So when did the
malady first appear?
The first evidence of an outbreak of polar fever was when I
was at school. I felt drawn to do projects
on exploration and science in the Antarctic. Fortunately the symptoms seem to
have been at least temporarily calmed by an intense application of books and
visits to libraries.
And the first
recurrence?
Was when I was finishing a physics degree. I got as far as filling out the paperwork to
join the British Antarctic Survey, but for reasons that escape me now, it
seemed like a good idea to volunteer to spend three years sitting in small dark
rooms at Bristol University rather than overwintering in small dark rooms in
the Antarctic.
Did that get it out
of your system?
It certainly seemed to have done, until late 2006. I’d been doing quite a lot of travelling to
hot places and there seemed to be a reaction, initially appearing as an urge to
drive north at the slightest provocation.
I once got as far as the Arctic Circle before I was able to turn the car
round. My first attempt to properly
address the problem by visiting was to book a trip on the MS Nordkapp from
Ushuaia down to the Antarctic Peninsula in early 2007. That plan ran aground, as did the Nordkapp,
and my trip was cancelled at short notice.
So, what did that do
to the symptoms?
Made them much worse.
After consultation, my travel agent agreed that there was no alternative
therapy other than to arrange treatment in both the Arctic and Antarctic as a
matter of urgency. So in summer 2007 I
flew north to Greenland to see icebergs, and in autumn south to Ushuaia to
attempt to see real ice. Of course that southern
trip wasn’t without tensions. The fear,
and the fever, that my first peninsula trip would be pulled away again was
triggered by getting the news, as I waited to fly south from Santiago to
Ushuaia, that another polar ship (this time the MS Explorer) had foundered in
the Bransfield strait just north of the peninsula.
That must have been a
bit scary?
Not as scary for me and my fellow travellers as for the
passengers and crew on the Explorer.
They were all rescued, and we paid much more attention in the safety
briefing than we might have done otherwise.
And was the trip
worthwhile?
Absolutely. The polar
fever symptoms cleared completely as we crossed the Drake Passage, and the
first penguins came into view.
So, did that get it
out of your system?
Um, No. I think the
symptoms came back as the boat lurched back across the Drake Passage heading
northwards.
I suppose the next
fix was to see if going all the way North sorted the problem.
Yes, that was right.
Although I did experiment by visiting the Falkland Island to see if they
were remote enough to calm the symptoms, before going to northern Norway and
then to Svalbard in 2010 to see if polar bears were sufficient to chase the
symptoms away. Again the relief of symptoms
was only temporary.
What were you left with
as the next remedy?
I tried another course of intensive travel going all the way
to South Georgia, not quite Antarctica but well inside the Antarctic
Convergence, then quickly up to the real Nordkapp (as opposed to the ship) at
the northern tip of Norway. Again the relief
from the urge to be in polar places was temporary.
Have you given up
trying to find a cure?
Absolutely not. I
haven’t tried going to the Northwest Passage yet. So that’s the next course of
treatment. But I’m not optimistic that even
that will cure me, so I’ve already started planning for another southern
remedy.
Have you considered
hypnotherapy rather than air miles?
No.
No comments:
Post a Comment