Note: I've finished this entry now. The new material follows the old.
Antarctica: People
When you're on a boat for ten days, it does matter who's on it with you. We tried to sit with different people at meals, so we ended up meeting and talking to most of the other hundred or so passengers. I'm not even going to try to talk about all of the staff, let alone all the passengers we met, I'll just recount a few of the more memorable ones.
In my next life, I want to be Annie. She was the hotel manager, which means she's basically responsible for everything that keeps a hundred people happy except the expeditions -- and she did check us out as we went down the gangplank and even drove a Zodiac on occasion. The word that comes to mind is 'gracious'. She has the sort of kind and capable manner that calms people down, a face and body that remind me vaguely of Hepburn (Katherine, not Audrey) only less bony -- but she's so well proportioned that even if she put weight on it wouldn't matter -- and one of the most beautiful speaking voices I've ever heard. Fortunately she made a lot of the wake-up announcements. Apparently she and Woody, the bartender, are an item. He did tend bar most capably, always with a smile, and well he should; he's a lawyer when on shore and has recently qualified to testify in front of the Victoria (Australia) Supreme Court. Apparently he wanted a bit of variety, "another sort of bar" as it said on his staff bio.
I'd guess that Tony, a milkman from Australia, never met anyone he didn't like, and possibly never met anyone who didn't like him. He was the loud, outgoing passenger who got everyone else loosened up, even if it meant he had to repeat his jokes three times so everyone heard him. You couldn't miss our Tony. He was also the one who got in a kayak for his second time, his first in a single (doubles are more stable) and promptly fell in. He was right by the ship and the kayak guide and a Zodiac driver got him out in a about two minutes, so no harm done. (Drysuits are a pain to get into, but no one ever complained about wearing one.) In quieter moments, though, Tony confided he'd booked the cruise because this was his first Christmas without his wife, who had died after three years fighting cancer, and he didn't want to spend it at home.
Viktor, one of the Russian crew members, tried to abduct me three separate times on New Years' Eve -- I mean, the first time he actually grabbed my arm and tried to pull me downstairs to the crew lounge. I'd been down there once before, courtesy of one the expedition staff, to hear Mad Yuri singing Russian Karaoke. (Bujold fans will know why I always thought of Yuri as Mad Yuri.) I did go down to their lounge later -- this time instead of singing they were dancing to Russian techno and were glad to see extra women since there were only a few on the crew -- but I made damn sure to have company to help extricate me. Viktor's hands kept sliding lower and he was sort of attempting to kiss me (or a spot in the air where he seemed to think my face was). I don't think it was anything personal, just an excess of vodka. Even someone's grabbing my hand and waving my wedding ring in front of his face didn't seem to make much difference. Of course, for all I know RUssians wear wedding rings differently or don't wear them. Rudder and I left after a little while; I might have stayed longer but I didn't want to offend anyone on their own turf, in the one place where they get to unwind (though it was also true the Russian women were making sure to keep away from Viktor too). And I think Rudder especially wanted not to offend Viktor after someone told us he'd been a middleweight weightlifting champion. It sounds awful, but was pretty funny, actually -- he was plastered and just trying to be friendly.
I think Graham, one of the kayak guides, might have been happier without the rest of us along to cramp his style. He was good though, and actually more careful about watching all of us and offering tips than the other guide. He'd taken the job basically as a way to get back to Antarctica and build up his photo portfolio; he's breaking into professional photography in the Galen Rowell mold. The late (*sigh*) Galen Rowell is my all-time favorite photographer, so this is a huge compliment. Graham reminds me of him not only in the quality of light he captures but also because he's certifiably insane and thus gets shots no one else would be in position to catch. A year or so ago, he and two friends were the first to kayak the entire length of the Antarctic Peninsula. And they did it unassisted: no chase boats, no supply caches, no long distance communications. They did manage to raise "the only sailboat still around" at some distance away -- much more than the type of radio they had can usually manage -- and did an all-night, 90km paddle to catch it before it left. I have no idea how they'd have gotten home otherwise. Since then they've done an even more difficult trip that involved a long paddle along the coast of Peru followed by a hike in to climb a peak in the Andes, a first ascent, where they had to relay because they had way to much climbing gear to carry all at once. Next will be another first ascent in Greenland.
Lynn and David have slightly more sedate lives, but then David's at a point in his career that Graham is stilll aiming for. Lynn is a naturalist who focuses on Antarctica (not sure what her specific research topic is but she had good answers for all the odd questions I came up with). Together they've written two of the definitive books on Antarctica and I now have a copy of one of them inscribed to me by David and Lynn.
Will is the editor of Practical Photography, which is more or less the equivalent of Popular Photography in the US. Peregrine invited him along because this was a special photographicly-inclined trip, which meant they had special photography talks from which we got some very good tips and that they'd organize a couple Zodiacs on the cruising expedition to focus on the people who wanted to hunt around for just the right angle to photograph each iceberg. And who didn't mind others doing the same. Will is the main reason I came home with a list of about $3000 worth of photo equipment I really want to get right now!
Of course all the passengers had stories -- I don't think boring people go to Antarctica. (Er, present writer excepted.) There was the 11 year old second degree black belt; the securities lawyer who didn't actually get the breakfast in bed she won in the ship's auction but who had so much fun planning it she didn't care; the college girl who's been all over the world with her dad -- but he makes her sit in business class while he rides first; the venture capitalist engaged to the oceanographer who spent most of the trip in their cabin *ahem* watching movies, and any number of people who have seen far more of the world than I've managed yet. But I'm working on it.
Posted by dichroic at January 12, 2004 02:48 PM