Ripcord Adventure Journal 1.3 Second Edition

The Antarctica challenge
Mark Terry
I began researching how to get to Antarctica and soon found that it
was not going to be easy. There are no airports in Antarctica – or
roads or stores or homes. It is the only continent on earth that is
protected from civilization and reserved strictly for scientific
research. It’s the only continent on which man has never lived.
There are no residential land claims, no commercial enterprises, no
natural resource mining, no military occupation, no recreational or
park areas, just a few scientific research stations scattered mainly
around its coasts.
The continent is protected by a document called the Antarctica
Treaty, created the year I was born and available for signature Dec.
1, 1959, it came into force June 23, 1961 when 12 countries signed it.
The 12 countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France,
Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the
United Kingdom and the United States. There are 50 countries now
and I feared I was going to have to get permission from each one to
visit Antarctica.
Visas are not required to land in Antarctica – there are no passport
offices there to process them. Instead, I was required to seek
permission directly from the scientific organizations stationed there.
If they agreed to my visit, I would be given papers to show the
captain of the ship that would provide passage from Argentina to
the west coast of Antarctica.
I had tried the British Antarctic Survey first. While they weren’t
able to accommodate a visit to their station during the dates I was
planning on visiting – December to January, 2008-2009 – they did
offer a visit to their Cambridge, UK, headquarters and access to
some of the best polar scientists in the world.
My next step was the Russians. They seemed enthusiastic for the
visit and connected me with lead scientist Dr. Yeugeny Karyagin at
the Vernadsky Research Base operated by the Ukranian Akademik
Antarctica:
Dear Mark:
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