Last December, I went on a trip to Antarctica that proved to be a once in a lifetime experience. Form El Paso, Texas, Sarah and I traveled with a group of students and fellow professors to Ushuaia, Argentina where we boarded a ship, a Russian icebreaker named the Orlova and set sail south for the Last Great Frontier.
As we set sail, we moved away from the southern stretches of land in Argentina, and were guided through part of the Beagle Channel toward the open ocean. The area s so narrow and travel so specialized, that a guide (un piloto) is needed in order to reach open water. If that person, the pilot, does not guide the huge ship through the channel, the possibility that the ship could run aground or be damaged in some way is quite high. The goal is to exit the channel safely and head out into the high and mighty seas.
Once the ship reached the edge of the coastline and the channel, what remains in front of you in open water and in the case of traveling to Antarctica, this means crossing the Drake Passage, considered historically the roughest seas in the world. At the moment the pilot returned to his home vessel to return back to port, we were free to move into the open ocean, to head forward in a seemingly open and potentially expansive environment. Yet, what came upon me at that moment was a hushed fear of entering a space to which I had never been, an open sea fraught with potential danger, an abyss of great depth and breadth with only a horizon on which to point.
This trip has become a true and physical metaphor in my life once and again, every time I have the feeling of leaving a familiar shore to head for open waters. Having been here in Santiago for some 3 weeks, I do recognize things as familiar which were once foreign, but also see the open water to come, and approach this opportunity with respect and trepidation, as I set my face toward the horizon and prepare for a life-changing journey once again.
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