ASOC
This is a guest blog written by Bárbara Hernández Huerta, also known as the “Chilean Ice Mermaid.” In 2023 she broke two Guiness Records for swimming over a mile in the frigid waters of Antarctica, all in the name of conservation. Watch her documentary, A Swim in the Heart of the Ocean, here.
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When I was a girl, I knew the cold of the sea. My first exposure to water was on dark, sandy, and windy beaches, playing with waves with my dad and drinking hot drinks with my mom when we got out of the water. Moments in the sea were rare, so I learned to love the pool too. Dreaming of the living waters, straits, and channels I once longed to cross as the first Chilean woman. I remember the first time I saw a glacier. Something changed.
In 2014, I entered glacier waters for the first time, beginning my new story. I became the ice mermaid, my myth. Everyone wonders how I do what I do, but sometimes the answer is straightforward: the purpose is greater than myself. My mission is to bring attention to the places I visit, places that I dream and feel. If they call to me, it is because they are waiting for me. It is a feeling that we are connected in a certain way. That year, a new dream was born: to go to Antarctica. I wanted to swim in the coldest waters in the world. We are talking about 2014, when climate change was already an issue, but we had yet to reach the great conversations after the Paris Agreement for ocean conservation. This is how I began to design and build this trip, the journey, and above all, to work on achieving the goal that would take us so many years.
It wasn’t just about arriving and swimming as far as possible, it was about finding a place within the Southern Ocean to allow us to do so. This is how I came to the Chilean Navy, which has supported my work with the best logistics available for years. Then on to meeting the environmental requirements, finding a date, and demonstrating it was possible. Through all of these complicated logistics, my desire and determination were open to receiving what Antarctica wanted to share with us.
When the pandemic arrived in 2020, I swam hundreds of kilometers in open and frozen waters. But in 2021, the opportunity I had been waiting for finally arrived, not only because we had a date but also because I was invited to participate in ASOC’s #CallOnCCAMLR campaign.
Unfortunately, we were unable to travel that year. The ship’s crew fell ill with COVID-19, and the voyage was postponed ONE YEAR. The first hours after receiving the news were a great tragedy, but like everything, it turned out for the best. Waiting allowed me to recognize myself in the challenges of the Southern Ocean.
We set sail from Punta Arenas on January 27, 2023, accompanied by the Chilean Navy, ASOC, award-winning photographer and videographer John B. Weller, and my “Ice Team” – the team I trusted with my life. I remember the next day, we passed through the cities of Ushuaia and Puerto Williams in the Beagle Channel before we saw the snowdrifts and glaciers melt. It was the beginning of a hard blow of reality.
On our second day of sailing, we entered the Drake Passage, with 3-meter waves and a crew that had warned us about seasickness. That afternoon, the ship’s commander, Patricio Concha, announced that we were crossing the 60° parallel and in the Southern Ocean. It was incredible to feel that fog and cold, even the color of the ocean was unfamiliar.
Emerging from sea sickness and the fog, we woke up in front of King George Island the following day. Seeing the mainland for the first time was exciting, knowing I would be setting foot on the Antarctic Peninsula for the first time in a few hours. When we boarded the zodiac, I was excited, experiencing a strange mixture of fear and joy. When I stepped off the boat, I first took the earth and dirt in my hands. I wanted to feel that mythical place, ask permission to be there, and be grateful.
During the following days, we sailed on Chilean Navy missions, visited Chilean bases, saw James Ross Island in the Weddell Sea, and visited the Mendel Station. We witnessed countries cooperating – embodying the peace and hope that is the foundation of the Antarctic Treaty. I will never forget that the Chileans helped the scientists from the Czech Republic for an entire afternoon during our trip.
The contrast between opposite sides of the peninsula was impressive: the changes in the amount of snow, ice, and temperature and the different species of penguins and whales vary from one place to another. There were magical orange mountains and, a little further on, we found large glaciers that looked like white clouds, full of Adelie penguins.
We were returning through the Bransfield Strait, five days after we arrived in Antarctica, when Commander Concha told us: We are going to Bahía Chile (Discovery Bay, Greenwich Island). If conditions allow, the swim will be carried out there.
My heart stopped, and I had to take a deep breath. A few days ago, Commander Lars Christiansen had given us a class on Antarctica, in which he showed us how the continent was the heart of the ocean. I felt like something was transforming.
The weather conditions were optimal, as reported by Romina Bobadilla, meteorologist for the Chilean Navy, who has magical abilities. Her prediction was more than accurate. Antarctica prepared us and gave us a beautiful morning with perfect ambient temperature and almost no wind.
I said goodbye to my team with a big hug. I wondered if I had done everything I had to do, all the efforts, all the sacrifices that Antarctica asked of me and that such a swim demanded. My body replied with a resounding YES, and with that, I surrendered to the challenge. Aboard a Zodiac, with the team that I chose, and that in many different ways chose me, we went to the starting point.
Days before, I had asked Antarctica for permission to let me swim in its waters. It is my ritual. I have been believing for years that in my previous life, I could have been a penguin. I feel a great connection with these beautiful creatures who venture into the uncertain ocean and seek to survive but also flow as if playing with the current and building community.
That afternoon in Bahía Paraíso, I got into the water. I asked the ocean for its blessing. I reflected on a memory from my “grandmother Cristina Calderón,” borrowed from the Yagán indigenous community, who in Puerto Williams told me the stories of the women of her ethnic group that swam in the cold waters of the subantarctic channels and Cape Horn. I thought of her, my family, and my grandparents; I gave myself to Antarctica and opened my heart to it.
When I was doing my first strokes, a family of gentoo penguins came across my swim, and it was like we exchanged something; I connected with them and felt like the waters of Antarctica were welcoming me. It was beautiful.
I thought about Antarctica when my heart felt cold, and it scared me, but I remembered that I wasn’t swimming just for myself, but also for it, for its fauna and for that deep, clear blue sea that captured me, I swam for everyone. My dream was to become an ocean and part of Antarctica. For 45 minutes and a little more, I swam in water at 2 degrees. With the longest distance that a person has swum in the waters of the Southern Ocean and with my heart dedicated to it, I was the ocean, and I was the Antarctic, and I have remained so since then, but the truth is that a part of me always belongs to it.
I wanted to raise awareness by focusing the world’s attention on Antarctica. We should all know that it is the heart of our ocean, and its conservation is vital for humanity and the wildlife living there. We did it together, and the team was everything.
My purpose is to conserve this and other places in the ocean. I fulfilled my dream, and although we still had a lot of work to do, my body became an ocean, and now I am part of Antarctica.