A father and son explorer team have successfully reached the most remote place on Earth after embarking on a harrowing journey to Point Nemo, a place where – most of the time – the nearest humans are whizzing overhead on the International Space Station (ISS). That all changed in 2024 when Chris and Mika Brown journeyed to the “Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility”, possibly becoming the first humans to ever pass through the specific coordinates.
Chris Brown is a British explorer on a mission to become the first person to visit all the Poles of Inaccessibility. What is one of those? Well, we met with Chris and Mika to find out.
“A Pole of Inaccessibility is the point that’s furthest from the ocean in any direction, and Point Nemo is the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, which is the point furthest from land in any direction,” said Chris Brown to IFLScience. “Quite specifically, there’s three islands; Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, and Maher Island in the Antarctic, and it’s 2,688 kilometres [1,670 miles] from each of those islands.”
Reaching coordinates so far from land is no mean feat, requiring the right kind of vessel to navigate waves of over 7 meters (23 feet). As Mika Brown told IFLScience, it’s a crash course in establishing your sea legs that involves a lot of nausea and not much of anything else.
“All the questions when we were going out there was people asking how do you kind of get on at sea?” he said. “I didn’t have an answer for them because we’d never done it. The answer, which we now know, is dreadfully.”
They traveled to the Pole of Inaccessibility on the Hanse Explorer, a vessel crewed by an experienced group of sailors, but even they weren’t immune to the effects of such turbulent conditions. Thankfully, it wasn’t in vain and the father-son explorer duo disembarked on Zodiac boats so that they could become the first people to swim at Point Nemo.
Without a doubt, it was a kind of attack.
Chris Brown, 2024
The waters here have a depth of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles), painting a mental image of a dark and ominous expanse of ocean. As it happened, that wasn’t what the Browns found themselves faced with when they arrived.
“I was expecting it to be really kind of black,” said Chris, “or a really dark green, having seen the Atlantic Ocean, but it’s a fantastic blue. I was amazed, just looking down it’s almost an iridescent blue. Amazing, very beautiful.”
And they weren’t alone, either.
Hard to imagine albatross attack was on the Point Nemo risk assessment.
Image courtesy of Chris Brown
“There were quite a few albatrosses, and one took a particular interest,” explained Chris. “By particular interest, I mean, really close interest. […] Without a doubt, it was a kind of attack. This thing came within a meter of us and just wasn’t bothered, it was looking very menacing.”
Fortunately neither bird nor human came off badly in the fray, and enough time has passed to laugh with good humor about the albatross, as well as all the sea sickness. You can check out the full interview to hear all about it, and it just might inspire you to try a new approach to traveling.
Daisy Hips is a science communicator who brings the wonders of the natural world to readers. Her articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to environmental conservation. Daisy is also an advocate for science education and enjoys stargazing in her spare time.
