« February 2005 | Main | April 2005 »
Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand. Visas are had. Flights are reserved. Considering a few more stops afterward. France? South Africa? Costa Rica? Who knows? Anyone coming with me? Anyone know how to safely pack green-eyed Canadian girls into rollerbags? Come to think of it, if you DO, probably best not to admit that here, okay?
Motorcycle trip to Santa Monica on a crisp, bright, spring day. One medium soy mocha, one really unfortunate blueberry muffin: $7.00. Parking: $2.00.
Total: $9.00.
For a muffin. And a coffee.
Pocket change to toothless homeless woman not included.
Price you pay for perfect weather and celebrity sightings. Personally, I'm starting to think snow and wildlife sightings are way more appealing.
It's become increasingly clear that taking nearly three months off from training isn't all that good for the psyique regardless of how good it might be for the psyche. The hikes hurt. The climbs hurt. Everything hurt. Except for the drive. Not surprisingly after the flights and busses and boats of Patagonia, spending six hours in the car doesn't hurt so much anymore.
How on Earth do two people need all this for two days in the dirt?
Chicks dig a boy who knows how to hydrate.
So how was your weekend?
A certain well-known and wildly exhibitionistic friend of mine is in the process of creating an erotic website, and frequently either sends me pictures for, uh, review, or posts samples to her blog.
It dawned on me today that I see her naked more often now that we aren't sleeping together than when we were.
Weird.
My life. Dripping with irony.
There are of course, advantages. I called her the other day to meet for lunch, and she says, "I can't. We have a dildo photoshoot downtown at that time."
I so love my frea...FRIENDS. I mean friends.
I've been feeling restless. Every day I am home (which after two weekends in Joshua Tree and about eight days in San Diego admitedly isn't much), I feel like I shouldn't be there. I feel like I need to escape. Like I am wasting time.
I know I am not. The taxes and home sales are only now completed, the computer arrived yesterday, and there is still one more visa application to go. But I can't help but feel this overwhelming flight response that makes me want to up and run to the nearest airport.
I swear I almost went to Belize yesterday. Belize. Like why not?
As the Chinese still have my passport, it didn't seem a good idea. The Eastern Sierra and the Owens River Gorge will have to do this weekend instead.
Anything and anywhere to get me out of Newport Beach. As you can see, anyone in their right mind would want to leave the squalor that is coastal OC.
New friend, San Telmo.
Yeah. It was hell in Piriapolis, Uruguay.
Can't you tell? I wanted to leave all this for the penguins and Polartech of Patagonia.
Not that this is even remotely relevant, but as I FINALLY have my computer, I figured I would also FINALLY post this story I wrote about returning to Buenos Aires from Antarctica. Yeah, it's pointless now that I am in OC and planning to scoot to Thailand, but hey, you only deserve the best.
Originally written in Buenos Aires sometime in March. Sometime before my motherboard decided to sizzle:
So I’ve been back in Buenos Aires for three days, and I’d be lying if I told you if coming here was anything other than a mistake. Although the weather has been sunny and cool (compared to when I was here last in the height of summer), the noise and pace and general lack of anything naturally beautiful other than the countless South American women has left me longing for Patagonia. Even in Ushuaia, when I was restless and frustrated with the cold and the rain, every day when I walked outside I was near overwhelmed with the beauty off the surroundings. Even the view from the airport was magical. Heh, you should have seen the view while LEAVING the airport. Wow. Despite being glorified bus drivers, pilots have great jobs if only for their view of the world.
I digress. An immediate transition from the clean, crisp mountain air of southern Patagonia to Buenos Aires, where the air is anything but despite its namesake, is too shocking to the system. Perhaps I should have made that dive into the Antarctic Ocean after all. Would have been less a surprise.
To be totally honest, on my first day back, upon walking out of my hotel, a pleasant if seedy little flop house in the charming cobblestone streets of San Telmo, I was overwhelmed with the urge to go back inside, grab my still packed bags, and take a cab right to the airport for either a flight to Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia or better yet, right back home.
