Silversea named Felicity Ann Dawn Aston (MBE, FRGS) as the Godmother of its newest ship - Silver Endeavour/fka Crystal Endeavor.
Felicity Aston is a polar explorer, author, TV presenter, and climate scientist. She became the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica back in 2012, as well as the first person to traverse the white continent by muscle power alone.
Felicity Aston has since been awarded the Polar Medal and appointed MBE for services to exploration.
The ship’s Godmother blesses the newbuild for good fortune during the official christening ceremony. Aston will name Silver Endeavour as part of a planned intimate ceremony in Antarctica, due to be held in the days before the inaugural voyage of the ship, departing on November 21, 2022.
In her career that has spanned over 20 years, Felicity has undertaken challenging expeditions in the most extreme environments of the globe often as the leader of trips, including that of the first-ever British women’s team to cross the Greenland ice sheet and record-breaking teams of women on ski expeditions to the South and North Poles. Her longest adventure in Antarctica involves the 39-month stint at Rothera Research Station, where from 2000 she was monitoring the climate/the ozone layer as a meteorologist for the BAC-British Antarctic Survey.
Now based at the National Oceanography Centre and the University of Southampton in the UK, where she is investigating airborne microplastic pollution on polar sea ice, her work has plugged data gaps, reshaping scientific understanding. Next year, Aston will be continuing the leadership of the Before It’s Gone North Pole expedition, a project to collect material for Arctic Ocean sea ice research. She has published 5 books about exploration and expeditions; co-presented a couple of BBC documentaries; and has been featured in Marie Claire, National Geographic, and Vanity Fair.
Aston is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London UK and The Explorers Club in New York City, as well as a member of the Society of Women Geographers.