Us kids know
No cars go
Where we know
Between the click of the light
And the start of the dream
Between the click of the light
And the start of the dream
- Arcade Fire, No Cars Go, 2006
Deep into the second day of crossing the Drake Passage, the sea seems at least as unhappy as we are. On the way south, the force four conditions had been enough to send most people to bed puking. Today it is force ten and when it's not scaring the shit out of us, it's pretty good fun.
House-sized waves come from two or three directions at the same time and, depending on how they catch the Antarctic Dream, will occasionally have us gripping the bolted tables for dear life. More than one chain snaps underneath the chair it is supposed to hold to the floor, and once every 15 minutes or so, there's an almighty crash from the kitchen. And yet neither of us feel anywhere near as crook as we did on the way down, even though the view out the window alternates between sky and gargantuan wave.
No cars go
Where we know
Between the click of the light
And the start of the dream
Between the click of the light
And the start of the dream
- Arcade Fire, No Cars Go, 2006
Deep into the second day of crossing the Drake Passage, the sea seems at least as unhappy as we are. On the way south, the force four conditions had been enough to send most people to bed puking. Today it is force ten and when it's not scaring the shit out of us, it's pretty good fun.
House-sized waves come from two or three directions at the same time and, depending on how they catch the Antarctic Dream, will occasionally have us gripping the bolted tables for dear life. More than one chain snaps underneath the chair it is supposed to hold to the floor, and once every 15 minutes or so, there's an almighty crash from the kitchen. And yet neither of us feel anywhere near as crook as we did on the way down, even though the view out the window alternates between sky and gargantuan wave.
Amid all this, not that we deserved it, a wandering albatross – the biggest bird in the sky – comes over to take an amused look at our toiling ship. The moment anyone reaches for a camera, it disappears. No one complains – best not to piss off the albatross.
When I head up to the deck, I feel a good deal more relaxed: although many of these waves are bigger than our 50-year-old vessel, only one in every 100 will break over the bow, and even then, they look no more threatening than a snowman would to a Sherman tank. The captain, the suave, braw bastard that he is, isn't in the least concerned by what he's seeing.
Still, the numbers in the restaurant are pretty sparse, allowing time for people to reflect, some of them with my dictaphone stuck in their face. The task of writing about the whole thing professionally is a daunting one, so as much as I can offload the burden to them, I do.
There was a moment earlier in the trip when everyone who was travelling to their seventh and final continent was asked to pose with a hastily-constructed banner that simply said: “7”. As unlikely as it seems – to me at any rate – I was one of the people who went forward. Disappointingly, I wasn't the youngest person to do so, but I doubt anyone else would have visited them all in just the past two years – and I'm virtually certain no one else would have done it all for free.
If that sounds like a boast, it's not supposed to – I'm just trying to contextualise how ridiculous life can be. For the large part of my childhood, our holidays were planned according to what deals we could get in The Sun's annual caravan-parks-for-£9.95 offer. As a result, I was amazed by the bright lights of Blackpool; blown away by a virtual reality machine in Great Yarmouth; and, over the years, spent over a month in war-torn Berwick-Upon-Tweed, the family favourite. Other times, the Metro Centre was a mecca of happiness, and London was an enormous, exotic miracle.
It's not that we didn't go abroad at all. We spent a few hot, mad weeks in Turkey with Actual Turks; we almost got caught in Hurricane Michael Fish coming back from visiting other family friends in Germany; and we spent a tragicomic week or two in Bulgaria, the highlight of which was having jellyfish fights (they didn't sting) with my brother.
But you don't grow up in a housing scheme and leave feeling particularly worldly. The closest I really got to globe-trotting was staring at a big map we had on our bedroom wall, until it could take no more of sharing with two boys and finally fell down for good.
This thing was old – Germany was still Two, USSR a very big One – and from what I can remember, the Antarctic Peninsula stuck up at the bottom like a bony thumb. The Weddell Sea was there, so were the South Shetland Islands and, most probably, Deception Island.
Given that America felt about as close as Neptune at the time, I'd be lying if I told you I thought I'd end up visiting those places. Nor would I have imagined going to Melbourne, or Hawaii, or Manilla, or Cape Town, or any of the other weird corners of the world Fate has taken me – especially if you told me I'd go to them all without spending one red cent.
Now, with 40 countries under my belt, and having set foot on every continent of our blue planet, I feel I can begin to understand what belonged where on that old map. There are still vast swathes of it I haven't been to – and I suppose that I shall never go to – but I can at least guess at them now. I at least know what, and where, I do or do not like.
It's impossible to get away from grading things, and given my predisposition to negativity, I usually find myself reaching for the shit-stick. Everywhere can be criticised, and most places deserve it. But (and this is perhaps the most misanthropic thing I've ever written) then I went somewhere that was free of humans.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – I watched a documentary about doyen of chess-come-political agitator Garry Kasparov and his duel with Deep Blue, a computer that had been designed to best the wily Russian. The battles took place in 1996 and 1997 and were seen as the ultimate contest between the logic of man and machine. It's well worth reading about if you know nothing about the whole thing (failing that, Arcade Fire have handily just written a song about it, although it's not actually any good). Anyway, what really stuck with me from the documentary was one of the talking heads.
He was trying to convey just how great the Russian's abilities were at the time, and said something like: “Understand that Kasparov was not just the best player in the world, he was the best player there has ever been in the world. When you play chess there are experts, masters and grand-masters. And beyond that was Kasparov alone.”
I can think of no better way to analyse how I feel about Antarctica. It's utterly pointless to compare it to anywhere I've been before, so conclusive is its superiority. Comparison would only make the other look small and inferior.
If in the future you ask me what was the best place I visited, I will give you a list of two or three that I've enjoyed immensely – great places, all of them – but none of them will be Antarctica. Because it is something beyond.