Not that I am particularly interested in being home mind you. While I have been away so much of what I dislike about American culture (rabid consumerism, social and commercial homogenization, George Bush) has become more and more offensive, but I do miss easy conversations, good veggie tacos, the Eastern Sierra in the spring, and a certain Canadian lady in San Diego. Without the panorama of Patagonia to distract me, it’s much easier to feel a little homesick.
Still, I did see Hans for some drinks at several of trendy, yuppified establishments the other night, have walked this city left and right, and I even found Gibraltar, a little pub in San Telmo popular with ex-pats with the best Thai salad I have ever had. Even in Thailand! So I suppose I’m not having a bad time. But given the choice of cracked cobblestone or craggy granite, sparkling skyscrapers or towering mountaintops, crashing garbage trucks or crashing glaciers, I know which I would choose.
I think I’ll spend just one more day here before hopping the ferry to Montevideo and a bus to the posh beach resort town of Punta del Este. However, given my current state of mind, I suspect that within a day or so I’ll trade the resort life in for a sleepy, tiny, preferably empty beach town a little further down the coast. A place where I can look at my calendar and have to decide between laying on the beach, swimming on the beach, or running on the beach.
I’d prefer a mountaintop, but I think a little saltwater might suffice.
A few weeks ago a friend and colleague of mine was promoted. As I have known him for quite a few years now, his promotion didn't exactly come as a surprise. He has been sprinting down the fast track since I met him. A certifiable boy genius and world-class salesman, blessed the remarkable ability to memorize even the most mundane technical details despite his total lack of a technical background, combined with his even more remarkable ability to make everyone around him feel like they are the most important person in the room, he had all the tools and the talent for climbing that corporate ladder. Perhaps not surprisingly, he also had the look as he was the only person in my division voted sexier than me by our (largely female) administrative staff.
Of course, as most of my division was staffed of middle-aged scientists and overweight, over-suburban engineers in rumpled golf shirts, the title isn't exactly destined to land either of us on the covers of men's magazines or under the covers of some supermodel's bed.
Regardless, he was just recently promoted. A promotion, I might add, I read about in an international press release.
What makes this particular promotion noteworthy, is that it wasn't into some glorified middle-management position or even into a well respected vice presidential role in corporate monkeydom - roles that would have been laudable for a man twice his age. You see, he already had that feather in his corporate cap at 30.
No, at the age of 35, this person was promoted to President. He isn't a corporate monkey. He is a corporate 600 pound gorilla. And I'm not talking about president of some random company nobody has ever heard of. I'm talking about president of a mid-size, billion dollar technology company that anyone and everyone with ties to tech has heard of.
At 35.
As I am sitting here in my bedroom at 33, typing away on my "work" computer, currently with no job, no carreer, let alone career path, I can't help but think to myself, "Goddam, I so don't want that life."
But I'm still jealous as hell.
He remains the most singularly talented and successful person I know. It really was an honor to work with him.
Lord knows, as he will never read this as nobody I worked with (at least nobody that wasn't related to me, educated with me, or who was at one time or another naked with me) knows about this site (see, Dooce , I've been paying attention!), I'll also say that I'm glad he left the company.
Sure, I may have taken a hit as a shareholder, but I am finally the sexiest man in the division.
Yeah, so I finally get the Powerbook back from Apple. Yep. Fried motherboard. I buy the new iLife, cause I'm a sucker like that, and begin the load and install. Of course, the Mac Guys forgot to reinstall my gig of memory, and I'm not trying (unknown to me) to rebuild a 17 gig iPhoto database on 256 megs of RAM. After nearly an hour, iPhoto hangs, forcing a restart. The library is corrupted, I can't open iPhoto at all, and now after near a month STILL can't access my photos. After an hour at the store and 45 minutes on the phone with Apple, I STILL have no photos, no iPhoto, and no ability to rebuild this database.
