by Matt Vance
I had found the doctors on these voyages came in two varieties. Seventy percent exhibited classic symptoms of self-centredness, ego-inflation and lack of genuine humanity. The other thirty percent were like Phil, caring and compassionate. On land Phil was a maxillofacial surgeon with a huge fondness for his family and for running great distances over mountainous terrain. He was rangy and fit, with perceptive blue eyes and a warm demeanour. Never flashy or loud, he was always quietly present in the moment.
Phil felt comfortable with the idea of going south but unfortunately his stomach did not. Rough weather plagued the first few days and Phil was laid low. You can tell a lot about a person’s character by how they handle seasickness. Some give up hope and become corpse-like. Others throw up, wipe their chins and battle on. Phil fell into the latter category. The seasickness did not stop him doing his job. It was, in fact, how we got to know each other so well.
Passengers caught off guard by the lurch and roll of the ship as it ploughed its way south suffered the odd bang and scratch. When this occurred I would go to the surgery to fetch Phil, his medical kit and a bucket. Phil would leap to his feet and quickly stride to the cabin of the injured passenger. Once there he would immediately lie down in a bunk opposite the patient. He felt better lying prone; standing up could be done only in short bursts before the bucket was needed. Phil would rise and do a quick assessment of the patient before lying down again. While he stood I would hold the bucket, and when he was prone once more I would take instructions on how we might treat the person.
Our first patient was an elderly English woman named Elaine, who had been propelled across her cabin by a savage pitch of the ship and scraped her arm on the door catch. Elaine looked at me balefully and said to Phil, ‘And who is he?’ Phil slapped a weak seasick arm on my shoulder and said with a quiet assured voice, ‘He is the surgeon’s mate.’
Elaine allowed me to stay but I was not confident about my surgical skills. After cleaning her wound I began placing butterfly strips to hold it together. ‘Phil,’ I inquired, ‘do I overlap the skin or butt it up?’ Without so much as a twitch Phil replied from his recumbent position, ‘Butt it up like this.’ He placed the edges of his immaculate surgeon’s hands together. Elaine endured this with speechless horror.
In rough weather I would sneak a bowl of mashed potatoes out of the galley and take it to Phil in his bunk. The potatoes went down easily and came up just as easily. While this was happening, I would regale him with stories about the passengers and other characters I had met on the ship. His favourite stories were about two Australian men who were my most regular customers at the bar. I had inherited the bar duties early on in the voyage on account of my talent for not getting seasick, which meant I did not vomit into the sink while I was serving. Neil, a winemaker, and Rob, a doctor, shared an immodest enthusiasm for gin and whisky, and appeared at the bar in all weathers. On the early rough nights of the voyage they were my only customers.
As well as their predilection for gin and whisky, they also liked to propose half-baked theories. The great thing about half-baked theories is that they are not constrained by the need for consistency and proof, which can knock a lot of the fun out of science. Neil’s pet theory was that drinkers made good sailors and vegetarians did not. This was based on the idea that drinkers’ bodies were used to punishment and vegetarians’ bodies were not. ‘A hypothesis well worth studying,’ Rob said, through a mouthful of gin.
We checked the passenger list and agreed that the vegetarians seemed to be suffering the most from seasickness. ‘Felicity in 509 has been puking since Bluff, so has George, and so has the bloke in 411,’ Rob said. ‘Vegetarian’ quickly became the code word for seasick.
When it came to the drinking theory, we set about racking our brains for anecdotal evidence to prove it while consciously ignoring any evidence to the contrary. I recalled my first experience of the Southern Ocean as a seven year old on the Foveaux Strait ferry Wairua. With everyone in my family seasick but me, I wandered down to the saloon. Three men were propped up at the bar, swaying in unison with the heavy roll of the ship. Glasses clinked in their racks and a few mummified sausage rolls skittered around behind the smoke-stained glass of the pie warmer.
The man at the end of the bar swung around on his stool and gazed at me with glassy eyes.
‘How come you aren’t sick?’ I asked him.
