The Antarctic: Where death is only five minutes away

At the edge of the world, survival is counted in minutes – on the fingers of one hand. Anyone immersed in the Southern Ocean without special equipment could perish within two minutes; death is a certainty after five. Accordingly, vessels involved in lucrative polar-tourism in the volatile seas around Antarctica share a sophisticated emergency planning network.

Within minutes of the Ushuaia running aground at Wilhelmina Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula on Thursday, the Chilean navy dispatched a tug to refloat the stricken Argentinian vessel, plus a support ship to take on the passengers. Seven vessels offered assistance to the captainand the nearest sped to the scene, in case conditions worsened. Her name: Antarctic Dream.

For many, the Antarctic dream sums up the ultimate in travel. Life around the world's coldest continent is reduced to its most elemental: rock, ice and water collide under a sky that bears the bitterest winds on Earth.

I am writing aboard the Akademik Sergei Vavilov, a Russian research ship that was converted to tourism when communism went out of fashion.The 100 passengers are mostly British, traversing the Southern Ocean. At noon, she was nearing Cape Disappointment in South Georgia. As the captain nudged her between two icebergs the size of apartment blocks, lunch was called. Passengers faced the difficult choice of scampi, stir-fried beef or scenery that Sir Ernest Shackleton – the greatest polar explorer - described as "God in his splendours".

This unforgiving region is rich in wildlife, yet defines the phrase "unfit for human habitation" – all part of the extreme appeal of Antarctica, and why 100 lucky souls have stumped up £7,500 each to achieve their southern dream. The holiday began in Ushuaia, Argentina, which calls itself "The End of the World, and the Beginning of Everything". Next month, at the height of the season, about 30 tourist ships will set sail from South America, destination the deepest south.

A century ago, Shackleton was on his first unsuccessful bid to reach the South Pole; today, Antarctica features in many a glossy brochure. Since man began to discover the lands and seas below 50 degrees South, exploration has been followed by exploitation.

Captain James Cook's reports of prolific seal life in South Georgia led quickly to a massacre of the mammals on an industrial scale. In the 20th century, it was the turn of the whale: 175,000 were taken in the six decades rom 1904. The rusting, rotting relics of these murderous trades now comprise visitor attractions, carefully governed by the rules aimed at ensuring tourism remains benign.

After the Ushuaia went aground on Thursday, an Argentinian aircraft was dispatched to monitor the resulting oil spill. The impact on the chinstrap penguins and blue-eyed shags in the vicinity is likely to be negligible.

Nevertheless, a second incident in successive years involving an expedition ship – in 2007, the Explorer sank off the South Shetland Islands – will raise concerns about the risks to the environment and human life.

One of the worst accidents in aviation history occurred in Antarctica; in 1979, a New Zealand sightseeing flight crashed into Mount Erebus, killing 257. Marine tourism has so far proved fatality-free but addictive. Russell Millner, a surgeon from Blackpool, is on his second visit, drawn by "the unspoilt beauty, the space, the things you can't see anywhere else in the world". As Shackleton wrote after his Antarctic adventures: "We had reached the naked soul of man".

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