Making It Up As I Go Along (19 page)

The expression on the ordinary-looking
bloke’s face is a delight! He is lit up like a Christmas tree, and you can tell that
he’s thinking to himself, ‘I can’t
believe
these hipsters have
befriended me. I am
so lucky
! I wonder if they’ll still be my friends when we get
home to Japan/Korea/maybe Taiwan?’

I’m going to give you a quick example of
what a day on board looks like. Please bear in mind, the times are all
approximate.

7.30: Awoken by the bing-bongs for an
excellent buffet breakfast.

9.30: You put on all your weatherproof
clothes and go off in the Zodiac to land on an island with penguins or seals or other lovely
things.

12.30: Lungeon back on the ship.

14.30: Another expedition off the ship.

16.30: Tea and cake served in the bar.

18.30: A recap of the day and a
‘first look’ at the plans for tomorrow. Also hot savoury snacks served.

19.00: A magnificent four-course
dinner.

After dinner there is sometimes a talk on
‘Bayshtes of the Antarctics’. Or similar. Also there is a film on your telly in your
cabin.

Just an observation: people are very prompt for
mealtimes, and the snacks with the 18.30 debrief prove particularly popular.

7.30 a.m.

It’s snowy and blizzardy when we wake up.
We’ve been lucky with the weather until now, but not so much today. I elect to opt out of
this morning’s excursion because I have to wash my hair and I haven’t the energy to
do both. You’d think the bracing cold would make you more alert and full of vim, but
actually it’s the opposite. The extra effort the body has to make to not succumb to
hypothermia makes people chronically tired.

Even the protective clothing is exhausting
because it’s so heavy; the neoprene boots each weigh about a stone, so taking a single
step is knackering.

So anyway, under the best of circumstances,
washing my hair is a major operation, but harder here because although the shower is sometimes
hot or sometimes perishing, whichever flavour you get, you only get a thin trickle. (This is the
only
non-de-luxe bit of the trip, the rest is fantastic and really cushy.) I am too
cold to take all my clothes off, so I wash my hair standing in my neoprene wellingtons and my
togs.

11.50 a.m.

Himself returns with photographs of baby penguins
hatching from their eggs and I am
sickened
with jealousy and regret that I stayed home
and washed my hair.

12.30 p.m.

The bing-bong announces lunch and we break into a
run, colliding with everyone else in the doorway to the dining room. We
take our lungeon with a delightful couple of newly-weds and no one asks what anyone
‘does’.

2.20 p.m.

We sail into Paradise Bay and the snow has stopped
and the sun has come out. Once again, the landscape and colours are different from anything
we’ve already seen. The sea is like diamonds which have been melted down, all silver-grey
and crystalline, almost syrupy, like water that sugar has been dissolved in. There are lots and
lots of icebergs; maybe it’s the melting snow that’s giving the water such
gloopiness.

Suddenly a ghostly ship appears out of nowhere;
it’s entirely dark brown, just like a shadow. It’s not like a modern ship, but like
one from
Pirates of the Caribbean
, in that it has three rigs for sails, which is
mandatory for any ghost ship, no? I have to check with Himself that I’m not hallucinating
it.

He confirms that he does
indeed
see it
and says that there’s an Argentinian military base near here, and we conclude the ghostly
ship has something to do with them.

2.30 p.m.

An announcement! The Argentines will not let us
land! Feckers! We are standing by, sweltering in our eighteen layers of clothing, awaiting
further instructions.

Another announcement! The Argentines
definitely
won’t let us land! Plan B: we are to go out in the little Zodiac
boats for a mini-cruise.

I shake my fist at the Argentine ghost-ship and
shout, ‘I have TAKEN AGIN you!’

2.45 p.m.