There was a pause, followed by a long upward exhale of cigarette smoke. ‘Cos we’re on the piss,’ he slurred.
I had no idea what he meant.
Neil and Rob were delighted with this story, applauding me with statements such as ‘conclusive proof’ and ‘a penetrating insight’. I had thrown kindling on the embers of their half-baked theory.
In the coming days I would encounter Neil and Rob in my other role as tour lecturer, guide and Zodiac skipper. I did not get the same bounce from them then as I did during our evenings at the bar. On board the Zodiac they looked at me with dread and alarm. During my lectures they stared at the floor and dozed off.
As we voyaged south the weather improved and Phil graduated to a more normal existence. We did our rounds without the bucket and for anything other than flesh wounds, where my assistance was needed, I left him to it. Sometimes in the evenings he joined me on bar duty, and with encouragement from Neil and Rob became one of the half-baked theorists. By this time we had moved on to ideas such as towing icebergs from Antarctica to Africa to water the desert. Occasionally, when the ship was in a sheltered harbour, the ‘vegetarians’ would appear from their cabins and stare at us wanly. They looked as though they could use a neat rum and a good steak but usually asked for water with lime.
By far the majority of the passengers on the ship were birders. During daylight they would haunt the upper decks and bow of the ship armed with expensive binoculars and long camera lenses. Occasionally a solitary albatross would detach itself from the cast of hundreds that wheeled around our stern, provoking a rattle of motor-driven camera shutters as the birders strafed their victim like gunners on a battleship.
On calm nights they would congregate in the bar, not to drink but to go over their bird lists and sort through the thousands of photographs they had taken during the day. The élite of birders will often have seen at least 8,000 of the estimated 9,956 species of birds on the planet. On the ship these superstars were often lecturers and guides, or came aboard like cult leaders, trailed by small groups of followers.
Auckland Islands snipe.
The more lowly birders had usually seen a mere 4,000 or so species. This had engendered a note of desperation. While the élite observed patiently through a discreet set of binoculars, the others would rush to the front of the boat hauling mountains of gear. One of these desperados was Augie. An attorney from New York, Augie had travelled halfway around the world to boost his bird list, and one bird firmly in his sights was the Auckland Islands snipe. He hoped to catch sight of one of these when we stopped at Enderby in the Auckland group.
A day spent ashore at Enderby Island is a birder’s heaven. The creatures are everywhere, from the majestic royal albatross that nests inland to the diminutive snipe that is endemic to the island and hides itself deep in the vegetation. Nothing was going to stop Augie seeing a snipe. As he staggered his way around the island, both Phil and I noticed he was none too steady on his feet. Exactly halfway around he found his snipe hiding under some low-slung rata branches. Overjoyed, he scribbled notes in his bird book and reviewed the images on his expensive camera. He then sat down and declared he could walk no further. We tried to get him to his feet but it was clear his knees were gone. He had got his bird. Now getting him over four kilometres of rough topography back to the landing beach was our problem.
With the help of Rob and Neil we managed to carry him to a wild patch of beach a kilometre away, where we radioed for help and waited for a Zodiac to charge through the boisterous surf and rescue him. As the boat zigzagged its way between rocks, we fought off the sea lions and carrie
d him to the water’s edge. With the Zodiac heaving up and down I dived on board with Augie and we charged out of the bay while Rob, Neil and Phil fought their way back up to the track.
As we approached the ship a miracle occurred. Augie leapt to his feet, gathered his gear and shuffled up the steps of the gangway. At the bar that night Neil, Rob, Phil and I agreed I should give up being a surgeon’s mate and pursue a career in faith healing.
As the voyage wore on, some of the passengers latched on to the fact there was a doctor on board who was compassionate and a good listener. Before long Phil had a daily round of people regaling him with their aches and pains. I began to refer to him as our resident psychiatrist.
Fortunately, the only real psychiatric emergency he had to face involved an English birder named Martin. I knew something was up when Martin took me aside in the hallway and asked me if I could do something about the little green men in his cabin. ‘The bastards are making a terrible racket and keeping me up,’ he whispered, looking furtively over his shoulder.
