard to appreciate unless you’re in the middle of it. I don’t think
five weeks of my life have ever been played out in such distinct and stunning
isolation. I wouldn’t wish to be at sea for another day, but I wouldn’t wish to
take even a single day away from it. It truly was a journey of a lifetime – for
all this and for all the people I was lucky enough to share it with.