So, there was my day.
OK. First things first. I’ve been getting a lot of email about all this, so I figured I’d just put it out here instead.
I shoot a six mega-pixel Canon Digital Rebel with their stock lens and a Tamron 28-300 mm zoom. I use a polarizing filter for bright days on water or ice and keep a super fast 1 gig flash card in the cam. Although I have Photoshop, I typically use iPhoto for any edits, and my pics are almost always unedited for color. I crop and toy with brightness and contrast on occasion. So, yes, those icebergs really are that blue.
I did not “give up” on my trip. Jesus, people, pay attention. I came home a total of FOUR DAYS early in order to fix a broken computer and complete the visa applications I need for my next set of travels. I had always planned to come back to SoCal in March as I need my rock climbing gear and DON’T need ten pounds worth of fleece and goose down for Thailand and Australia. I still fully intend to stay on the road until my money runs out, hopefully anywhere from six to twelve months. She, on the other hand, is hoping I run out of money a lot sooner, and I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that there is a large part of me that feels the same way.
Daily comments are not coming back anytime soon. Comments change both the way I write and the way readers respond. The blog subsequently becomes less of an outlet and more of a means of digital communication, usually amongst people whom I do not know, and frankly, this comes with significant costs to my time, my psyche, and my relationships with people I do know. Although I find that I’m writing a lot less, I now find I am enjoying my writing more. More importantly, my blog, despite the best efforts of MT Blacklist and my digital fairy godfather, is routinely overrun with comment and trackback spam, and it’s a price I don’t want to pay while I am overseas.
And thanks. I liked the beard too - when I wasn’t clawing obsessively at my face.
Speaking of claws, I managed to escape the claws of her cat for two days by spending the weekend camping and climbing in Joshua Tree. I’m not sure that a giant, five-man tent filled with eight inches of portable foam mattresses and two 600 fill down sleeping bags and a cooler with wine and fresh strawberries qualifies as “camping,” but in the same respect, I’m not sure that the flailing I did on Joshua Tree slabs qualifies as “climbing.” Goddam, I am out of shape. The steep limestone and humidity of Thailand is going to kill me.
I digress. Despite the relative luxury of my mobile abode, I still failed to sleep under the desert stars as the wind howling over the valley kept turning our rain fly into a kite and pushing the walls of my tent onto my head. When I finally gave up and climbed out of the tent at 1 AM to secure our fly with a spare cordolette to the creosote bush a few yards away, I discovered that the sad attempt at a campfire we had so valiantly tried to start with paper grocery bags and the wet wood we had purchased that morning at Ralphs had, in the dry night winds, burst into flames and was crackling away, bright and warm while we were trying unsuccessfully to sleep in our shoddy, Wal-Mart special of a tent.
It was our second weekend in Josh. Bishop is scheduled for next week, and, unless she gets creative with those climbing ropes, Thailand soon after.
So much left to see. I only wish she could see so much of it with me.
I'm back in San Diego trying to sweat out this cold by remaining all wrapped up in bed. Yeah, I could do that in Orange County, but trust me when I say that staying bed ridden is way more entertaining here.
Of course while she is at work I have to keep a wary eye for her bipolar attack kitty – her demon feline that alternates from rubbing up on my legs to slashing them open should I do something vaguely threatening. Like breathe. Generally I just try to give her a wide berth or keep her entertained with that feather on a stick thing that seems to make every cat go bananas. This has two benefits. One, it tires out the terror tabby after a few minutes of obsessive pouncing, and, two, it keeps her at least six feet away from any vulnerable, exposed skin. I’d switch to leather pants, but really, this is San Diego. I only know a couple people down here who can make that look work.
She, of course, insists that her cat is a sweet, loving, gentle creature and the best kitty in the world, but, honestly, that's just a variation of the love-blind delusion that makes every new parent believe that they have the cutest baby in the neighborhood despite the fact most newborn babies look like a miniature Mr. Magoo in Pampers.
