Into the blue
I work for Zegrahm Expeditions, an American wildlife tour company which offers trips to the Antarctic. I am employed as the ornithologist and give lectures on the birds of the region to our guests and also act as a guide throughout the trip. I work as part of a small team of ‘field leaders’ comprising experts in marine biology, geology, climatology and Antarctic history, and I like to think our guests go home as ambassadors for Antarctica and for the need to protect it, after a holiday with a strong educational theme, learning all about the white continent.
We travel during the southern summer in December or January. A trip to the Antarctic is the closest thing you will get to leaving planet earth. It is other-worldly with, for the most part, no evidence of human activity, past or present, and sights, sounds and smells largely alien to the first-time visitor. We do not see a tree or flower for the best part of three weeks. We travel on small cruise ships with no more than 100 passengers, which allows us to go ashore in zodiacs and explore in small groups and get to places other cruise ships cannot. Of course we make every effort to minimise our impact on the places we visit and follow strict international guidelines to ensure we leave Antarctica as we found it.