As it turned out, Martin had accidentally given himself an overdose of seasickness patches. Having had experience with little green men at sea before, I found Phil and got him on to the job of bringing Martin down from the drugs. For the next twenty-four hours we took turns minding him, mainly to make sure he didn’t dive overboard to escape the racket being made by his raucous green friends. During my shifts he would often pronounce, ‘Another dry white, please’ and seemed happy when I gave him water in a wine glass.
The author (left) with Dr Phil.
Whenever we were ashore, Phil would become a roving shepherd tending his flock. Curtailing his passion for running long distances over mountains, he would tail along at the back with the less able passengers, offering them encouragement. At Campbell Island we finally convinced him to stretch his legs with a party that was heading overland to remote Northwest Bay. This turned out to be a mistake: no sooner had he reached the bay than a passenger slipped and dislocated her shoulder at the wharf. Summoned by radio, Phil ran the steep rugged ten kilometres back in world record time.
Despite the smattering of hypochondriacs, the birders were for the most part a healthy lot and wholly engaged in mind, body and spirit in their life’s passion. One exception was Pat from California. A tiny woman of sixty-four, Pat engaged in the world beyond birds. She was thrilled by all of nature. Every time we took her ashore she wept with joy. Every time we left the beach and returned to the ship she cried tears of sadness.
When we stepped ashore on one island near the end of the voyage Pat wept a little longer than normal. A hint of sorrow suffused her normal joyful routine. When everyone else charged off after their birds I asked her if she were okay. On the beach, among the penguins and elephant seals, she told me she had a terminal illness. This voyage was her last hurrah before hospitals and the fussy business of dying. There was nothing I could say. Phil, who had overheard our conversation, came over to comfort her. We sat down and wept with Pat while penguins shimmered around us and waves rattled stones on the shore.
Each time I saw Phil in action with a patient I admired him more. He would often say, ‘Never underestimate what people feel’ and he lived by this. Near the end of the voyage I got to experience his care first-hand when a quick kickback from the starter cord of a Zodiac engine left a gash in the top of my right hand. I arrived at the door of the surgery, cradling my paw like a baby. Phil was in the middle of going over his medical supplies. He looked up warmly and said, ‘Looks like you’ve been in the wars, bud.’
He quietly set about cleaning the wound and then delivered the bad news: ‘You will need a couple of stitches.’ He got out a syringe and gave me a small jab of anaesthetic. Before starting on the stitching he paused and looked at me through his wide glasses. ‘Should I overlap the skin or butt it up?’ he said, placing the fingers of his gloved hands together with a beaming smile.
It is easy to lose contact with people you’ve forged a brief acquaintance with while travelling. Only the exceptional friendships endure and this was the case with Phil and me. We kept in touch and visited each other when we could. Phil had a demanding career. He worked in a specialty that was always short of people because of the fifteen years of training and education needed to qualify. Any spare moments he got were dedicated to his family, his running, and going on adventures in his beloved mountains. He was returning from one of these adventures late one summer when a drunk driver collided with his car head-on.
Thousands attended Phil’s funeral. The crowd spilled out on to the street, blocking traffic. For a brief moment in a small southern city, the world came to a stop. There is still a scar on my hand to remind me of Phil. The faint ‘T’ shape catches my eye occasionally. My daughter is the only one who notices it. She traces it with her small finger and gazes at it intently, as only a two year old will.
Tabular iceberg disintegrating, Southern Ocean.
B-15A
58°54′S
After almost three years adrift in Arctic pack ice, attempting to reach the North Pole, the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen noticed that the icebergs surrounding his ship Fram were drifting consistently forty-five degrees to the right of the prevailing wind direction. The phenomenon would cost Nansen the prize of being first to the pole and make it clear it is not easy to predict the movement of ice floating on water.
