The kettle finished boiling and Simon poured water into two mismatched mugs. "Have you ever gone to the ice before?" he asked as he yo-yoed teabags on strings in and out of the cups.
"No," I replied. "But the Mimas has done some time in the Norwegian Sea, filming and tagging the humpbacks. Meredith and her dive team have logged hundreds of hours of ice diving. We've not taken Phoebe under the ice itself."
(Editor's note: 'go to the ice' is the colloquial term used by scientists, technicians and support staff to refer to taking a trip to Antarctica. Phoebe is the name given to the submersible used by the Mimas)
"It's actually the open water that's more dangerous for the submersible," he said, handing one of the mugs over. The teabag had given the water a warm, bright red tint. The drink smelled like a bag of sweets. "The 'bergs collide on the surface and break up. When that happens they might turn over to find a new floating equilibrium, and that sends a huge surge current through the water. It'd shove the vehicle along, and you don't want a hard knock into the floor or a pinnacle."
I blew on the tea and took a sip. It tasted of nothing. Barely any flavour at all. For appearance's sake I kept a neutral expression. Simon was wise to me, though. "Give it a couple of minutes," he advised.
"But you're good, though, aren't you? You've made a career out of piloting submersibles. I've seen the documentaries you and your team have filmed. Very impressive."
I blushed, but not with embarassed pride. Simon was the one who had really succeeded in the field we had both chosen. After my disappointing results I'd become more of a technician than a scientist. And sometimes, when I had some really good footage in the bag, I felt a pang of doubt that told me I was no more than a showman. While Simon Darnell regularly received sizeable grants from the National Science Foundation to spend several months at a time in far corners of the Earth enriching mankind's store of knowledge.
"Thanks. But I don't own the ship, I don't own the sub, and I don't run the dive team. We'd risk assess every dive and if there's any danger to life or equipment we just have to change sites or wait it out. We'd be rookies at the ice but we shouldn't act like we're inexperienced."
Simon stretched back in his chair and smiled, while looking into his mug. I couldn't help but suspect that his question was a test. "Of course." He straightened up. "The places you've dived, you'd probably call them beautiful? Or spooky? Or ominous?"
I swallowed another mouthful that I'd taken as he was talking and nodded. Still no taste.
"Under the ice, it's something else. Something you may not have seen before."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Enchanting." And he started to tell me. We spent the afternoon of that wet September day going through the goals of the expedition. He showed my images and video of the glaciers that emptied into the Amundsen Sea, and explained how climate change was dramatically speeding up the rate at which fresh water was leaking into the ocean.
The tea never did develop a taste. Over the time since we met that day he has since handed me a dozen mugs with herbal or fruit tea, and the taste varied from highly disagreeable to none at all to pleasant but terribly weak.
The next month had me flying out to Christchurch in New Zealand, where I met again with Simon, and he introduced me to his team. Early next morning we flew on to McMurdo on a USAF cargo plane, all squeezed in together on the floor. These flights aren't arranged with our comfort in mind - flights to Antarctica are military matters. The engine noise is loud enough to make conversation impractical, there are no seats, no flight attendants are on hand to tend to your needs and you'd have to crawl over a score of people you barely know to reach the washroom, so you damn well go before the flight or hold it in for five hours.
We disembarked from the cargo plane in early afternoon, legs stiff and unresponsive after the cramped flight. I descended the stairs with a sclerotic limp, praying that I wouldn't embarass myself by dropping my orange bag stuffed with my allocation of extreme cold weather clothing. The sky was clear and the white sun reflecting on the white snow dazzled my eyes. The freezing air burned my exposed skin. The runway is on the sea ice, and a thin layer of snow crunched under my heavy boots. As soon as I had joined the cluster of scientists from Simon's team who had already left the plane I dumped my gear and struggled to don a pair of gloves I had left in a pocket. I thought I could get away with just the glove liners until I was inside, but thirteen below zero to someone not yet acclimatised is too much of a shock to the system, even if that system is packed inside a fat red parka.
Squashed together again; the runway is at 'Ice Town', a cluster of buildings provided support services to the landing planes. It's a short drive from McMurdo itself, and transports - flatbeds with massive tyres - ferried us and our equipment over.
As we pulled in front of one of the buildings in McMurdo, a dozen people filed out of it, their sunglasses and hoods making them unidentifiable. "Hello, Matt!" called one of them. I recognised the voice - and only person would dare, one person could possibly get away with calling me Matt.
"Meredith?"
"We thought we'd come out to welcome you to the bottom of the World."
It was the crew of the Mimas. It was all of the crew. Seeing them all again brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat. Simon and one of his team helped me to jump out of the flatbed, I slipped on the ice and Meredith caught my fall. The crew surrounded me, hugging me, slapping my back, shaking my hand. I was overjoyed. We were a pack of animals re-establishing our bonds. Simon and his team gave us bemused smiles as they got off the vehicles.
"You've put on weight, Matthew." chided Susan, our cook.
"Oh, how can you possibly tell with this jacket?" I countered.
"I just know." She was right, of course.
Norbert was next. He was ship's captain, his jowls even rosier than usual in the cold. "Phoebe says she misses you."
"I've missed Phoebe." And I had. I felt that sitting in her pilot's seat, the water splashing over the top as she began her descent, would bring a moment of profound, unbreakable peace.
By now the science team were politely waiting for us, a little awkwardly, pretending to tend to their bags or looking nonchalantly at the surroundings. I remembered to be a professional and made rounds of introductions, as the crew and the science teams shucked their fat gloves off to make a hundred handshakes with their cold-pinched fingers.
