BT – A night out

Shortly after 9pm on the evening of day 3 in Antarctica, a group of 30 or so of us found ourselves standing on the shore looking at the Plancius, and reflecting on the comfort of our cabins. Tonight it was our turn for a night on the ice. This was one of the things I had been especially looking forward to experiencing, and I confess I was pretty excited and not at all daunted (the expedition staff joked about being crazy to want to do this, but, of course, just about everyone wanted to — I mean, you’d be crazy not to!).

Strong winds had meant that our venue had changed to Stony Point (S 64°54.8′ W 62°56.1′) where it was much calmer, as no one wanted unanchored bits of camping gear being blown off into the Antarctic wilderness. The first order of business was to dig our “graves”, a hole sufficiently deep to shelter us from the wind and sufficiently wide to house the intended number of occupants. I think there was at least one family-of-four plot, and there were a few singles, but most of the accommodation was twin-share, which is what my sister Cath and I constructed (mostly her by the looks of it, since I seemed to be taking lots of photos (no, we did take it in turns, having only the one shovel between us)).

We then assembled our bivvy (bivouac) bags for the night: two sleep mats to insulate us from the ice below and to give a little comfort, a thin sleeping bag inside a thicker one with a liner for cleanliness and extra warmth, and all placed inside a body-bag-sized waterproof and windproof sack with a zippable hood around the head. No tent. This was going to be it!

Some time after 10:30 (knowing that we would have an early wake-up call), and after taking a few last shots of the evening landscape, I snuggled in for the night. I found it a little claustrophobic being zipped in completely, so I made sure I wore my lightweight balaclava and a beanie and left the hood open a little. I wasn’t sure how well I would sleep or how cold I would be, and I did contemplate staying awake all night to see if it ever got very dark but then I knew I wouldn’t be able to say I had slept on the ice. I did my usual pre-sleep position-changes, realised I was snugly warm and comfortable, and before long I was asleep. [I was told later that it was probably only about -5°C (23°F) overnight; there are parts of Tassie that get cooler than this, so we really weren’t at any great risk of getting seriously cold, given the gear we had.]

We were woken around 4:30am. Part of the reason for the early start was to get us back on board the ship for breakfast; more importantly it was to get us back on board ship so that we could use the ship’s toilet facilities instead of the port-a-potty that was the just-in-case solution if we had needed it while camping. Minimizing pollution in this pristine environment is important.

The view from our bivvy bags was wonderful.

The reflections in the bay were beautiful in the early morning light, and we could see Plancius gently motoring off-shore as a reassuring sentinel if the weather had turned foul.

Our final act for the morning was to fill in our holes before heading back to the boat. It still feels amazing to know I’ve had a night on the ice.