“But she loves me” she says. Sure. She loves her. Everyone else is a mobile scratching post. I bet Hitler loved somebody too. Come to think of it, this is the same excuse I hear from battered wives.
To make my case, this is the SECOND time that Cybil the cat has been the subject of a blog entry.
Regardless, I'm in San Diego, there is a tabby cat mewing at me, it's pouring rain, and our climbing trip is in serious jeopardy.
Besides. I'm still sick.
Probably best to just, uh, stay in bed.
Reason number 72 why I am rapidly becoming an old fart.
I threw out my back while coughing today.
Coughing.
Good thing I didn't do something really strenuous. Like sneeze. Might have broken a hip.
For years now I have been telling anyone who would listen that she is the best writer on the internet, and despite my near overwhelming love of the fart jokes and sordid tales of liquor and sex that first led me to her site, her stories have only become better since pregnancy and motherhood.
It seems that I'm not the only one who has noticed.
Not that she needs any more publicity (especially from me), but Mrs. Armstrong just won herself four Bloggie awards.
I, as you may have noticed, did not win any Bloggies. Nor was I nominated. And Lord knows, I need all the stroking I can get.
Subsequently, I have decided to have a baby too. I would try just being smart and funny but, frankly, getting knocked up seems way more likely.
My throat is still spackled closed with a thick layer of mucus, and subsequently I sound like a seventy-year-old blues singer with emphysema. Unfortunately, I managed to contaminate my girl, and now she gives me Kim Carnes impersonations whenever we stop wheezing long enough to talk.
We have been reduced to communication via Yahoo. Not exactly unfamiliar territory for us as you can guess. So she pings me tonight to inform me that her new washing machine has a “sport” cycle. Sport. Cycle. I never knew major appliances could be so athletic. I can’t wait till she gets her new X-Treme dryer. With downloadable ring tones.
Her dryer shows up tomorrow. Along with a second washing machine. Overwhelmed with irrational exuberance in the appliance section at Sears and the thought of a wardrobe permanently springtime fresh, she managed to purchase both a washer AND a dryer that won’t work in her home for two totally different reasons. The dryer runs on gas. She has electric. The washer runs on 110. Her connection is 220.
I found this both terribly funny and wonderfully endearing (I'm pretty sure the delivery guys did not). I’m so proud of her. My girl is totally blog worthy.
Author's Note: In her defense, as her condo has a gas furnace and her she was informed incorrectly that she had gas connections, she never felt the compelled to check. The outlet, well, seriously, it's not like a washing machine is a super computer. Even I wouldn't have thought of that.
I'm still not used to spending $30 on a dinner for two at some ubiquitous chain restaurant in a suburban hell. I have used "con permiso" and "si" repeatedly. And upon hearing "Mana" on the radio while returning home from Joshua Tree (OK, to HER home as I have only spent about twelve total hours at my home since I got back here), I suddenly found myself dreaming about Argentina.
It's still a bit unreal being back. I have to wonder just how "free" we really are. Sure, our choices seem limitless, but when everyone shops in the same stores for the same products and eats in the same restaurants serving the same food and everyone drives the same cars and views the same television programs and everyone lives in houses that look the same in neighborhoods that look the same, I have to ask, is that really choice? Is it better to live in a society where you have limited choices but an unlimited number of vendors or to have unlimited choices but no choice from whom you buy? Are the trendy, efficient, unremarkable, and indistinguishable suburban homes of America really all that different from the non-descript concrete boxes of the second and third world? Are our pink stucco and faux finishes just a way to mask our own concrete boxes, is it just an illusion of individuality?
Perhaps this is all too deep for a quiet Sunday night. Perhaps I'm just anxious to be back out on the road. Perhaps I'm just having some weird psychological reaction to losing my voice as a result of this annoying head cold I picked up somewhere over Texas and being unable to talk for two days.
