Led by British polar explorer Robert Swan, the first man to walk to both the North and South Poles. As I look back on my time in the Antarctic – watching icebergs carving off of slowly advancing glaciers, admiring the majestic humpback whales as they dove down to the depths of the ocean, or simply sitting on the ice in silence and listening for the sounds of the Antarctic – I cannot help but smile.

My journey began in Autumn 2008 when I received an e-mail regarding an expedition led by both BP Alternative Energy (an offshoot of the oil giant BP) and Robert Swan’s company, 2041. After a swift application process, 50 students from around the globe were chosen.

On March 23rd the expedition group all met up for the first time in Ushuaia, Argentina – the southernmost city in the world. There we boarded our 300ft Russian ship, the Akademik Ioffe, and began our 2 day crossing of the Drake Passage, widely regarded as the roughest seas in the world – I was lucky enough to witness firsthand the power that these seas have as we entered a storm on our second day at sea. With 40ft swells we were thrown about the ship, and the reasons for the warnings from the crew to ‘Drake proof’ our rooms became abundantly clear. After a very rocky night we awoke to our first sight of the Antarctic Islands, and the mood on the ship was electrifying!

Antarctica is the highest, windiest, driest and coldest continent in the world. It has – as I am sure you know – a lot of ice. In fact, Antarctica has a massive amount of ice all sitting atop the landmass – on average the ice is a mile and a half thick, and for an area that is roughly twice the size of Australia it is unsurprising that it dwarfs the ice held in the Arctic and Greenland ice shelves.

Upon our arrival in the Antarctic we saw our first iceberg of the expedition – the colour of these icebergs is almost impossible to describe – the deepest and richest luminescent blue colour that has been forged after millennia under thousands of feet of snow. Watching these glowing blocks of ice float by is when it hit me – I was in Antarctica – the most pristine and untouched continent on earth!

We made our first landing on the Antarctic islands and to an e-base built by Robert Swan’s team that ran completely from renewable energies. Even though it is on a small scale, it was interesting to see the effectiveness of such energy resources in this environment, and it really made me think – if it is possible here, why not elsewhere?

Over the following days, as well as discussing the issues surrounding climate change, we began to see the pure beauty of the Antarctic. We followed the majestic humpback whales and watched in awe as they rose from beneath the waves; all the while the regal fur seals watched us with mild trepidation as they basked on the rocky shores of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins playfully darted in and out of the waters as we made our way further south. On the third day of being in Antarctic waters we began preparing for a night of camping on the ice, and that night cemented my love for Antarctica; our campsite was surrounded by a calving ice shelf and every so often a colossal cracking sound would reverberate across the entire bay as tonnes of ice became dislodged from the shelf and crashed into the sea below. This sound became more and more vivid as it became darker; we could no longer rely on our sight to identify the cause of the noise. With the stars as bright as I have ever seen them and the sound of ice carvings still engraved in my memory, I can say without doubt that this was the single best experience of my life.

Antarctica is under threat from two main sources. The first is through the possible drilling and mining of the Antarctic for fossil fuels, which would destroy the untouched – yet vulnerable – habitats. The second is through an increase in human induced climatic change.

Robert Swan and 2041 are currently campaigning and raising awareness of the current Antarctic Treaty – this treaty prohibits both mining and drilling in Antarctica until 2041 (hence the name of the company). From this date forward drilling and mining can occur, destroying this environment forever.

Although both of these threats are on an international scale, local participation is vital to the success of any preventative action. This can be through raising awareness of the issues facing Antarctica, through government lobbying, and through reducing carbon footprints. It is our behaviour and pressures that define our government’s agendas and policies – if each of us takes a small step in helping to raise awareness of the problems and reduce our own impacts, this can then help to bring these important issues to the forefront of government policy.