"The quality I look for most is optimism: especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage".
-Ernest Shakleton
Le Commandant Charcot / Jocelyn Michel / December 18th 2022 - January 2nd 2023
Le Commandant Charcot is an icebreaking cruise ship operated by the French shipping company Compagnie du Ponant. Named after the French polar scientist Jean-Baptiste Charcot, the ship has a strong icebreaking hull which allows visitors to navigate in normally inaccessible polar regions. We heard le Capitaine Etienne Garcia jokingly say on more than one occasion that, “more people have been to the moon than where we’re headed…”. Built in 2021, it’s the very first luxury hybrid electric polar exploration ship powered by liquified natural gas, making it a more eco-responsible and sustainable vessel.
At the end of 2020, an exhilarating proposition is being floated around amongst a close-knit circle of friends: Alex Ionescu, a Montreal-based tech entrepreneur, is to book the Ponant exclusively for his friends and family and their close friends and family (the 2nd level lottery winners I like to think) to take part in a very unique voyage to the Eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Weddell Sea area. Early in the planning stages, organizers establish their key intention to ensure this voyage would be to the benefit of the continent with a refershing formula away from burden-heavy entertainement only tourism. Along with the help of SEDNA (polar expedition leaders), a team of 20+ scientists were invited to participate in the 14-day voyage alongside the guests. Eager and excited with these unprecedented parameters, the individual researchers proposed numerous projects with the aim of carrying out observations and collecting data and samples in this very understudied area. Recruitment began in summer 2022 among SEDNA’s pre-existing contacts and its members in the academic research circles of several countries. This team had to be multidisciplinary and cover a wide range of fields in the world of polar research: marine microbiology, plankton studies, emperor penguin population assessment using on-terrain images combined with satellite surveying, sea sampling for quantities of dissolved gas and CO2, measurements of rare-earth elements, marine mammal observation and recordings, polar ice-core sampling, etc…. This unique formula, encouraging guests (many of them younger children) to learn and participate with such an array of top internationally renowned scientists, was the very first of its kind for the Ponant.
I wish to warmly thank Alex Ionescu for this most precious gift, as well as my good friend Ben Garwood for inviting me for this epic journey (this one's for the books mate!). Praise and grattitude to Nicolas Dubreuil and the SEDNA team as well for all the planning and logistics that made it so very special and enriching for everyone onboard. Experiencing Antarctica with my young children and partner is simply tremendous, and these images both mental and physical will last us a lifetime.
