My defining moment was meeting my future husband Jerome on a jetty in Hobart and being invited on board his 32-foot yacht. I’d just turned 18 and was starting a three-year biology degree at the University of Tasmania. For years I’d been dreaming of living and working in the Antarctic. I’d read all the books and watched longingly as Antarctic-bound research vessels sailed in an out of Hobart where I grew up.
In those days (the early 1970s), employment opportunities for women down south were virtually non-existent. So to discover that you could sail there on your own boat was a revelation, and of course I said yes to Jerome’s proposal to join him on a future cruise – subject to the request from my concerned parents that I finish university first.
Three years later, armed with a brand-new degree and youthful insouciance, I embarked on a lifetime of sailing and wildlife surveys. The piece of paper came in handy for the rare occasions when someone asked if I was a qualified scientist, but the skills and resilience required for polar fieldwork had to be learned the hard way: year after year as we cruised South Georgia, the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falkland Islands.
Working in the field down south is anything but routine. The weather dictates all; timetables and plans invariably change as fast as the weather systems that move through, so you have to adaptable and flexible and accept that Plan B might be all you can manage.
A typical day in the field can involve crawling out of a tent first thing in morning to find a fur seal staring you in the face, beautiful wandering albatrosses soaring overhead as the rising sun lights up South Georgia’s peaks, or a sudden blizzard with drifting snow - all you can do is find some shelter and wait for it to pass. After almost 40 years of fieldwork, I’ve learnt that the day usually consists of a series of unexpected and unusual events, each one more memorable than the last.
The biggest perk of this job is the privilege of living in an exceptionally magnificent outdoor environment for several months a year. I also enjoy meeting the interesting characters that are drawn to the south, whether they are passing tourists on cruise ships, scientists on a research project, or the other regulars who return annually to these regions. The only downside is frozen fingers whenever I forget my gloves, and not being allowed fresh vegetables.
These days, most people seem to understand what my job involves, maybe because they’re watching all those BBC TV Antarctic documentaries and following blogs. Thanks to today’s social media, it’s very easy for unusual jobs and lifestyles to be out there in full view of the public – a very different story to the pre-internet era.
I’m one of the few women to be awarded the Polar Medal, but I think this is more a reflection of a heavily male-dominated Polar Medal selection panel than of the number of women who could have qualified. This of course has changed in recent times. The Antarctic has become an equal opportunity workplace for many nations; the old days of “men only” are long gone.
Where I was very fortunate was being able to embark on my Antarctic fieldwork research career as an independent scientist, outside the constraints of a national programme and at a time when women were the exception. I was also able to do this with my young children, who accompanied us from our home base in the Falklands to the Antarctic each year. I see this as the most exceptional aspect of what I have achieved: to have been able to do it with my family and to keep coming back year after year to a job that I love.
