En Route

GPS flight tracking screen shot

Day 1; January 23, 2009; in flight from Boston to Amsterdam

As we began the ascent to 39,000 ft, nearly two hours ago, I looked back out my window toward the waning lights of Boston, which dimmed by my growing distance. Tiny luminous points of light, poised static in the blackness, formed a nebula in my mind. A real star, tinier yet, hovered just above tip of the plane’s wing, glowing like a beacon to the lights below.

My journey to Antarctica has truly begun. No more preparations. No more arrangements to be made. No more wishing. I’m en route, toward the farthest reaches of our planet. The feelings and thoughts in my head are a mixture of deep excitement and elation swirled with the utter exhaustion from the hectic pace of the last month.  Since I accepted the invitation to join the ITASC team on their third and final expedition of their IPY project, my time has been a race to assemble the strange and unique gear one needs to survive in the Antarctic environment, as well as gather the necessary equipment for my own admittedly obsessive art-making habit.

My dear friend David Hirschi sent me a lovely “Bon Voyage” email earlier today, noting that he couldn’t imagine how one prepares for a trip to Antarctica. His email echoed my own similar thoughts throughout the last few weeks. What constitutes preparedness? My personal affects seem relatively meager considering the 49 days I will be on this remote journey, and yet I’m still well over my weight limitation for the flight to Antarctica due to the extensive photographic and video gear I’m bringing. Possibly harder than the question “what do you bring?” is the question “what are you willing to leave behind?”

My item list still seems rather astonishing to me, given that 3 weeks ago, I owned relatively few of these things:

•    My new, and much beloved, Canon 5D Mark II, which I was grateful to acquire (despite the 2 month nationwide backorder!) owing to the good graces of the Santa Fe Camera Center.
•    A 24-105 mm Macro and a 70-200 mm Telephoto lens with UV and polarizing filters.
•    Battery grip with scores of batteries and respective chargers
•    Portable yet steady tripod
•    Two of my hand-built “Light Recording” devices with adaptable parts for on-site configuration, and 100 sheets of 4×5 film.
•    A fully equipped Panasonic HVX200 high definition video camera, which is on loan through the generous support of Panavision.
•    My computer, two 500 Gig tiny portable hard drives and almost 30 Gigs worth of Compact Flash cards.
•    Power cords, Firewire and USB cables for every electronic device I’m carrying, surge protectors and plug converters, and back-ups for each of the aforementioned.
•    An iridium satellite phone, generously donated to my journey, and which is noted for working at any location on Earth as long as you are outside under the sky (a device truly after my own heart!)
•    A voice recorder (I’m hoping to interview some of the research scientists I meet, as well as the other ITASC team members)
•    Hoards of hand and feet warmers (I am simply one of those unfortunate people who never seems to stay warm. The stark irony of this is not lost…)
•    Stores of energy bars and chocolate (One burns more calories in extremely cold environments.  It will be necessary for me to average about 4000+ calories a day in order to not loose significant weight.)
•    Patagonia’s capilene and polypropylene cold weather base-layers, and Taiga expedition grade down booties for indoor foot protection.
•    Various precautionary meds and vitamin C packs.
•    Minimal toiletries, with an emphasis on lotion and lip balm (Antarctica is the driest place on Earth…)
•    An extreme conditions thermos (in a possibly vain effort to keep my tea hot in -20F!)
•    A roll of Duct tape (the ultimate quick-fixer of all things)
•    Two ice saws (for building igloos at our mobile base)
•    A book (Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception who’s 530 pages should keep me well occupied, if not utterly confounded).
•    A compass and some pens.

Now I’m more than half way across the Atlantic, and the plane rumbles in the air turbulence as we approach the windy shores of Ireland far below. I look over my list again as a way to somehow connect with the unknown that lies before me—these are the things that will travel with me “there”. It is a rather interesting experience to relate one’s moment to a collection of particular things. If my journey can be defined, or at least contextualized, by the contents of my luggage, then one might argue I could be traveling virtually anywhere. Yet, in my heart, I feel almost as if I’m going to the Moon.

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