Episode 1: Somewhere Around Antarctica
In 2018, Samantha became Podcaster in Residence for a journey to Antarctica. Join her as she boards the ship for 21 days on the Southern Ocean. But there’s something about this story that makes it larger-than-life. Find out why this series really got made. Along the way, meet some whales, get a tour of the ship, and learn what her kids said to her when she said she was leaving home...for a whole month.
Read along, or click one of the buttons above to listen along the journey to Antarctica and back with 90 other women on this incredible expedition
Because this is my dream: To share a story of being there in a way that makes you feel a bit like you were there too.
Boarding the Ship to Antarctica [0:00]
*Footsteps*
Sam: Are we ready, Paola?”
Paola: I’m never ready, but let’s do it…
*Footsteps going downstairs*
*Door Slamming*
*Whale Blowing*
Rashmi Venkatraman: Oh, Sam, look!
Sam: I know it’s incredible.
Rashmi: What am I looking at? I don’t understand this!!
Sam: I know, it’s just a couple of humpback whales synchronizing...
Rashmi: Synchronizing themselves…Oh my god
Sam: I know….and there’s the tail for the photo-op. I don’t even have my camera here.
Rashmi: Neither do I!
Sam: I’m experiencing it
Rashmi: Same. There’s enough of us. We’re just experiencing this
Sam: Full frontal
Rashmi: Look at that….3,2,1… oh my god. Crazy….Listen...
*Whale Blowing Again*
*Steps again*
*Door Closes*
Sam: I’m going to show myself around and try not to fall down the stairs. Do you think I’ll get better at that?
Voice: beep beep.
Sam: Oh, sorry, let me come out of your way.
Sarah Hamylton: Hi Sam…
Sam: Bunk beds?
Sarah: Yeah, we’re trying to work out how you climb into the bottom one.
Sam: What I find kind of alarming is that we might need that handle
Sam: Oh, I’m being chased by a suitcase
*More Footsteps*
Sam: You found it!
Sue Maugher: I did
Sam: Life is ok here!
Boarding the Ship to Antarctica - taken by Oli Sansom
Introducing Season 2 of This Is Our Time [2:00]
I’m on a ship, somewhere in the thumb joint that sticks out from the fist of Antarctica.
We left Argentina about a week ago and coasted down the Beagle Channel, which has Argentina on one side and Chile on the other.
Hi everyone….it’s been a while, a long while….but I’m back, and I’m really excited to share Season 2 with all of you.
In Season One, I dreamed about going to Antarctica...and then that crazy thing happened, where the dream came true, and I actually went.
And this story, Season 2, is about being there - and then coming home, with all the crazy twists and turns that story has taken in the last few years.
This season is going to sound different. And it should, because this time, I was there… But it’s also that I’m also going to tell the story differently.
I’m going to follow the documentary tradition of direct cinema or cinema verite and just roll the tape whenever I can because I want you to feel like you’re inside of this story.
It will be a bit like audio verite - except that I’ll also be your narrator. I’ll guide you through this story.
I come from this world, documentary film, and I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that I could bring you somewhere, give you a sense that you’re in the room just with sound.
To make this all work, I’ll pop in and out to make sure we’re on track and sometimes share some bigger ideas. At the end of the episode, I’ll always thank and identify the people that were featured.
So, lend me your ears, and let me transport you to this magical place, Antarctica.
Because this is my dream: To share a story of being there in a way that makes you feel a bit like you were there too.
I’m Samantha Hodder, and This is our Time.
And for now, it’s time to get going.
Selfie of Samantha Hodder aboard the ship for the expedition to Antarctica
Seasickness through Drake’s Passage [4:02]
Julietta: Zang-Zang Isabelle….Wells Laura...Sorbara Catherine….
Julietta, the expedition leader for our ship, begins with the roll call.
Julietta: Goodie, Syvlie.
Julietta: Ok. Please, when you are ready, sit down. Perfect. Ok. Buenos Dias. Thank you very much. So I will try to keep it simple. If there is something that you don’t understand, I can repeat it.
We will navigate inside the Southern Ocean, and the Drake Passage is a little bit tricky. The ship is going to move. So that’s why we need to prepare ourselves. The first thing is, is seasickness.
So if you have your own medication, please take your medication at dinner tonight. The doctor is going to be there, she will check your medication. And If you don’t have the good one, she will give the REAL GOOD PILLS for the seasickness…believe me. I really recommend you take them, because if you get seasickness, then there is nothing we can do. You're going to have two awful days. If you prevent it, everything is going to be fine.
Back in the moment, I recorded audio diaries twice a day. First thing in the morning and last thing at night.
I don’t know much about being on a ship. By now, this is probably the longest I’ve ever been on one, so I’m just repeating what I’ve been told... The only tried and true technique to avoid seasickness is: Take drugs and go to bed.
