Where to Begin?
Since arriving back from Antarctica I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked by friends and neighbours, “So, Luce… How was it?!” For people running late for work or trying to get their kids through the school gates in time for morning register my rambling, enthusiastic replies were perhaps not ideal and so I have, over the course of the past two weeks honed and polished my response into one simple word - ‘incredible’. Of course, I have had to compensate for the lack of ‘wordage’ with a particularly exaggerated use of facial muscles and a great emphasis on the second syllable as I say it, “in-cred-i-ble”. Incredible - so extraordinary as to seem impossible. Occasionally, when I feel there’s time I might even go so far as to add, “life-changing”.
In fact, what I’d really like to say are the beautiful words of Edwin Mickleburgh, in Beyond the Frozen Sea,
“Antarctica’s overwhelming beauty touches one so deeply that it is like a wound”
I was off the grid for five weeks whilst onboard HMS Protector. It was so liberating and I absolutely loved it, but you might have thought that once back in the land of broadband and 4G I would have jumped at the chance to post my first blog post about the trip. The truth is I just didn’t know where to begin. I still don’t. But, I can’t put it off forever and people are always saying it’s what’s on the inside that counts, so that seems like a pretty good place to start.
I had no idea that going crevassing in Antarctica was even on the cards, but thanks to the Royal Marines, halfway through the trip on a stop-off at the BAS Research Station in Rothera, I got to do one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. I got to descend down through a tiny hole in the ice into the belly of a glacier. The wind was vicious that day and bit at our faces as we climbed the mountainside, but just metres below the surface we were transported to an enchanted world of icy calm - a natural temple perfectly set up, it seemed, as a place to pay homage to the colour blue.
It was an extraordinary moment. One of many very special memories from the trip and one which I seem to be returning to over and over again as I begin work in the studio. Those notions of danger and awe, of joy and sorrow all coming from the same place. The thought of something so beautiful, it moves you to tears.
