The white wilderness

Along the coastline of Antarctica, Toast Coetzer saw icebergs and orcas – but first he had to brave stormy seas…

- Toast Coetzer

It’s not easy to shower at sea, especially when it’s so choppy that the captain has forbidden passengers from being on deck. When you’re in the small stainless-steel cubicle, it feels like you’re trapped inside a phone booth while an elephant kicks you down the road…

The sea had been rough ever since we left South Georgia Island in a snowstorm a few days previously. I’d been swallowing seasick tablets like Smarties, but I was still so nauseous that I skipped breakfast. My roommate, Guts Swanepoel from Pangolin Photo Safaris, had no such problems – he was in the communal area above our sleeping quarters giving a photography lecture about how to expose correctly in snowy conditions.

I managed to shower and I got dressed carefully. The ship, the MV Ushuaia, wasn’t only rocking from side to side – sometimes an unexpected swell rolled in and it felt as if we’d hit a pothole while tumbling down a hill. In my cabin, it was way too easy to fall over, especially while pulling on a sock.

Hernán Escudero, the ship’s eccentric Chilean hospitality manager, peeked through the door. He saw I was a little green around the gills and wanted to say something encouraging. He went with: “Have a nice day in paradise!”

What could I do but laugh? I thanked him and lay down again. About an hour later, Hernán’s voice came over the intercom: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, the restaurant is now open for lunch…”

At 11.30 am, lunch was slightly earlier than normal because Elephant Island was close by and everyone wanted to get outside to see it. This inhospitable shard of land is where the explorer Ernest Shackleton and his men sought shelter after their ship, the Endurance, sank in theWeddell Sea in 1915.