"No," I replied. "But the Mimas has done some time in the Norwegian Sea, filming and tagging the humpbacks. Meredith and her dive team have logged hundreds of hours of ice diving. We've not taken Phoebe under the ice itself."
(Editor's note: 'go to the ice' is the colloquial term used by scientists, technicians and support staff to refer to taking a trip to Antarctica. Phoebe is the name given to the submersible used by the Mimas)
"It's actually the open water that's more dangerous for the submersible," he said, handing one of the mugs over. The teabag had given the water a warm, bright red tint. The drink smelled like a bag of sweets. "The 'bergs collide on the surface and break up. When that happens they might turn over to find a new floating equilibrium, and that sends a huge surge current through the water. It'd shove the vehicle along, and you don't want a hard knock into the floor or a pinnacle."
I blew on the tea and took a sip. It tasted of nothing. Barely any flavour at all. For appearance's sake I kept a neutral expression. Simon was wise to me, though. "Give it a couple of minutes," he advised.
"But you're good, though, aren't you? You've made a career out of piloting submersibles. I've seen the documentaries you and your team have filmed. Very impressive."
I blushed, but not with embarassed pride. Simon was the one who had really succeeded in the field we had both chosen. After my disappointing results I'd become more of a technician than a scientist. And sometimes, when I had some really good footage in the bag, I felt a pang of doubt that told me I was no more than a showman. While Simon Darnell regularly received sizeable grants from the National Science Foundation to spend several months at a time in far corners of the Earth enriching mankind's store of knowledge.
"Thanks. But I don't own the ship, I don't own the sub, and I don't run the dive team. We'd risk assess every dive and if there's any danger to life or equipment we just have to change sites or wait it out. We'd be rookies at the ice but we shouldn't act like we're inexperienced."
Simon stretched back in his chair and smiled, while looking into his mug. I couldn't help but suspect that his question was a test. "Of course." He straightened up. "The places you've dived, you'd probably call them beautiful? Or spooky? Or ominous?"
I swallowed another mouthful that I'd taken as he was talking and nodded. Still no taste.
"Under the ice, it's something else. Something you may not have seen before."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Enchanting." And he started to tell me. We spent the afternoon of that wet September day going through the goals of the expedition. He showed my images and video of the glaciers that emptied into the Amundsen Sea, and explained how climate change was dramatically speeding up the rate at which fresh water was leaking into the ocean.
The tea never did develop a taste. Over the time since we met that day he has since handed me a dozen mugs with herbal or fruit tea, and the taste varied from highly disagreeable to none at all to pleasant but terribly weak.
The next month had me flying out to Christchurch in New Zealand, where I met again with Simon, and he introduced me to his team. Early next morning we flew on to McMurdo on a USAF cargo plane, all squeezed in together on the floor. These flights aren't arranged with our comfort in mind - flights to Antarctica are military matters. The engine noise is loud enough to make conversation impractical, there are no seats, no flight attendants are on hand to tend to your needs and you'd have to crawl over a score of people you barely know to reach the washroom, so you damn well go before the flight or hold it in for five hours.
We disembarked from the cargo plane in early afternoon, legs stiff and unresponsive after the cramped flight. I descended the stairs with a sclerotic limp, praying that I wouldn't embarass myself by dropping my orange bag stuffed with my allocation of extreme cold weather clothing. The sky was clear and the white sun reflecting on the white snow dazzled my eyes. The freezing air burned my exposed skin. The runway is on the sea ice, and a thin layer of snow crunched under my heavy boots. As soon as I had joined the cluster of scientists from Simon's team who had already left the plane I dumped my gear and struggled to don a pair of gloves I had left in a pocket. I thought I could get away with just the glove liners until I was inside, but thirteen below zero to someone not yet acclimatised is too much of a shock to the system, even if that system is packed inside a fat red parka.
Squashed together again; the runway is at 'Ice Town', a cluster of buildings provided support services to the landing planes. It's a short drive from McMurdo itself, and transports - flatbeds with massive tyres - ferried us and our equipment over.
As we pulled in front of one of the buildings in McMurdo, a dozen people filed out of it, their sunglasses and hoods making them unidentifiable. "Hello, Matt!" called one of them. I recognised the voice - and only person would dare, one person could possibly get away with calling me Matt.
"Meredith?"
"We thought we'd come out to welcome you to the bottom of the World."
It was the crew of the Mimas. It was all of the crew. Seeing them all again brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat. Simon and one of his team helped me to jump out of the flatbed, I slipped on the ice and Meredith caught my fall. The crew surrounded me, hugging me, slapping my back, shaking my hand. I was overjoyed. We were a pack of animals re-establishing our bonds. Simon and his team gave us bemused smiles as they got off the vehicles.
"You've put on weight, Matthew." chided Susan, our cook.
"Oh, how can you possibly tell with this jacket?" I countered.
"I just know." She was right, of course.
Norbert was next. He was ship's captain, his jowls even rosier than usual in the cold. "Phoebe says she misses you."
"I've missed Phoebe." And I had. I felt that sitting in her pilot's seat, the water splashing over the top as she began her descent, would bring a moment of profound, unbreakable peace.
By now the science team were politely waiting for us, a little awkwardly, pretending to tend to their bags or looking nonchalantly at the surroundings. I remembered to be a professional and made rounds of introductions, as the crew and the science teams shucked their fat gloves off to make a hundred handshakes with their cold-pinched fingers.
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