Ironic, when I have the best stories to tell and the most people interested in hearing them, I suddenly find myself unable to speak.
So it goes. I'm dizzy from the Day-Quill. I'm off to bed.
OC.
Oddly enough, this feels far stranger than Uruguay. I'm desperate for Wahoos. There is more to write but, right now, there is considerably more to unpack.
Until it's time to pack.
Feel free to ping away.
So I´m in Uruguay.
Now there´s a sentence I never thought I would write. Go figure. Uruguay.
I watched the sunset on the Atlantic yesterday. I still haven´t figured out how that works geographically. Sunset on the Atlantic. Neat.
As it stands, this little intercontinental adventure, just two months old, has cost me my favorite hat, lost on a bus in Calafate, my favorite sunglasses, stolen from a kitchen in Ushuaia, and now my beloved Powerbook, dead for who knows what reason.
I´m hoping my backup photo CDs are sound, cause if the disk is fried, I stand to loose a whole lot of pictures. Wouldn´t that just suck? I´m thinking I toasted something from a bad power supply in an internet cafe in Buenos Aires, but at this point, who can tell. It´s black screen of death, and that´s only when I get it to boot at all.
Anyhow, the weather here on the beach is getting crappy, I need to sign title documents for the sale of a house, I have to deal with at least three separate visa applications for the Asia leg of my trip, and now I can´t even upload pictures.
I know when to fold.
I changed my flight.
I´m heading home.
America, see you soon.
As always, click on the image for a full size picture.
Yeah. I took that for both photographic evidence that I may not be as metro as some of you think and cause I knew East Coast Jimbo would dig it. As I do fully intend to get very smoochy with a certain Canadian ladyfriend in just a few short days, the beard had to go. As much as I wanted to surprise her with a month-grown Grizzly Adams, getting locked out of her condo until the immediate and complete removal of the offending whiskers didn't seem a reasonable risk. After two Mach 3 blades and one hour in the shower, the noggin was back to bare.
And Jimbo, if you post that picture on a bear lover site, I'll totally kick your gay ass.
Antarctica.
So you people want to go to Antarctica? Ok. I’ll tell you how.
There are roughly 75 different boats that leave for the white continent all through the season, a season that lasts from November to March. You cannot go at any other time as a tourist unless you are both rich and crazy and can land a plane on the icecap. And happen to like temperatures of forty below. But really, who doesn’t?
Nearly all of the boats leave from Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in South America. Tours when booked in western countries tend to cost between $4000 and $20,000 depending on the length of your trip, chosen destinations, and activities. My trip was a standard “Classic Antarctica” peninsula trip and cost me roughly $4400, booked less than two months in advance from a tour agency I found online. The company that ran my tour is called Quark Expeditions, and you can find them online as well. It was aboard a small, Russian research vessel called the Akademik Shokalskiy. Small boats offer a more intimate experience and better landings, larger boats are more comfortable and easier in the dreaded Drake. All of you will have to cross the Drake. All of you will get seasick. All of you. Bring seasickness pills. Not Dramamine. Not the patch. Phenergan. It's what astronauts use.
A ticket to Buenos Aires, if you are creative with your Internet efforts can be had for as little as $700. Maybe less. If you are spending more than $1000, you can probably do better. A second flight will be needed for Ushuaia. This should cost you no more than $120 if you purchase it in Buenos Aires from Aerolinas Argentinas. Do NOT book it from their website. It will cost you significantly more.
With the current rate of exchange (roughly three to one), I have been staying in cheap hotels with private rooms for under ten dollars a day, and food, GOOD food, can easily be had for five dollars a meal. Taxis to and from airports should never cost more than ten bucks, and you should probably budget a few bucks for postcards and such. Bring a good digital camera or borrow one from a friend. Bring lots of memory cards. You will need them. If you have an SLR bring a polarizing filter. You will be glad you did.
