I’ve forgotten stars in Antarctica. Light has pushed out the darkness for most of the time. There’s a vivid lingering sunset from nine at night until one in the morning, then a short stretch of never black night that lasts just two hours and softens into a sunrise at three. I’ve slept sparsely during my time in Antarctica and on my last night I sleep deeply for only an hour. I’ve become used to grabbing at sleep in snatches.

‘You’ve got Big Eye, Fin. We all get it down here in summer,’ says Wesley as he throws my bags into the ute that’s taking me to the ship. ‘You’ll sleep well on the way back.’ He smiles slowly. ‘No distractions.’ I tell him I’ll be waiting on the dock at Hobart when his ship comes in. ‘Hey, mate, thank you. I’ll look forward to that.’

I say goodbye to Blanca. She’s staying on at Davis and continuing to take her phytoplankton samples until the next ship. She says she’ll keep an eye on Max.

‘Good, good. And you must come and stay with me in Sydney. Before you go back to Spain.’

‘Darling, I will. I will cook for you my paella. You will show me the boys of your city.’

‘Blanca, they’re all gay.’

I hug her tightly. I know I’m going to miss her terribly on the voyage home. I also know I’ll have her as a friend for life. Andrea’s on a glacier, measuring the ice. She’ll be returning on the next ship too. I’ve hardly seen her in my time in Antarctica. I tell Blanca to say goodbye to her for me. It seems limp and lame. I tell Blanca that Andrea is welcome to come and stay in Sydney too, on visits from Wollongong. She smiles and says she will tell her. William is on his island with his snow petrels. I’ll say goodbye via email. Antarctica’s like that: sudden vivid friendships or enmities, and sudden goodbyes. Everything’s intensified by the close quarters and the long timeframe and the shared experience of the continent’s strangeness.

Dip wraps me in a bear hug. I can tell he has no idea about Max and me. I tell him we should get together when he returns. I’m not sure if we will. He takes a photo of me to show his mum. He gives me one of the shells coloured like babies. I smile wide and then hug Pamela. She says she’ll miss me. Jim overhears and tells me to get it on tape. I turn to him. We smack each other on the shoulders. It’s an uneasy truce. He’s got eleven months of Antarctica ahead of him. We’ll probably never see each other again and we both know it.