So training for Antarctica? What? What am I doing? Where am I going? Yes, those thoughts are running through my head as well. I've been thinking about this for more than a year. Roughly two years ago I met DJ, a highly intelligent, very kind man whose first communications with me contained his announcement that he was going to go on an expedition to Antarctica. Wow! I was impressed. I've seen interesting parts of the world, places like Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Thailand, India, Turkey, and most of Europe, and I consider myself somewhat well-traveled but I didn't have stories to match that one.
I went on to follow his expedition by reading a journal very much like the one I'm writing now. I read stories and saw pictures of their adventures, of their life on this desolate continent, and of their intriguing research with an underwater robot diving under the ice in Antarctica. (http://www.polartrec.com./expeditions/antarctic-undersea-rov-08)
Now I'm the one going with them! How lucky am I! (That's not even the tip of the iceberg with how fortunate I am and of how life sometimes does work out.)
But yes, I will be joining DJ and a team of fascinating people on his next research expedition and I too will go to Antarctica. This time I will be the one to write the journals. I will be the one to experience the cold, harsh continent, to observe first-hand the life under the ice, and maybe even the one to help control the under-water robot, SCINI.
Sometimes life really throws you a curve ball and you do just have to go with it. What surprising or wonderful things have happened to you?