You need ten days for the trip, and should probably stack at least three days on the start of your trip and one day on the end to ensure you make the required connections. Plan on three weeks away from work. This is a safe number that leaves you with plenty of travel time and a day or so in Buenos Aires to catch a tango show. For a few dollars and a day or so more ($75 for the flight and another $50 in travel expenses) you can scoot out to Calafate from Ushuaia to see the Moreno Glacier. And really. Soooooo worth the effort.
You will need several layers of fleece, a good pair of nylon or waterproof gloves, a fleece hat, ski or rain pants, and a good parka and a pair of Wellington rubber boots. You will be happy if you spring for the Gore-Tex, but really, it’s unnecessary. Shackleton didn’t have Gore-Tex. You can rent the parka and boots in Ushuaia cheaply if need be ($10 each), but if you live anywhere in the Midwest, Northeast, or Pacific Northwest, you likely already have the clothing you will need for an Antarctic summer or know friends who can loan you some. Just don’t tell them what a penguin smells like first.
So what is this going to cost? $5500 and you too can smell like penguin shit – possibly forever. Seems like a lot of money? What did you spend on Christmas last year? Did you really need that new wide screen? Can you sacrifice cable TV for a few years? Throw in a few tax returns and a bit of manageable debt, and you can have a life changing experience too. Seems like a good investment to me.
Ah but wait. There’s more.
It doesn’t HAVE to cost that much. I know that there are a few spots aboard Chilean military vessels that can get you there and back for as little as $500 bucks. I am not kidding. Pick up a Lonely Planet Guide or get on the Internet to learn more. These spots disappear a year in advance so you better get on the Internet and start looking soon. There are also private yachts that leave from Ushuaia. I’m told you can sometimes barter a spot on those. In addition, tour companies hire chefs, naturalists, doctors - lots of people to work aboard the vessels. Got a season and want to go for free? It’s not impossible.
Now here’s the really dirty little secret. From what I can tell, at least later in the season, almost every boat that docks in Ushuaia has walk-on spots available. Last year those tickets could have been purchased in Ushuaia for $800. This year they were $2500. Next year, admittedly, it’s likely to be more. I met people who showed up in Ushuaia, walked into one of the dozens of tour company offices lining San Martin, and two hours later were en route to molest penguin chicks. That’s $2500 for the ticket, $1000 in airfare (less if you find a good deal), $300 in food and expenses (less if you live cheaply), and you get some good, healthy, old-fashioned penguin lust. I know some of you have televisions that cost more than that. How much did you spend on shoes or sushi or movies or Starbucks or Bud Light? Ok, so maybe we shouldn’t talk about sacrificing the caffeine or alcohol, we aren’t about to become savages here, but I think you know what I mean.
It comes down to what’s important to you. I know we all have different lives and different needs and different dreams and different pains. I know that $3800 can seem an impossible amount of money. What I am trying to tell you is that it really isn’t. Inspired by Antarctica? According to the mail I keep getting, many of you are. The question I have to ask is what are you willing to spend to enrich your life? What are you willing to sacrifice for a view of the world larger than the box in your living room? For some people, this isn’t a priority. I can accept that.
But for me, it’s the very reason I live.
Finally, a few frozen faces…
Olga, perhaps the most memorable member of the Russian crew, would ask us at every meal if we “want sOOp?!” Olga, who is about five foot two and maybe nineteen years old, pronounced “soup” quickly and raised her voice nearly an octave, giving it a sound much like a bird call, making her twice daily inquiry very, very entertaining and equally endearing. By the end of our journey, almost every passenger was parroting her “sOOp!” call at every meal. I was worried how Olga felt about that, concerned she might have found it offensive.
Olga, if you ever read this, everyone loved you. Really. Don’t ever change.
