I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have my own phone. I’m part of Generation Z, so phones have always been as essential as breathing: endlessly scrolling or capturing content to put on my social media. My phone is glued to my hand most of the day. It’s my connection to the world – and in my job running Swoop Antarctica’s social media, it’s also an essential tool at work.
In November I made my first trip to Antarctica to collect material for our marketing team. Colleagues teased me about how patchy the internet could be on an expedition cruise ship, and how would I ever manage not being online 24/7? But they also said that Antarctica was a transformative place, and I knew that if I didn’t put my devices away for at least a day or two, I might not be able to fully take it all in. And when I was there, I was overwhelmed with a need to put down my phone and my camera the moment my work was done and disconnect from everything.
A Shift in Perspective?
Travel for my generation comes with something of an unspoken rule: if you didn’t share it on Instagram, it didn’t really happen. Growing up with social media, it’s something you internalise: the need to constantly share. And part of me was really looking forward to this. Every day at work I handle photos and clips from members of the Swoop Antarctica team collected during their polar voyages. Every season, my phone pings constantly with notifications when they WhatsApp me another shot of a penguin or an iceberg. It’s one of the favourite parts of my job, and it definitely helped build the excitement for my own trip.
I knew that Antarctica looks pretty amazing on the screen. But what I genuinely didn’t expect was how those images are absolutely nothing in comparison to the first time you see it face to face. On my first day, and blessed with the brightest and calmest weather possible, I discovered that there isn’t a single photo, video or a sound bite that could do the place justice. That’s pretty ironic for someone who works in polar marketing, right? Or perhaps it was a really brilliant challenge, because I soon realised that Antarctica’s magic wasn’t just about what I could see, it was about the new and exciting feelings sparking inside of me.
Floating in the moment
One of the reasons that it was so easy to disconnect was that Antarctica was just so brilliantly overwhelming. I was sailing on our Antarctica Basecamp Adventure, which gives you a chance to try a selection of different activities in one trip: kayaking, camping, snowshoeing and even a taste of mountaineering.
Of these, kayaking was easily my favourite, for the completely different perspective it gives you. You’re at the same level as the ice in the water, and when you’re facing away from the ship all you feel is yourself in the breeze and a horizon that seems to go on for miles.
What I loved most about it was that the best moments were the ones that could only be fully experienced through your own senses, impossible to capture with any technology. I can’t lie: I made sure I was filming when the pod of penguins swam over to us, with their eyes on us as much as we were on them (there may even have been a little tear when one particularly confident one came up to my kayak and swam right underneath me before popping out on the other side).
But it was actually the smaller moments that made me feel most present. The sound of the paddle swishing against the water with nothing else to be heard but my breath. The scrape of chunks of ice against the kayak and – my biggest surprise – the little popping sounds of air escaping from them like Rice Krispies.
Everyday life can be so hectic, with so many things demanding your attention, and all I could think was how special it was just to sit on the water and listen to the sound of ice. My kayaking partner and I went through such a rush of emotions after our penguin encounter that we decided to have five minutes of being completely silent. We just sat in our kayak, floating. I often find it so difficult to just stop, but in that moment I felt like I could take a real pause from the rest of the world. Those five minutes felt like a beautiful forever. I think there’s part of me that’s still floating and breathing out there in our kayak. I really hope so.
Camping out
Getting to sleep out was another profound experience. There are no charging points in a bivvy bag in a snowhole. Actually, the cold drains your batteries really quickly, so you don’t want to be keeping your devices out too much anyway: you get the shot you want, then you tuck your gear away under your parka. Maybe this is what the earliest explorers were like when they were out on the snow? Just a handful of chances to take a photo, then back to the important business of Being In Antarctica?
I definitely felt like channelling my inner Shackleton though, digging my snowhole for the night. A bit like the kayaking, it stirred up some pretty strong emotions. When you’re on a regular landing, biosecurity rules mean that you can’t sit down or kneel on the snow: it’s all part of helping keep the wildlife safe from any potential risk from Avian Flu. But even when you’re camping at a spot that’s been carefully chosen away from any penguins or seals, the strict rules meant that it felt weirdly transgressive to be lying down in the snow. And when I say you’re lying down you’re really quite deep in the hole you’ve dug, so it feels like an intimate connection to Antarctica like no other.
It was a surreal feeling: cocooned in a bivvy bag in the snow, watching a crescent moon at 3am when the sun was rising and the light was absolutely perfect. I remember zipping up my bag to cover my face and get cosy, then every two minutes thinking that I wanted to take another look and unzipping to pop my face out and be mesmerised again. And because the snow holes are so deep, you really had to sit up properly to even realise there was anyone else there. I had so many moments where I couldn’t quite believe where I was. My phone and camera were completely forgotten: it was just me, about to fall asleep at the end of the Earth. I was lying on the snow and staring at the moon, unable to grasp just how wild and surreal the sensation felt.
Capturing Antarctica through my own eyes
I loved how even the activities came with plenty of opportunities for stillness and reflection, and that was something I tried to carry back on to the ship. I spent a lot of time out on the deck, and this was where I truly discovered how easy it was to disconnect from my phone.
A big part of me had imagined that when I was on board I would be constantly updating friends at home, but I kept being drawn back outside. Some of my most special times involved wrapping up warm and heading outside with a cup of coffee to do my journaling. With so much to be grateful for, it was hard to stop my pen from writing an essay! Looking up to see the sight of towering icebergs in the golden morning light, the options felt immense. But something I always wrote was this: knowing that today could somehow be even better than the day before.
It was often a surprise how few people there would be out on the deck at those moments. But it was also great because it meant that I could feel like Antarctica was all mine. At the end of our time on the Peninsula I was spending hours out there until my cheeks became raw and my fingers were numb, not realising how long I’d been without my phone, just staring at the horizon.
One day, my friend and I had been outside for hours, so we started stamping up and down on the deck to get our blood flowing, just so we could stay out a little longer. Just as we were finally about to give up and go inside, a black and white eye appeared from in the water, barely 20 metres from the ship. ‘Orca!’ I cried, jumping up and down like a school kid in excitement. When I went to take a photo, I realised that I had left my phone, camera, GoPro – all my digital devices – in my cabin. The only network connection I had was nature. So we just stood and watched it in pure wonder, capturing the moment through our own eyes.
Two minutes later and people were rushing out onto the deck. One of the expedition guides had also seen the orca and announced it over the tannoy. Cameras were soon snapping, I never got a single photo.
No Instagram post so it never happened? No – it was much much better than that. For that brief moment it was just me and my friend and an orca, alone together in Antarctica. And that’s something far longer lasting than any social media post – the one moment that I think will stay with me forever was the one I couldn’t take a photo of.
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