Surfing, Sailing and Exploring Antarctica's Coast (Video)

I’ve always been more attracted to places that require a bit more of an adventure to get to,” said surfer/traveler/blogger and filmmaker Ben Herrgott. “Where the focus is not necessarily the quality of the waves but takes into consideration the logistics and research of mapping an area. You get to places that usually aren’t well known. What you see isn’t something you’ve seen in magazines, so you can make up your own mind and get so impressed.

“In these places, if you don’t find waves the trip is already quite fulfilling because you’d had such a ball organizing it and navigating the challenges getting there,” he continued. “Waves are just the cherry on the cake.”

Originally from a village near the French Alps, Herrgott took up surfing when he moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 2002. He’s since become a devout surf adventurer and his passport stamps from Chile, Peru, the Falkland Islands, Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

All those travel characteristics Herrgott seeks are present in full in A Letter From Antarctica a film he published on a blog he and his wife Laura Wilson run . It’s a long-form account of their four-week sailing trip in Antarctica. As Herrgott said, on a journey like this surfing in 35-degree water is just a bonus. Herrgott even proposed to Wilson there to cap it all off. A laundry bag served as a vail, and Zeek, their Argentinian captain, performed the ceremony in international waters. The honeymoon was interrupted when they ran aground the next day.

Adding to the spirit of adventure: Herrgott and Wilson sought out companions they’d never met before, surfers who could hold their own in the Drake Passage and keep a warm sense of humor when things got cold on board. Imagine it: A surf trip to the end of the Earth and you invite well-mannered strangers. Real go-getters, these two. Their crew ended up being an eclectic mix of shapers, musicians, a researcher and a guy whose first ocean surf session happened in Antarctic waters.

After more than two years of planning and research, Herrgott, Wilson and the crew set sail from Argentina to Antarctica in December 2023 onboard a 55-foot steel sailboat. The film, which Wilson narrates, documents it all in great quality with sweeping shots of icebergs, penguin colonies, research stations and more. The film also recalls prior notable wave hunting into this inhospitable part of the world, from Mark Renneker and Steve Hawk’s Surfer Magazine trip in 2000 to Ramon Novarro, Dan Malloy and Kepa Acero’s attempts in 2013.

This Antarctic trip resonated for Herrgott, not just for its striking landscape, but the way those landscapes were changing, largely due to human impact. Antarctica may look untouchable, but it's a scientific laboratory and a fragile ecosystem. They cleaned up bottles, ropes, buoys and nets washed ashore on islands. They learned about microplastic pollution, overfishing krill populations, and ice caps melting at accelerated rates. Researchers say the average Antarctica temperature has increased by 6.3° Fahrenheit in the past 70 years, five times faster than the global average. Ironically, this area that seems so far removed from a warming planet is showing its effects firsthand.

“We learned that what we’re seeing is driven by the way we live in modern society very far away from that region,” he said. “But this region seems to react the quickest to our consumerism in a way. When you’re there it feels like no humans belong there. But what humans do affects it big time. The beauty we see is not something we’re used to. When you see something like that, you don’t want it to change. And it’s changing fast.”

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