Brandon was our zodiac driver and resident expert on all things Orca. A heavily pierced, tattooed, and furry giant of a Canuck, Brandon spends most of the year leading whale watching tours. He also has an uncanny way with marine mammals. He can find them anywhere short of Phoenix. I swear the man can smell them. And the whales, the whales love him. Don’t believe me? I have personally seen him lean over, and call a whale to the side of his boat.
A whale that promptly complied.
Don't believe me?
He regularly has leopard seals playing around his boats, and last week had one grab an oar from him and pull his boat through the water with it.
I swear if I saw him stick his head in the water and start singing whale songs to the humpbacks I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Neither would Jill, his tall and pretty girlfriend, also from Victoria, who was on her first tour to help with the kayaking and camping. Victoria. Heh, I wonder if these two know my ex? Regardless, Jill is currently sitting two rows away from me on this flight to Buenos Aires before making a 4 AM connection to Panama followed by another flight to Costa Rica. Jill is twenty two. Jill does not speak Spanish. Jill is traveling alone. Jill fucking rocks.
Paula is a paramedic and former soldier from England with an accent that couldn’t be replicated by the cast of Monte Python. She is gregarious and talkative and about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Paula was perhaps the only person on the boat with a deeper ring around her eyes from the camera(s) permanently pressed to it. Paula near leapt out of her zodiac when the minke arrived, I’m not sure if out of excitement or for a better angle. What impressed me most about Paula was her willingness to suffer any condition for a shot. This woman was up at the crack of dawn daily, and neither wind nor rain nor sleet nor snow could remove her feet from being planted firmly on the bow of our ship as it crested those waves in the Antarctic.
Akos. Akos was our charming and handsome Hungarian bird expert and married to the Rita, the pretty manager of the bar on the boat. Akos is one of those perennially happy people who can identify a bird in flight from a half mile away. Akos would lead land excursions wearing a giant, orange, insulated jumpsuit that looked totally acceptable for deep space expeditions. Regardless, you could certainly see it from a deep space expedition. When Akos saw the minke spyhop us I swear the man wet that space suit. Not that anyone could tell. The thing was totally waterproof as well.
David and Dave is a father/son pair from Sydney and both confirmed my belief that Australians are still the friendliest people on the planet. Really. From what I can tell, it’s impossible not to like an Aussie. Just don’t drink with them. You will still like them, you just won’t remember them afterward. If our boat were to elect a class president, Dave totally would have won. He offered use of his apartment when I get to Sydney, and dammit, you KNOW that’s an invitation I’m not going to ignore.
Konsta is our ship’s engineer. A craggy, solemn Russian, he also piloted about half my zodiac tours. I never actually heard him ever say anything, but I’m totally convinced he is a super cool guy.
Anna, the ship’s doctor, is young physician from the UK, and the only person to have made the penguin plunge au natural. Something about this I found ironic. Here I thought it was the doctor who was supposed to see us naked, not the other way around. Regardless, Anna is very high on my list of people who, basically, rule. And Anna, should you ever read this, I didn’t take any photos of you naked. I’m way above that kind of thing. I’m not above, however, blackmailing you with the video.
John. John is a guy whose card I can’t lose. John is a VP for Quark – the company responsible for my little adventure in penguin country. He is a charismatic guy who has the easy charm that comes from a life in front of customers. John has spent twenty years in the expedition business and has contacts on damn near every continent doing every possible activity. Not only has John done everything on my life “super-neat-shit-that-might-kill-you” list, he has organized them. John, when I show up at your door, destitute from twelve months of spending all my money with your friends, I’m hoping you have a job for me somewhere.
John’s daughter Lauren is an art student and dancer now living in San Francisco. She has a tattoo of a carrot around her wrist. A carrot. Tattooed. Around her wrist.
Lauren, seriously, I think you found your town.
