Josefina Castellví, the lady who liked penguins | News from Catalonia | EUROtoday

With the dying on the age of 90 of the pinnacle of the Spanish base in Antarctica, Josefina Castellví, Pepita to her associates, the penguins have been left orphans. And it is not only a metaphor: the polar researcher had a bunch in her home, together with one in every of mine.

The biologist and oceanographer Castellví, extraordinary scientist, pioneer of polar exploration (though she didn’t prefer to be referred to as that as a result of, she stated, it sounded just like the occasions of Amundsen and Scott and he or she, she careworn, belonged to a extra trendy period than the one which even had Goretex), was an clever and courageous lady who possessed a positive irony and a humor with reticence. Talking to her was a sensational expertise: every thing she stated was thrilling and it is not on daily basis you meet somebody who has a mountain named in her honor in Antarctica (Castellví Peak).

He liked penguins and defined how on Sundays in Antarctica he would go to see those who lived in a penguin colony close to the bottom. I discovered them very fascinating, exemplary egalitarian and really humorous, though, I remembered, the penguin home smelled like a wild hen coop. It was taken as a private affront to be talked about the research that steered that penguins may have a wicked life, one thing that he denied. The reality is, I do not know of anybody who had such a fixation on penguins aside from EA Wilson (1872-1912), who had a extremely unhealthy time touring to Cape Crozier in winter in 1911 to gather emperor penguin eggs. Not way back I considered Castellví in entrance of the show case on the Natural History Museum in London during which these hard-earned eggs are displayed.

In her house in Barcelona the researcher had a distinct form of show case: in it she saved her assortment of penguin figures, which after I visited it numbered greater than 200 specimens. At first individuals gave them to her (what’s extra logical than giving replicas of penguins to a polar explorer), however then she acquired them herself. The day we met at his home, I, who didn’t learn about his accumulating ardour and his character, recklessly took with me to behave good and for the photograph a toy penguin that I used to be fairly keen on as a result of it saved me firm at work. It was a Pingu, the well-known character from the Eighties animated collection. When he noticed Castellví his eyes shone. He picked it up and did not let it go throughout all the lengthy dialog. When he completed, with out asking me something, he took the Pingu to the show case and positioned it subsequent to his friends. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he advised me as a comfort, “and you can come visit him.” It should proceed there, now with all the penguin colony in mourning.

Serious and considerably stern in look, Josefina Castellví, who may appear a little bit haughty and blasé, was really a captivating and heat individual, who most well-liked Shackleton to Scott, that’s, the explorer who saved his staff united in adversity and saved all his males, even at the price of failing in his goal. On the opposite hand, he didn’t tune in with Scott and his cussed willpower to realize his objective – to beat the South Pole first – though this led to the dying of him and his group (one in every of them Wilson, of the penguins).

She carried out a number of campaigns to Antarctica and from 1989 to 1993 she was the primary lady director of a base there, the Spanish base on Livingston Island. Twenty years later, already retired, she returned to star within the documentary The Memories of Ice, by Albert Solé – the filmmaker son of Jordi Solé Tura -, with whom she grew to become excellent associates. She remembered from that first polar journey the noise of the ice cracking, one thing that the remainder of us would hear with alarm, however that appeared to her to be the true music of the huge white continent. “Unforgettable,” she stated, whereas solely she heard that sound that got here from her reminiscence and was superimposed on that of the site visitors that arrived at her house from the road.

She did not get into the query of whether or not ladies contributed one thing particular to polar analysis (she stated they had been equal members) or if they’d made a distinction within the legendary expeditions equivalent to these of Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen or Nansen (“essentially they would have been one more”), of whom she stated, by the best way, that their bare pictures left her chilly (!). I valued him loads for different issues.

At the Antarctic base he was with 11 males, which, he careworn, didn’t trigger issues (“not one”). He arrived on account of sickness of the one who needed to be answerable for the scientific expedition. “They called me and I got carried away. Then I threw myself body and soul into managing our team,” he recalled.

It was thrilling to listen to her discuss how a lot you possibly can endure the chilly. She stated that she had not suffered what the explorers of the heroic period suffered and he or she had not needed to eat seal (or penguin!) like them. He acknowledged that the restrict of chilly is relative and that the survival temperature is linked to the wind.

Returning down there for the documentary was “like coming home” for her, and he or she declared herself “crazy about Antarctica.” It is straightforward to recollect it – even when you have by no means been there – within the laboratory module of the bottom that was rebuilt and exhibited at CosmoCaixa to keep in mind that nice scientific journey. Castellví didn’t miss that chance to revisit the set up in a extra benign and festive environment. He in all probability regretted that the penguins round had been awkward, and particularly that they had been too massive to take with him.

Those of us who’ve recognized Josefina protect her reminiscence and treasure the great occasions listening to her adventures and the best way she displayed her information. We have been no much less orphaned than the penguins and if somebody immediately asks us the recurring query: are you extra of a Shackleton or a Scott? Some of us will likely be proud to reply, “well, me, from Josefina Castellví.”