Himself and I have a conversation where we do the
Irish version of whatever the Argentines said when they wouldn’t let us land. ‘A
ship, you say? And you want to land here? Yes, but I don’t know if I’d be let. I
mean, it’s against regulations. I’m sorry now, I am. We’re all sorry, but
it’s more than our job is worth. I’d better go now because myself and the lads have
a lie-down every afternoon between 2.30 and 5 p.m. Dead to the world we are. We notice
nothing
. Nothing at all. Well, good luck now and enjoy your trip and you didn’t
hear any of this from me.’

3.15 p.m.

As we board the little Zodiac for our mini-cruise,
a man, a US person, is complaining bitterly about what cheeky bastards the Argentine military
are, and I look at him and unwelcome words come into my mouth, looking for escape: ‘No,
indeed, it is not like
your
military ever behave in a high-handed fashion!’ But I
suck my tongue and suck my tongue and swallow down the thoughts and eventually the words go
away.

3.30 p.m.

The sun has come out and we’re on a huge
silver lake, in the centre of a circle of radiant white mountains. The water is dazzling and
shiny and very still, like a flyblown mirror (but in a nice way). Icebergs, like frozen waves,
break the surface. These are some of the shapes I see: a giant crocodile; a helter-skelter; the
starship
Enterprise
; a Mr Whippy ice cream; a comb going through curly hair; the royal
palace in Lhasa; a jet ski; the back end of a whale; a brain; a giant anvil and a white
Crunchie. Some of the icebergs are white, but others are a luminous blue colour, as if
they’ve got LEDs built into them.

At times I feel as if
I’m in a huge modern sculpture museum with giant sculptures made of white glass or white
marble.

We’re on the same level as the water, which
makes everything shockingly immediate. I could jump off the boat and sail away on an iceberg if
I wanted.

Every now and then there are deep boomy noises
like thunder – ice avalanches. Then we actually see one happening – a huge chunk of
ice tears away from the rest of the glacier and topples into the water – and we’re
told to brace ourselves for a massive wave and I am really, really worried that I will get Water
in My Bad Ear (I have the ‘Keyes Ear’, and at all costs must avoid getting Water in
My Bad Ear). Mercifully the wave doesn’t make it as far as our little boat and my ear is
saved.

6.23 p.m.

We leave our cabin for the daily debrief. We are
seven minutes early but I’m thinking of the snacks that are served – lovely things
like you get in Marks & Spencer at Christmas time, for example cocktail sausages and
mini-onion bhajis and spring rolls – and I really want to be at the head of the queue.

6.24 p.m.

There are already sixty people ahead of us.
‘Honestly,’ I say, in tones most judgemental, ‘you’d swear no one ever
got fed around here.’

7.03 p.m.

I formally withdraw my grudge agin Argentina. Life
is too long.

8.16 p.m.

Himself’s face is bright red –
he’s after getting sunburnt! In Antarctica! I give him a stern talking-to about using sun
protection.
Tell me,
what
is the problem with mens and sun factor?
They behave as though it is a girly affectation and a sign of weakness.

9 p.m.

Himself leaves for his overnight outdoor camping
on the Antarctic ice shelf. I was meant to be going – before I’d left home,
I’d signed up for it and already had my boasting prepared. ‘Oh yaze, well, I camped
outdoors in the Antarctic. Cold? Oh yaze, shockingly! I thought I would die. But I reached deep
inside myself and found the inner strength.’

But yesterday the preparatory talk put THE FEAR
OF GOD in me!

Dave the guide said several things that made me
reconsider:

Then Kevin the guide came on to give his advice
and he said, ‘The important thing is to try to stay warm, but this will be very difficult.
Some people dig trenches down into the ice, but if you
do that, please fill
the hole in when you leave. Try not to drink anything at all tomorrow because it would be better
if you did not have to get up in the night to make your wees because you could get cold, and the
important thing, the
really important thing
, is to stay warm and this will be very
difficult.’

Then Dave the guide came back and said,
‘One more thing: the most important thing is to stay warm, but this will be very
difficult.’

Then Kevin the guide came back and said,
‘One more thing. You could be ett by a tiger seal in the middle of the night. Finally!
Stay warm! But it will be very difficult!’