So we’ve been told to go to bed.
And I don’t hit the open water until midnight, so we’re still an hour and a half from that. So I think the idea is that we’re all just basically drugged out and passed out by the time midnight comes, so we don’t really know what’s going on. Which is slightly alarming.
I ended up taking one of her pills. I don’t even know what it was, to be honest. Where did it go now…. anyway.
I feel the ship is moving. I feel like I've had a red pill and a green pill.
And I don't know where the night is going to take me. But I really don’t want to barf tonight.
How I Ended Up at Sea for 21 Days [6:15]
You might be asking yourself what I’m doing here. Well, here it is.
Back in 2016, I started following a story about the largest ever, all female, all scientist expedition to Antarctica, with this group, Homeward Bound.
If you haven’t listened to it already, you can find Season One if you scroll back in the feed.
It’s a virtual journey that I followed from home.
About a year later, I was finishing off this story and getting ready to launch the first season when I had a phone call which would sort of change my life.
Sam: Wait, did you just say: Come on the ship next February?
Fabian: Correct.
Here’s me sitting at the dinner table with my family when I shared the news with them.
Sam - I just got off the phone with Fabian....and they invited me to go to Antarctica.
KIDS: How long?
Sam: Close to a month, I would think.
KIDS: Oh! No! You’re not going!!
Ok, I listen to my kids a lot, but not this time.
Because I went.
Photo of a glacier on the Southern Ocean - taken by Samantha Hodder
The Beginning of our Journey on the Southern Ocean [7:34]
Fabian: So I’m of the opinion that we are both swallows and snowflakes. And there’s a miracle in the room….
Fabian Dattner is the woman you hear on the stage. She’s delivering her opening night remarks to a group of about 80 women from 19 different countries who are meeting in person for the first time.
Fabian is the woman who had the original dream, the vision, which led a small group of women to co-found Homeward Bound, which is the organization behind this initiative.
When I first connected with Homeward Bound, Fabian was at the centre of all workings of all things.
More recently, she has begun to step back from that role, but she remains Visionary Founder.
In this story, you’re going to hear from Fabian a lot. She has remained a central character in my story. We’ve had so many conversations over the years that need to be heard, all for different reasons.
Fabian: You are unlikely, in your lifetime, to repeat the extraordinary experience anything like what you are about to go on. In this room are simply some of the most brilliant, courageous, loving, thoughtful, inspiring, committed women you’re likely to spend three weeks with.
Look around you. Doctors, physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, biologists, zoologists, vets...Women of significant capability. Women starting their careers, women in the middle and women at the most senior levels of their career. All of you, as LA had said, put enormous personal effort into being here.
For the eleven months leading up to the night, you’re listening to here, in early February of 2018, these women were meeting regularly on Zoom, which back in 2017, you actually had to explain what that was.
When I think back to this moment now, it’s like a mirage because the freedoms we all had in 2018 are very different from where we are now, inside a global pandemic.
And then, there’s another layer.
We were all getting ready to take part in this leadership development program - a sort of mastermind that hangs on four pillars:
Women
Leadership
Science
The State of our Planet.
It’s called Homeward Bound.
And to do this program, we would all live together on a small ship, in close quarters, with people we just met, who flew in from all over the world.
Even describing it feels weird...That’s just not what the world is doing right now.
So I want to be super clear about what you’re hearing now. This journey we’re going to go on together was all recorded in 2018.
Fabian: Hands up who left family behind, however you define family...however you define family...hands up, it was a wrench. To leave, loved ones and friends and animals and children and gardens.
Hands up who’ve shed a few tears doing that.
And yet, we’ve chosen to be here together.
And I know Antarctica is a miraculous, seductive beast.
And I know for many of you you’re going, “Wow, what an awesome way to get to Antarctica….”
This Expedition was a Story that Needed to be Told [14:04]
When I started following this story in 2016, it was right when the Trump Hillary race was heating up...and during those months, it actually seemed like Hillary was going to win the Presidency. The notion of women in leadership, was pregnant.
I’m not a scientist, like the rest of the women in this group. I was brought in as the podcaster, the storyteller who embedded with the journey, to record it, and you know, see where it all went.
Fabian: But you don’t do what you do just to go to Antarctica. You could be a tourist and do that.
This is something else altogether. And there is the moment, and this is the moment, to relish the company we keep.
But it’s also a moment to ask yourself, deeply, at a profound level, how you intend to show up in this journey.
Who you choose to be, what you choose to say to yourself, let alone to the people around you.
There is nothing easy about the next three weeks….and I don’t want you to kid yourself. It’s hard work. It’s spectacular, hard work. There will not be a massive off moment for you.
But tonight is about celebrating.
