Before Antarctica smacks us in the face, we felt we should properly introduce you to this small, floating decision we’ve made.
Her name is Icebird. She’s a 60 foot expedition sailboat, captained by Cath, who’s spent 23 years down here and carries it like someone who’s already met the worst this place can dish out.
There are ten of us onboard. TEN! On one boat.
That includes me, Jason, Cath and crew… plus five of you, our Curiosity Crew, who said “yes” and trusted us enough to follow this idea all the way to Antarctica.
We sleep in bunks stacked like kids at summer camp. We share one shower (a social experiment in itself). And every morning, we wake up to a pilothouse view that feels a bit like living inside a Nat Geo documentary… except we still have to make coffee and not crash the boat.
This video is part introduction, part tour, and a bit of an investigation. Because sailing Antarctica is uncharted chunks of ocean, fast-moving weather, and the kind of remoteness where if something breaks…you are the only repair person or supply store for a thousand miles.
Cath walks us through what it actually takes to bring a boat to the bottom of the world, and why Icebird is built different. (Her aero rig alone will have your head doing cartwheels.)
And then, as tends to happen when you set humans on a glacier there was sledding, racing, and if you can believe it… paragliding.
One final note, because we know some of you are wondering how we're doing things that cruise ship passengers can't. Icebird carries fewer than 12 passengers, which puts her in a completely different category than the big ships. The rules cruise ships follow exist because they're managing the impact of landing a hundred people at a time, and that makes total sense. But with only six or seven of us going ashore, our footprint is just fundamentally different. Captain Cath is fully permitted through the Australian government and we follow the Antarctic Treaty's environmental guidelines. We just don't require the same level of crowd management.
Curiosity Crew
What is the Curiosity Crew? They are some of you, our subscribers who have become members…the folks behind the scenes who help make these stories possible—and every now and then, step into them with us.
- Steve Morrison - @dragonfly.495
- Tougy Morrison (Steve's daughter) - @tougymorrison
- Douglas Gilchrist - @skiriderdoug
- Mike Harrington - @mvgallivant
- Jason (J-Dog) Knight - @binarybana
S/V Icebird Crew
Icebird Expeditions
- Alex (chef) Tolchev - @alex_tolchev
- Alex (Sasha) Trushevsky - @atrushevsky
- Catherine Hew - @icebirdexpeditions_
