Crossing the Drake Passage can take several days. Only the sheer force of the sea, where two oceans collide, can determine whether you get there safely. Even the most seaworthy vessels can flounder in these waters. The oceanic expanse is barren, and, apart from a few hunting seabirds, I was left alone to ponder. Landfall comes suddenly. There it was before me, a scale unimaginable without witnessing it firsthand – a foreign landscape devoid of human civilisation. The early days of Antarctic exploration were motivated by imperial achievements and scientific studies. And there I was, aboard an expedition ship outfitted without discomfort.

Every vantage point along the craggy coastline of the Antarctic Peninsula reveals an endlessly shifting panorama: the scenery moves by in an infinite loop. I spend my days absorbed in the indentations, crevices and subtle variations in the colour of a nearly colourless place, observing each peak’s uniqueness in contour and construction.

Beneath its monumental layers of ice – three miles thick in some places – lies the largest desert on Earth, a vastness surpassing the combined area of the contiguous United States and Mexico. Here, the land is locked in a perpetual deep freeze, where the cold bites harder than anywhere else on the planet and winds howl with an unmatched ferocity. There is no vegetation, no touch of green to soften the stark whites and blues of this frozen wilderness. In every sense, it is the ultimate desert – unforgiving, immense and profoundly humbling.

One night, I slept on Antarctica – or rather, on ice packed twenty feet above its barren rock floor. Armed with only a sleeping bag, a waterproof bivvy, an insulated mat and an ice pick, we each prepared for the night. The wind howled as we dug holes in the ice to sleep in. Each person took a different approach. While others built intricate walls reminiscent of Inuit igloos, I opted for simplicity, carving out a coffin-shaped hollow and stacking ice around it to shield myself from the chilling gusts. My wall stood about twenty inches tall – just enough to block the wind. 

An expedition guide led a small group of us on a walk at sunset. A faint purple hue illuminated our path as we ventured briefly away from the water toward its eerie nullity. The guide stopped, stared outward, and said, “There’s nothing there. We can go back.” His face was blank, his voice oddly plain. Did he grasp the depth of his words? Beyond that point lay only a vast expanse of ice and air – the abyss echoing loudly.

That night, I lay there, two feet in the Antarctic ice, on the edge of that void both outward and inward. The ship I had arrived on had temporarily left the bay where I lay. For that night, I was abandoned in the loneliest place on Earth.

With my eyes closed and my mind wandering, lying atop Antarctica, I felt myself detach from my surroundings. I drifted into sleep, surrendering control of my thoughts, and the pleasures of my imagination took me far away. In my mind’s eye, I could have been lying on the warm sand of a tropical beach, a grassy meadow or beneath the canopy of a jungle.

My thoughts were not attached to the coffin-shapped hole carved by myself hours prior. Isolated in sleep on the ice, my mind was disillusioned. I awoke far away from the pleasures of my dreams to a cold climate filled with ice. Only moments prior, the ice had meant nothing.

@thesailingcollective