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Michael Segalov finds himself transfixed by Earth’s last great wilderness as he joins a month-long polar expedition to Antarctica
It’s going to get easier, I think to myself, as I lie in bed in the darkness, one hand gripping tightly the edge of the mattress, the other pressing hard on the spot where my head just thudded loudly, again, into a wall. In the bunk below, my cabinmate Oleg is dozing deeply. I might not be sleeping yet, but I will once I’ve found my sea legs. I’ve come a long way, I try to reassure myself, considering it’s only my fourth night at sea.
When I arrived on board my temporary new home, Greenpeace’s MV Esperanza, even successfully navigating my way to the bathroom along the ex-Soviet firefighting ship’s labyrinth of narrow corridors had seemed impossible. The environmental NGO had invited me to join them on a month-long polar expedition departing from Patagonia, the final leg of a year-long project to draw attention to the existential threats facing the world’s oceans. The crew had set off from London, before travelling from pole to pole. Continue reading...