A few words on seasickness. Being seasick, regardless of your meds, is both frustrating and miserable. It’s a hangover without the party. And no amount of aspirin is going to help it. Think about getting food poisoning and vertigo simultaneously. Although my nausea was relatively mild, the endless tossing of the boat made every movement and every activity an effort and life aboard unbearably frustrating. Every additional stimulus was just one more shock to an already overwhelmed nervous system, and subsequently every conversation, every meal, every smell was just another reason to remain in bed. For two days I remained in my cabin, emerging only to nick fruit from the galley or to brace myself for a potentially messy piss all over the head next door. By the third day in the Drake, the morning where I woke up at 4 AM to swells that sent anything unsecured in my cabin sailing across the room, I had reached my breaking point.
I couldn’t even talk to people without wanting to just sail into a stream of obscenities and lamentations about the conditions of this passage.
But in enduring that passage I gained something.
First, I can now say that I have rounded Cape Horn and the tip of Tierra del Fuego. I’ll be piercing my other ear any day now as is required by all sailors worth their salt. Sorry, Tassy, the nipple will have to wait until I cross the equator.
More importantly, however, I learned that I have neither the constitution nor the commitment to ever be a sailor. Despite the romance of the open sea and the experiences that it might present, I doubt I will ever set foot on another ship. At least not on any ship that will be sailing for any extended length of time or across any notorious waters.
I have immense respect for those who make their life on the seas. And in much the same way as my father looks at my comfort in the vertical world, I look at their comfort in those rolling waves.
I respect it. But they can keep it.
Of course, you can call me out on that in a few months when I’m in Sydney or Cape Town or Cairns and reading brochures for cage trips with great whites or extended diving excursions on the Great Barrier Reef to find whale sharks.
It’s amazing what I’m willing to endure to see something that might just eat me.
After our close encounter with the humpbacks and a subsequently quiet, reflective cruise of the bay, the bergs, and the glaciers, we finally boarded the Shokalskiy, loaded up the zodiacs and prepared for our final voyage out and into the dreaded Drake. Before we left, Shane, our fearless expedition leader, a broad and bearded sailor from Ontario, announced it was time for the infamous leap from the gangway into the cold, black waters of Antarctica.
How cold are those waters? Oh, not so bad I suppose. For a penguin. 33, maybe 34 degrees. About the same temperature as the air.
After eight of our most masochistic members made the icy leap Shane looked up at me as I was standing on deck snapping photos of all the half-naked lunatics and asked if I was going.
“Not a chance in hell, Shane.”
“Come on!” he shouted. “You’ll regret it! This is your one chance to say you have gone swimming in Antarctica.”
Let me take this moment now to assure Shane, the staff, guests, crew, and any of you who happen to be reading, that I have absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent, ZERO regrets about remaining fully clothed and what I suppose qualifies for warm on deck that day.
Jumping into that water would have been a lot like taking a dive into a giant, black Slurpee. I was getting brain freeze just standing on deck. The look on the faces of those more intrepid (foolish? masochistic? crazy? heavily intoxicated?) souls was enough of a deterrent even if the frigid air making me rattle through my down jacket (and the thought of a particularly hungry leopard seal with a taste for Italian) wasn’t enough.
It’s actually pretty amazing. I have learned how those penguins leap out of the water so easily. The very instant any part of any human hit that water they were already on their way back up and out through the air and onto the boat. I swear it like watching a cartoon.
And hitting that water sure looked a lot like hitting frozen concrete.
Only more painful.
The looks on their faces, and I mean ALL of their faces, was a mixture of bewilderment, shock and pain.
Yeah, Shane. I’m just full of regret. Let me continue to drink it away with this nice bottle of red wine in this warm café in Ushuaia.
And with one final, flawless belly flop off the gangplank (even the Russian judge gave it a perfect ten) from our social and charismatic Aussie, Dave, whose leap into the ice was the perfect cure for the epic hangover he incurred as a result of far too many vodka shots with the Ukrainians the night before, we were off for the Drake, and I was off for the solitude of my bunk and my iPod for more than two solid days.
