A sub-zero plunge in the nude was never part of my plan. When a ragtag group of friends gathered me up with their exhilarated shouts, planning to jump into a hole drilled through sea ice in 2011, I had only agreed to come along and watch. I would not partake.
I hadn’t gone to Antarctica to take risks. If anything, I’d flown to the bottom of the world to do the opposite, to play it safe after a pair of sexual assaults in my early 20s. I was the third generation in my family to work at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, and planned to keep my head down, work hard in my role as a janitor, save money and blend in.