Anticipating where the first iceberg will appear on a voyage south is similarly difficult. Until the dazzling white shape appears on the horizon the idea of Antarctica can seem academic, even fanciful. The iceberg marks a kind of boundary and usually engenders the same kind of excitement Melbourne Cup Day does for punters.
Trying to guess when it will loom up demands an on-board sweepstake. Over the years I have shown good form in these sweepstakes, due to hawkish vision and a little good luck. However, on this occasion a woman named Glenys sweeps the pool with her guess: 58°54' South. Although this is Glenys’s first time in the Southern Ocean and the first time she has seen an iceberg, she appears nonchalant. ‘A bottle of wine will be nice,’ she says offhandedly, while peering at a couple of storm petrels that have caught her attention.
Nansen’s Fram in Arctic pack ice, 1894.
Glenys’s iceberg, rolling slowly on a dull grey ocean, is whiter than you could ever imagine white to be. Bergs get their colour from bubbles of air, compressed and trapped in the ice. In recent years the bubbles have served another purpose: to provide information about Earth’s atmosphere in times past. The Antarctic icesheet is up to four kilometres thick in places, so samples of the ice can tell scientists about the atmosphere as far back as 200,000 years. That’s more than far enough to record major climate-altering events, like volcanic eruptions, and thoughtless sins of the human race such as coal-fired steam engines and nuclear testing.
‘Thousands of ice cores have been drilled from the East Antarctic ice cap,’ I tell Glenys, ‘and they all show two things. First, Earth’s climate is unstable and fragile. Secondly, the human race has developed in a rare period of mild climate stability.’ Glenys nods her head politely but keeps her eyes firmly on the birds.
The icebergs of the Southern Ocean have their genesis in the glaciers and ice shelves of Antarctica. Over thousands of years the ice travels down a valley or slope and flows out over the ocean as a sheet. At its extreme edge, this sheet calves off into bergs. Southern Ocean icebergs are usually large and tabular – flat on top and spreading rather than soaring. They are not to be confused with sea or pack ice, which is frozen salt water. Icebergs, composed entirely of fresh water, are harder, bigger and denser than sea ice, and can plough through it as though it isn’t there.
To qualify as a berg, the ice must be at least fifteen metres long. If it’s only the size of a six-metre shipping container it’s considered a bergy bit. If it’s more like a six-seater dining table it’s a growler. Glenys’s berg is about two kilometres long, which makes it an iceberg, but a flyweight in Southern Ocean terms. Occasionally a much larger
berg – the size of a major US state, say, or an island – will calve off the Ross Ice Shelf.
Unlike hurricanes, which are given human names, these mammoth icebergs are given impersonal ones. A berg that is over twenty kilometres long will be tracked by satellite and assigned a code relating to the quadrant of Antarctica from which it broke off. Quadrants are labelled A through D. It will also be given a number, so the whole name may be something like B-12. If the berg breaks into smaller pieces that are over twenty kilometres long, each will be given its own label: B-12A, B-12B, etc. ‘It sounds like a game of battleships,’ Glenys says, and gives an uncontained snort of laughter.
Next day, as we steam south, icebergs appear thick and fast. This far from the edge of the Antarctic continent they are nearing the end of their lives; some may even have circumnavigated the continent. They have been ravaged by time and weather into all manner of tortuous shapes and sizes. Like cloud-watching, berg-watching spurs the imagination. The fleet of bergs surrounding our ship now includes spaceships, oil tankers, Henry Moore sculptures and the Empire State building. I have trouble convincing Glenys and her birding friends of this, however. They consider it esoteric nonsense, although one later confides that she saw the Virgin Mary somewhere near 62° South.
Each berg represents an historical era. The air trapped in one may have been breathed by the baby Jesus; another may contain a thin ash deposit from the eruption of Vesuvius. Watching them is like stargazing: you are viewing different periods of history simultaneously.
I try out some philosophy. ‘They make the idea of now seem absurd,’ I studiously inform Glenys. She nods her head distractedly, tracking her first snow petrel through binoculars that have knocked her glasses on a rakish angle.
