Barbara has always loved penguins. When I met her it was definitely a case of 'love me, love my penguins' and as far as Barbara is concerned all penguins are her penguins. I well remember a visit to Whipsnade Zoo when we were still undergraduates; it was a cold, wet and windy day. Nonetheless we spent a whole afternoon standing at the penguin enclosure underneath an umbrella; whenever we moved the penguins (mostly Kings as I recall) followed us. We made a good wind break for them. I decided then that if I wanted to stay with Barbara I should encourage her passion for penguins and take the subject seriously. So I started to buy her birthday, Christmas and anniversary presents of cuddly toy penguins, books on penguins etc. Since those early days of our relationship, we have learnt a great deal about penguins. We have, as anyone who knows us is only too well aware, also collected an enormous amount of penguin memorabilia over the years. For example, I have a collection of nearly 50 different penguin ties - for someone who wears tee shirts or sweat shirts (penguin designs of course) to work this may seem extreme, but there it is. Meanwhile Barbara has a full wardrobe of penguin clothes, nearly all the pictures on the walls of our house are of penguins and Barbara's car, 'Adelie', sports a frieze of Adelie Penguins.
We have been fortunate to see a lot of penguins in captivity and to meet many close up, especially at the various Sea Worlds. In fact even before the trip we had seen 10 of the 17 species of penguin in captivity and by good fortune been able to 'pet' at least one of each of these species. In particular, we have managed to get to know several of the staff at the Sea Worlds in San Diego (California) and in Aurora (Ohio) and been able to go inside their excellent Penguin Encounters. However, even in these well controlled environments the penguins are not completely at home as they do not have the open ocean as their playground. It is little wonder that we have for a long time wanted to see penguins in their natural environment. At first, we talked about maybe going to Australia and New Zealand one day to see Little Blues and Yellow Eyed Penguins, or maybe South Africa to see Black Footed Penguins. We also talked of going to the Falkland Islands (pre Thatcher!) where there are King, Rockhopper, Gentoo, Magellanic and Macaroni Penguins.
However, when we read some years ago that it was possible to go to Antarctica as tourists we realised that this was what we really wanted. Even then it remained a distant dream as the cost was so high. Eventually about four years ago we made the decision that we would definitely go and do so as soon as we could as there were rumours that restrictions might be placed on tourism that could prevent us from going at all. We decided to set up a separate savings account - the 'Penguin Fund' - to build up enough money to be able to afford the trip. We invested as much as we could in the fund including any money we earned over and above our salaries. The money I earned from consultancy work and from public lectures, radio and TV work was particularly useful, while Barbara contributed with the sale of many wood turned items such as standard lamps and candle sticks. We also cashed in some life insurance policies we had taken out when we first bought a house and added these to the fund.
The account grew quicker than we had expected, so that we were able to plan our trip for the 1994/5 season. We started the planning in the late summer of 1993. First we had to make sure that we could take the time off work. Barbara approached her bosses and was given permission to carry over holiday from one year into the next and to take all her leave in 1994/5 in a single chunk. Meanwhile, I persuaded the head of my department that I would be able to take a week or so off in term time, the rest of the time would have to come from the Christmas vacation. This more or less fixed the dates we could go away; sometime between the beginning of December and the end of January.
Next we gathered information on all the ships we could find that were going to Antarctica. All of these went from South America or the Falklands to the Antarctic peninsula. However, we had seen a few years ago a particular trip that went from New Zealand and visited the Ross Sea region of Antarctica (this is the area where much of the early exploration was carried out). Scott's hut still stands on Ross Island at the foot of Mt. Erebus. We really wanted to find a trip that went down there to the 'far side' of Antarctica. We also wanted to go on a small ship with only a limited number of fellow passengers. We were not keen on the cheaper cruises where up to 300 passengers were carried and the durations were rather short. For us a major part of the trip would be the chance to see a pristine environment; if we had to share that with 298 others it would be spoilt. We were also concerned that the cruise ship followed the Antarctic Convention and made minimal environmental impact. A final question was when to go. Later in the season the ice conditions would be better, but the chances of seeing Emperor Penguins much later than the beginning of January would be very slim. Emperors have a peculiar breeding cycle. The males actually incubate the eggs in the dark Antarctic winter in temperatures as low as -70C so that the adults can complete breeding and undergo their moult in spring and early summer. They then go out to sea until late summer when breeding starts over again.
By November 1993 we had managed to find only one vessel, the converted Russian ice breaker, 'Kapitan Klebnikov' that was making a voyage to the Ross Sea (from Australia). We had written to companies all over the world to get information but in fact it was a Bristol based travel agent, Wildwings, (specialising in birding holidays) who provided us with the best information. In January, on our return from Canada, we had almost decided the Klebnikov was the best available trip and were more or less ready to book it when Wildwings told us they had just received information about another trip organised by Southern Heritage Expeditions. As soon as we saw the brochure we knew this was the perfect trip for us. Leaving from New Zealand a small Russian polar research vessel would visit a number of sub Antarctic Islands on the way to the Ross Sea and come back via most of the remaining sub Antarctic Islands including, importantly for us, Macquarie, the only place Royal Penguins are found; and Snares, the only home of Snares Crested Penguins. In all we could expect to see up to 11 different species of penguins in the wild on this trip. We made our booking in late January. We also decided to leave England well before the voyage on the ship began, so that we would have a chance to see a 12th species of penguin - Fiordland Crested on the West Coast of New Zealand. These penguins finish breeding and leave to go to sea for 4 months by the middle of December. According to our plans we could with luck see Emperor, King, Gentoo, Adelie, Chinstrap, Yellow Eyed, Little Blue, Rockhopper, Fiordland Crested, Erect Crested, Snares Crested and Royal Penguins. Of these we had never seen Yellow Eyed, Fiordland Crested, Erect Crested, Snares Crested and Royal (and Barbara had not seen Little Blues). If we were successful we would by the time we returned have seen all but one species of penguin (having seen Black Footed, Magellanic, Humboldt and Macaroni Penguins in captivity). We will have to go to the Galapagos Islands to see the Galapagos Penguin (like the others we had not previously seen they are nowhere to be found in zoos).
The time from booking to leaving was very busy, we had to buy quite a lot of special equipment. We had already bought a video camera, but we had to practice using it. In the end Barbara took the video while I concentrated on the still photographs. We bought a second (purely mechanical) camera - a good decision as my automatic packed up toward the end of the trip. However, we had the greatest difficulty in finding suitable clothing. We tried in Canada, France and all over the place in England. Eventually we managed to buy everything we needed - boots, waterproof trousers, thermal underwear etc. but it was not until October or November that we had finally got everything together.
In August, I visited Maggie and Pete (my sister and brother in law) in Toronto while on a business trip. The day I was due to come back to England was exactly 100 days before we were due to fly off to New Zealand. My nephews, Tim and Jeff decided to make us a 'Count Down Board'; they made 100 pictures of penguins and stuck them on a board which I brought back home with instructions to 'peel a penguin a day'.
As the number of penguins on the board steadily fell so we became increasingly excited. The last few weeks were a mad rush with both of us trying desperately to finish projects at work and leaving instructions with colleagues in case anything went wrong while we were away.
