L
aura Perry took a remarkable trip to
Antarctica in February. For Laura, a
Morgan Hill lawyer, Gavilan College
trustee and Rotarian, this wasn’t just any
trip. She had a special reason to go, and she
had the time of her life. Here’s her story.
“I had always wanted to see Antarctica
but I never thought I would dive there.
In 2014, my friend Jim van Gogh, a
scuba diving instructor and underwater
photographer, invited me to a meeting at
Any Water Sports in San Jose. They were
taking signups for a dive trip to Antarctica
in 2016. Ten minutes into the meeting I
put down a deposit to reserve my spot.”
The 22-day trip was organized by
Diving Unlimited International. The
organizers chartered an ocean vessel
known as the Plancius, a large icebreaker,
to carry its travelers from the southern
tip of Argentina to Antarctica and back,
anchoring at a variety of far-flung islands
for diving and sightseeing. Laura was in
good company with 30 other experienced
divers, some sightseers, and the ship’s crew
as well as a geologist, a
marine biologist and an
historian who provided
informal lectures
onboard the ship.
“Antarctica is the
coldest place on Earth.
To dive among icebergs
in 30-degree water, you
have to be prepared
with proper equipment,
including a drysuit, and
you really have to know
how to use it. It has to
be second nature. In the months leading up
to the trip I had to log 50 dives in my new
drysuit, so I made multiple dive trips to the
Channel Islands and to British Columbia.
The suit worked beautifully.”
Island Hopping
“We boarded the Plancius at Ushuaia, a
resort town on Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego
archipelago, sometimes called ‘the end of
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
MAY/JUNE 2016
the world.’ We made our fi rst stop at the
Falkland Islands, where we did our fi rst
dive in relatively warm (48° F) water.”
“Before each dive we had to suit up.
First comes thermal long underwear, then
a really heavy one-piece undergarment,
then a drysuit, a hood, two pairs of socks,
booties, and two pairs of gloves. We were
sealed from head to toe, and added about
30 pounds of weight, before we even put
on our scuba tanks.”
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