Andrew Moon on Antarctica
Andrew Moon is about to embark on his fifth expedition with Andrew Regan. Living in the Cayman Islands, this former City lawyer now spends his life consulting for numerous charities and organisations, running various businesses including a vineyard in Devon, and indulging his passion for sailing.
It was a schoolboy fascination with Scott and Shackleton that led Andrew Moon to dream about going to the ice caps. By the time he was at university, he was climbing mountains and ice fields in Iceland. Now, he still has a deep interest in the history of polar travel, which is why he is so determined to raise awareness of the work of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving the expedition huts that were built for Scott and Shackleton’s expeditions 100 years ago. ‘These huts have been pretty well preserved,’ say Moon, ‘because it is very, very cold and very, very dry. They were built as temporary accommodation, so they weren’t expected to last – but they are still standing, and left as they were – full of stuff. But of course they start to deteriorate over time, so the AHT are trying to preserve the huts and contents.’
Like Andrew Regan, Moon is drawn to return to the Antarctic for reasons that are hard to put into words. After an arduous ski expedition to the South Pole several years ago, the two men considered doing a ski trek across the North Pole. After flying up to have a look at the route, Andrew Moon realised what attracts him to Antarctica. ‘The North Pole is thin sea ice – four to 12ft thick – on 3,000ft of ocean. The South Pole is on a continent. It’s up to 15,000ft of ice on a massive continent – the size of North America. It’s just completely different ball game. Different feel. The South is more magical. The North is oppressive – you’re down at sea level; atmospherically it’s different: it’s more of a wet climate, whereas Antarctica is such a dry climate. At the South Pole you’re at 9,500ft. You just know you’re somewhere special.
‘It’s this mixture that makes it so incredible: the topography, the atmosphere, the pureness and dryness of the air, the vivid colours… It’s not just white. Obviously there’s lots of white, lots of grey, lots of black. But then you’ll see – even in the sastrugi, you’ll see colours. The most vivid blues, you’ll see down at the coast: aquamarines, turquoises, greens, blue-greens...’
The Moon-Regan expedition this year is going to be a great challenge. Andrew’s interest in sailing and navigation has meant that his role will be intrinsically connected with route-finding. ‘On the expedition, the navigation is what I’m particularly interested in. We’ll be using GPS for navigation. In a sense, we did a lot of work last time [on the 2005 Ice Challenger expedition] in choosing the route – and we will be going back over the same route as far as the Pole. Beyond that, we will try to use the ‘American route’ – we’re hoping they will tell us where it is! This time we will be following GPS co-ordinates, but I will also be using navigation to identify the problems in the route. Working out things like: this area is likely to have crevasses, therefore we need to be a bit more careful. A month ago, I did a pretty tough sailboat race [The Pineapple Cup, which goes from Fort Lauderdale round the Bahamas and down to Montego Bay in Jamaica. ‘We had 40 knots behind us at one point’.] where I was navigator. Navigating across Antarctica is a bit like navigating across a frozen ocean – going from point to point, but avoiding the rocks and dangerous bits. You don’t need to use a compass any more, but you’re always thinking – right, where are we… and if the GPS was to fail, I could do some dead reckoning.’
