Explorer Sally Poncet is one of the few women to be awarded the Polar medal. She shares the story of her extraordinary career path My defining moment was assembly my future husband Jerome on a jetty in Hobart and being invited on board his 32-foot yacht. Id just turned 18 and was starting a three-year biology degree at the University of Tasmania. For years I’d been dreaming of living and working in the Antarctic. I’d read all the books and watched longingly as Antarctic-bound research vessels sailed in an out of Hobart where I grew up. In those days (the early 1970s),employment opportunities for women down south were virtually non-existent. So to discover that you could sail there on your own boat was a revelation, and of course I said yes to Jerome’s proposal to join him on a future cruise – subject to the request from my concerned parents that I finish university first.
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Source: theguardian.com