So it is sad, but I will not be able to swagger
about in boasty fashion, bragging of my icy endurance.

6.30 a.m.

Himself is returned to me after his night camping
on the ice. He says that the group was composed almost entirely of mens whose wifes had intended
also doing the camping but changed their mind after the scary talk from Dave and Kevin.
Apparently the wees-makingness was a big deterrent.

So anyway, Himself found a sheltered spot and
created a little ice wall up around his sleeping bag. But there is a young man among the
passengers, from a snowy Scandinavian country – we will call him ‘Rolf from
Sweden’ to protect his identity – and Himself says that Rolf got a hold of the
shovel and, in a blur of activity, dug a hole about six feet into the ground, and people were
slagging him for digging his own grave, and Rolf took it well and said he needed to do a bit of
exercise. Then Rolf dug a tunnel connecting his little icy home to the centre of the camp (where
the makeshift jacks was).
Then
he started digging branch-lines to
connect all the other sleeping bags to the centre of the camp.
Then
the shovel had to
be taken off him. ‘Calm down, Rolf, calm down, or we’ll have to send you back to the
ship.’

General information that I want to tell you but isn’t
connected with any particular time of the day

There is tons of food and everyone is sleepy a lot
of the time and we’re all strangely passive. We get up when we’re told and eat when
we’re told and go to briefings when we’re told and it’s all really nice.
I’m feeling quite well in the head. I’m tired more than usual and finding it easier
than usual to sleep, but I don’t feel in the horrors, far from it.

We were told at the start of the cruise that
every day we’d be dealing with sensory overload, and it’s true. It’s just too
mad to look out of the window and see a three-mile-high snowy Everest-lookalike looming in at
you. There’s probably a point where my brain thinks, ‘Right, that’s enough of
all this unbelievable stuff, let’s go into cocoon-mode and stay safe.’

Another thing that’s nice is that the mood
on the ship is deeply unglamorous – no one dresses up or even combs their hair. It’s
days since I’ve bothered with make-up. It’s all about keeping warm.

2.30 p.m.

We’re due to make landfall at a little place
called Port Lockroy. But the wind, as the ship approaches, is at fifty knots (I don’t
really know what that means, but the ship is leaning on its side, if that helps). And, oh my
God, Port Lockroy hits a new level of bleak! It’s a tiny, grey, wind-scalped rock with a
black Nissen hut perched on it. Apparently four people live there (doing some sort
of scientific work, I don’t mean like
normal
living) but
they’ve no fresh water, so they’ve no washing facilities, so they have to wait until
a friendly ship comes to visit and lets them on board.

This is where we were due to post our postcards
and get our passports stamped, but we’ve just been told that the winds are too high for us
to make anchor. However, the scout Zodiac has whipped over to the island and brought one of the
people back to talk to us.

Also, we’ve been told that we’ll wait
it out for a while and see if conditions change for the better. I’m going to try to put
into words how absolutely incredible the guides on this ship are. They’re very safety
conscious, which is a comfort, but they’re unbelievably innovative and resourceful and
manage to adapt to extreme and constantly changing weather conditions and do their utmost to
make sure we get the best possible experiences. Also, they’re constantly cheery, upbeat,
informative and funny.

4.03 p.m.

The wind has dropped enough for us to be let over
to Port Lockroy, and over we go in the nippy little Zodiac!

On the island, there are gentoo penguins
everywhere
,
in every crag and on every rock, and there are many newly hatched
chicks, being fed by their mammies. I
die
! ATYPS (as the young people say).

Also, there is a gift shop! And post office! And
museum!

And the best bit about the museum is that it
isn’t like a museum (i.e. dull but worthy) but like an Antarctic house from the
‘olden days’, maybe sixty years ago. There’s a kitchen with –
what’s that word for little red-and-white squares? Gingham! Yes, gingham. Yes, gingham
curtains.