Ediciones del Viento publishes «Antártida» by Valentín Carrera

Editorial novelty

―Travel to the ecosystem of polar adventure through 460 pages, with maps and numerous unpublished photographs.

―”Contains all of Antarctica: Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, and the author’s two expeditions”.

The prestigious publishing house Ediciones del Viento incorporates into its travel and adventure catalog a definitive work: «Antarctica», by the writer Valentín Carrera, the Spanish journalist who has lived the longest in the White Continent, as chronicler of two extensive scientific expeditions.

«Antarctica. Voyage to the Ecosystem of Polar Adventure» is a global book: a journey in the company of the great explorers of the South Pole, shedding two hundred years of history, but also an emotional journey, a story of scientific dissemination, and an ecological claim against global warming and climate change. After two trips to Antarctica, in 1986 and 2016, having sailed more than forty thousand kilometers, and having crossed the Drake Passage ten times, Valentín Carrera stripped the emotional story ―the hidden face of the Antarctic exploration― set in the chronicle of a personal journey driven by the Optimistic Wind or Shackleton Wind.

The edition opens with a spectacular image of Trineo deel Viento ―Juanma Viu at the South Pole of Inaccessibility― which recapitulates all the intensity of the polar adventure. In the 460 pages of «Antarctica», Valentín Carrera meticulously reconstructs and documents the lives on the edge of the southern Argonauts: Cook, Ross, Gerlache, Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, Mawson, Wild or Hurley, among others, through his blogs, travel books, memoirs, scientific reports, photographs and films.

Antarctica is our home

The undoubtedly heroic and unrepeatable character of the polar feat has hidden, however, the emotional iceberg on which the lives of these fantastic Argonauts sailed. Carrera explores the hidden depths of that human iceberg, and leads us through his own emotional awakening ―after eight months living in Antarctica― to make us feel the butterfly polar effect: the global unity of Nature, the relationship of the parts with the whole.

“Antarctica is our home and everything that happens there is heard here,” says the author; and everything that we dirty in the backyard of our countries, we are polluting it in the noble rooms of the Arctic and Antarctic. Antarctica teaches us a lesson in environmental education, a learning of emotions that allows us to tune into Nature: we do not want to spear whales, but to listen to their singing.

“The White Continent is the only place on the planet without borders, without States, without arms or armies, without credit cards and without cars: a continent of peace, a territory for science and beauty, for meditation and contemplation , right there or here, from a distance; no matter how far away you are, Antarctica is near. It is our house”, concludes the author.

Naked Antarctica

Throughout ten chapters, with extensive photographic documentation, Valentín Carrera guides us through the Strait of Magellan and the Fuegian Channels; takes us to King George Island, where the author visits Villa Las Estrellas and the Chilean, Polish, Korean and Russian bases; He lives with scientists and the military at the Spanish base Gabriel de Castilla on Isla Decepción; in Livingston Island discover the Juan Carlos I base and the Johnson glacier, and very close by, the Half Moon Island.

The trip culminates with his arrival in the Antarctic Peninsula, after 5,900 miles of navigation aboard the Hesperides ―Spanish oceanographic ship― through the Gerlache Strait, Palmer Base, Piterman Island, Pleneau Island; Danco Coast: Lemaire Island, Andvord Bay, Cuverville Island, Portal Point, Antwerp Island; Costa Palmer: Caleta Cierva, Cabo Spring, Base Primavera, Port Lockroy and 65º parallel, one degree from the Polar Circle.

The book includes numerous maps, the detailed itinerary of the XXX Spanish Scientific Expedition 2016/17, a complete bibliography of the polar feat, with special attention to the stories and memories of the great explorers; and an unusual and novel image: naked Antarctica ―expressly contributed by Mathieu Morlighem, from the University of California― that represents an imaginary Antarctica without ice, the relief that underlies millions of white tons. A trip to the ecosystem of polar adventure, hundreds of photographs to enjoy the beauty of the White Continent and a last image to reflect on.