Cyclophiliac 2023: Before Antarctica

Antarctica 2023 Expedition Team members Jackie, Matt, Pam, and Petey!

I don’t even remember when this idea was hatched, but I’m pretty sure it was Matt’s idea. Maybe a decade ago, maybe longer? I vaguely recall a conversation that, at the time, probably went something like this:

Matt: Hey, Pammy! Do you want to go to Antarctica?

Me: Sure, Matty!

And that was the end of it. Maybe not “The End”, but not much more than a wispy aspiration. One of those things that you set on the back burner on low simmer until the enthusiasm for the idea evaporates or tastes change or situations change or…or…or and pretty soon it’s at the bottom of the bucket list, never to see the light of day, never to be spoken of ever again.

Or maybe something - or someone - comes along to give the pot a stir.

For me, that “someone” was actually two someones: David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes. 

Doublet and Hayes are 2 distinguished National Geographic award-winning photographers who gave a presentation here in Cleveland called “Coral Kingdoms and Empires of Ice” as part of the “Nat Geo Live! Explorer series.*

It’s hard to not be swept up by images of frozen landscapes, surreal ice formations, and colonies of penguins that seem to go on forever. But it was really the photographers’ stories of the areas they visited, and their infectious enthusiasm for the wild, cold places, and suddenly I remembered an offer to travel to Antartica and decided it was back on the table. 

As we were leaving the theater that cold night in late February, 2020, I told Dave that I was going to Antarctica. Before we got to the car, I had already sent Matt a text message that went something like this:

“You will NOT go to Antarctica without me.”

And, somehow, that was enough to get this plan in motion.

At this point I can simply say ‘and then some other stuff happened’, but the truth is that a LOT of stuff happened over the past 3 years. Hashing out the idea. Working with a travel agent. Bringing on a third Expedition Team member (Jackie!). Choosing the right tour and the right ship and the right time of the year. Countless teleconferences back and forth. Assembling camera equipment. Buying gear appropriate for the Antarctic ‘summer’. A Covid delay that set us back a full year. This has already been  quite a journey!

Somehow we got here, though. We are leaving today (Jackie and I are already in Atlanta, waiting for Matt to arrive from Phoenix). We’ll fly to Buenos Aires overnight, do a bit of sightseeing in BA tomorrow before boarding our evening flight to Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost tip of Argentina. By Friday, we’ll board our ship and that’s when things will get real.

*If you have the opportunity to attend one of these presentations, don’t hesitate. They are interesting and engaging and quite entertaining.