The idea of spending 10 days on a ship with 150 strangers is enough to fill even the most extroverted amongst us with some level of anxiety. Especially anyone who has been keeping up with the drama ensuing on the nine-month world cruise which, according to the New York Times, has become TikTok’s latest reality show.
Is everyone going to be over 70? What if I get seasick? Cabin fever must have to happen at some point, right? Nevertheless, in December I threw caution to the wind—quite literally, while being thrown around a ship in a 17-foot swell—and headed to Antarctica in search of new frontiers and undiscovered species. (Well, not quite: it was more of an all-inclusive cruise, but it was extremely cold, and I did watch a seal rip the head off a penguin.)
Accompanied by my friend Harrison Osterfield, I arrived in Buenos Aires to begin the expedition with some trepidation. Soon, the reality of what we were about to undertake hit me like the Titanic—or, more accurately, that iceberg. At a “get to know each other” cocktail at the Park Hyatt we were invited to learn the tango; the first test for our fellow explorers. How was a same-sex duo dancing the Argentine tango going to go down with this slightly older, majority-American crowd? It’s a question that I’m not able to answer because I was flung around that dance floor so quickly that it’s all a blur. We did, however, make sure to throw in some extra spins and kicks so that the more conservative guests knew exactly what to expect from us for the trip ahead. I’m sure this is exactly what Scott and Shackleton did the night before they set off for Antarctica too.
The next day, with our newly learned dance moves in tow, we set sail. Our expedition, led by Abercrombie & Kent, consisted of a 10-day cruise during which we would undertake daily excursions around Antarctica with a team of scientists and polar experts. The big question looming over us: Would we get the Drake Shake, or the Drake Lake? (These nicknames, which refer to the possibility of a smooth or bumpy passage through the notoriously treacherous Drake Passage, had been tormenting me on TikTok for months after a single search resulted in my feed being filled with people being thrown from one side of a ship to the other.) Secretly, I was hoping we would get a little bit of the shake. Getting to Antarctica shouldn’t be that easy, should it? The reality was somewhere in between: a few rough nights and a soaking on the deck, but not quite the Triangle of Sadness.
For anyone who’s not watched that movie—a story of two influencers who go on a luxury cruise that ultimately ends in disaster—our initial relationship with our fellow passengers was not entirely dissimilar to that of the film’s protagonists. They watched on in bemusement as we conducted our own photoshoots on the back deck using Harrison’s “tripod” (which I’d say is closer to a selfie stick) and questioned why I got changed multiple times a day and why we had our own luminous orange 66 North Exploration parkas while everyone else wore the jackets provided. I sent a photo to my sister of us at the Palmer Research Station with a group of scientists in the background to which she replied: “They must think you 2 r a right joke.” She may be right, but the initial bemusement was followed by curiosity—and with that, the floodgates opened to make a whole boatload of new friends.
Anyone who’s been on a resort holiday can relate to the fascination that can be found in fellow holidaymakers. Before you know it, you’re three years deep into the Facebook of the person on the sun lounger to your left’s Aunty Carol, trying to figure out if they are recently divorced or just on a friends’ holiday. This was our very own White Lotus (in which we were the main characters, of course) and I was obsessed with everyone on board. We had our own Kardashians (a family from L.A. with four gorgeous daughters and their very own Kris Jenner at the head), a lovely couple from Melbourne who saw us struggling through a quiz so offered to form a team, and an apprehensive Texan business school grad who we convinced to give us his rendition of “Suspicious Minds” on karaoke.
A couple of days in we invited two fabulous American women in their 60s to dinner. Let’s call them Patsy and Eddie. Patsy confessed to having brought heated rollers with her (for an expedition to Antarctica—camp!) and Eddie’s main concern for the trip was that they would run out of cranberry juice. It was a concern that stemmed from prior experience: the pair had visited the North Pole earlier in the year, and after influencing the whole ship into drinking Cosmos there was a full cranberry shortage by day three. Thankfully, that would not be happening this time, as she had called the ship in advance to ensure they were fully stocked. (Having now made it back to dry land, I can confirm the Cosmo truly was the toast of the seventh continent.)
While life on board the ship was filled with moments of joy and unexpected friendships, nothing could have prepared me for life on land and ice. Each day we undertook expeditions to explore different parts of the vast and unique landscape, and once back on the ship, took lectures with our expedition leaders and scientists to learn more about what we were seeing. It’s hard to put into words the enormity of the expanses of pristine ice and snow, with glaciers flowing towards the coast carving out crevasses and forming massive ice shelves that extend over the Southern Ocean. It possesses an otherworldly beauty that stands as a testament to the splendors of Earth's last untouched wilderness.
Away from the camaraderie, the moments I loved the most were the ones of silence. Standing in the frozen landscape, straining my ears to hear anything at all, highlighted how much noise there is in my world. As a fashion designer, my days are filled with phone calls, busy fittings, late-night emails, and noisy manufacturers. It couldn’t be further from where I found myself now: watching a lone leopard seal lazing on a floating piece of ice, or a trail of penguins hopping their way down a mountain, or simply breathing in the Antarctic air, filling our lungs as we took in the scenes before us.
The morning we sailed into the peninsula for the first time, Harrison and I woke up at 5 a.m. so we could witness it away from the excitable crowd we had found ourselves part of for much of the journey. It was a surreal experience, and one that I will carry with me forever. Standing on the front deck of the ship, the sheer magnitude of the moment dawned on us, as the icebergs emerged like sunken giants rearing their heads above water, and the ship’s rhythmic hum as it navigated through icy waters seemed to harmonize with the silence that surrounded us.
Antarctica, with its frozen wonders (and I’m not just talking about the Cosmos) and its total silence, etched something in my mind beyond the ordinary. It was a reminder of the transformative power of nature and the joy that comes with escaping the relentless pace of urban life, if only for a fleeting moment. With its untouched grandeur, Antarctica became a sanctuary—and the entire experience served as a powerful reminder of the raw and pristine beauty found at Earth’s last frontiers.
For more information about visiting Antarctica with Abercrombie & Kent, visit their site here.