About beginning a new chapter.
An adventure on the high seas for a journey that will go all the way to the frozen bottom of the planet.
And for me, it’s the beginning of a new kind of experience, of living inside of a story, which I will share with you in a whole new way.
What I didn’t know then, which I know now, is just how much road was ahead of me on this one. First, personal struggles, then job struggles, and now we all find ourselves in a world struggle, a global pandemic with a race against the clock to get these brand new vaccines into literally billions of arms, in every country, on every continent.
Meanwhile, we’re living through a cultural reckoning.
The deaths of George Floyd, Breona Taylor and Ahmaud Aubrey, at the hands of police officers, have led to protests and marches all over the world, and recently, precedent-setting cases that recognize, and have finally, incarcerated, police brutality.
Pile all of that together, along with a huge bucket of things I haven’t even mentioned, and, well, it’s fair to say that we are living through a moment of change, in both good and bad ways.
When I left for Antarctica in 2018, I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, I was woefully underprepared for it all - for the emotions of seeing melting glaciers, the experiences of being away from my kids for a whole month, for the inner stuff I learned from these women and from this program. It was, well, it was a lot to take in. that
When I got home, I asked myself: What was that? And as a journalist, I asked myself another question: What was THE story? And to be honest, at first, I had NO idea. It took time to settle. Coming home after being away for that long, that far away was quite an adjustment.
A few months later, thanks to time, and space, a giant pad of coloured sticky notes, the story started to become clear...I began to map out the story and finally get to work.
But then….my house caught fire.
It was a small fire, but with the smoke damage, we lost most of everything. My family life, I have three kids, was turned upside down. I literally spent 2019 sorting it all out and rebuilding.
Things finally got back to normal, I was looking forward to 2020 when we moved back home, and I could get back to work again….and then the pandemic hit.
I mean….is someone sending me a message?
There’s something about what happened when I was on the ship that keeps me coming back to me. Over and over again.
It’s THIS moment I can’t shake.
Samantha Hodder with Marshall - taken by Oli Sansom
Rotheragate: When We Got Stuck in the Ice [14:43]
Fabian: So we are simply going to say, I’ll do a show of hands, who would like to go, and then who would prefer not to go. I would recommend it’s blind because I don’t want anyone isolated for the choices that they make. The leadership team will walk away with that decision.
Are you all ok with that? Does it seem fair? Can I check with the ones that are feeling uncomfortable?
OK! Close your eyes!
As a storyteller, if there’s something you can’t shake, if there’s some moment that wakes you up in the night, that’s the thing. That’s the abyss you dive into.
You have to. Even when you don’t want to. Even when practically every single event, on a global scale, is suggesting to, maybe, just move on.
The moment even got a nickname: We called it Rotheragate.
After the name of the elusive place we were heading to:
The Rothera Research Station of the British Antarctic Survey …
And the odd experience of this blind vote I just told you about was to determine how we should deal with the problem we found ourselves in: Getting stuck in ice.
If this sounds confusing, don’t worry, I promise we’ll spend a lot of time talking about it.
Wait for it.
This was a journey to the frozen bottom of our planet - a gorgeous place that’s in deep trouble because of climate change.
But thanks to this blind vote, it was ALSO the story of an emotional journey, which has nothing to do with travel, and everything to do with something else.
Maybe everything else.
So, if you’re up for a journey….If you’re in for a bit of adventure, then I will need you to subscribe to this limited series. It’s a 5-part audio adventure.
And, after you hit that button, maybe, tell a friend.
Because if this is going to get out there, if it’s going to travel as far as I did to bring this story to you, then I’m going to need your help.
Maybe, make it part of your podcast club or your book club. Queue up the whole story and head out on a road trip...
Or, take me on a walk with you, we can fold the laundry.
Do this with me, and then tell someone about it, however it is that you tell people things.
To learn more about this whole production, head down to the bottom of this page, subscribe to the newsletter, and then I’ll send you a short piece of audio love each week.
This episode was written, hosted and produced by me, Samantha Hodder.
Sound mix by Kolya Drake
Original music by Podington Bear
Original Theme song by Gabriel Corrindia
I’d like to thank the following people for offering their voice to this episode:
Rachel Zomber
Dr Julietta Pedrana
My family
And Fabian Dattner
And before this season really kicks off, I want to make sure that I say thanks to the people who were instrumental in helping me get this done.
I’ve been working on this story for years, and over this time, I’ve leaned on a great many people. I’ve asked for help. I’ve sent rough drafts, and scripts, and talked through a million different ideas...and you've given me a lot of support.
If you’re listening now, you know who you are, and I want to thank you. Thanks for your suggestions, your ideas, your feedback, your guidance and even your tough love.
I’m Samantha Hodder, and This is Our Time.