Karen Russell - Vampires in the Lemon Grove

And of course the tailgate is not just potentially fatal glacial navigation — there is also a fun component. Inspired by our brethren in the football stadium parking lots of Florida and Alabama, some Antarctic tailgaters have brought ale tankards in recent years, although this is not requisite. You might also choose to prioritize more of the room in your hold for auxiliary drinking supplies, like sea-sickness bags and barrels of aspirin.

If you’re not a drinker, you’ll still be in good company. For example, I was sober as a judge until recently, when Maureen took off and I discovered that rye whiskey is a terrific complement to every meal at sea. Plenty of Team Krill tailgaters party “dry” during the voyage to avoid accidents; if you’re abstaining, you could bring orange juice or seltzer or melt big bricks of ice for fishy-tasting water. In fact, you will almost definitely have to do this at one of the army stations, unless you want to go the pricey Reverse Osmosis Desalinator route and get your water supply directly from the sea. Tip: this water will taste a little like movie popcorn unless you doctor it with Tang or Crystal Light lemonade.

Here is a recipe we like for Team Krill Kool-Aid Punch:

1. Pina-Pineapple, Pink Swimmingo, or Double Double Cherry Kool-Aid brand flavored drink mix

2. Glacial ice blocks (Lake Fryxell is a reliable source)

3. Vodka (Russian crew members are an excellent source)

4. Plastic Krill stirrers

You may have heard of pemmican, the Spam of Antarctica? A big favorite with the early polar explorers? Pemmican consists of a repugnant arithmetic of dried beef + beef fat. We don’t eat that dog food on my ship.

Dehydrated foods, nonperishables — these are Antarctic tailgating staples. Apocalypse food is appropriate for the Antarctic tailgate, the sort of stuff you’d find in a Cold War bunker: jerky, canned tuna, powdered milk, soups in envelopes. If you’re a health nut, don’t tailgate in the Antarctic. You can always put balsamic vinaigrette on salted meat and sort of pretend it’s a salad.

The tailgaters for Team Whale employ a wicked stratagem of culinary intimidation: they feast on krill cocktail, on krill risotto, on a humongous red velvet cake shaped to look like a krill with chocolate eyestalks. It’s a macabre business. You are aware it’s just icing, but still: the cake looks like a krill. Those Team Whale pricks have a five-star French-Guyanese chef on board.

Of course, those bastards are probably also pouring liquid gold onto their organic arugula leaves or something. Well, fuck them. Potato flakes and ham-in-a-can and army MREs from mid-century wars are plenty fine for Team Krill.

Rule Four: Pack a Victory Cooler

When Team Krill defeats Team Whale, you’ll want to have the provisions for a true Antarctic feast. I’ve been tailgating around the Frozen Continent with these items in my Victory Cooler since Ronald Reagan was in office: Arm & Hammer baking soda, Crisco, Nestlé Quik (powdered), a sack of sugar, dried corn, dried prunes, Hormel corned beef, astronaut candy, air horn. On the day that our team finally wins, it will be a bacchanalia. That said, rookie tailgaters, take note! You can get caught up in the moment in those ice caves and then — boom! — botulism.

Rule Five: Wear Team Krill colors — but insulate

In the katabatic winds, a “balmy” game day is 0.5°F. You are going to want to cover your extremities. Put your Team Krill outer shell over your Team Krill neck gaiter. Buy a pair of badass goggles.

Science hasn’t proven the efficacy of tailgating in costume (yet) but we believe that the visible support we provide to Team Krill by dressing up and moving our antennae and plastic krill thoraxes in the characteristic undulant motion of a school of krill is vital to their eventual victory against Team Whale. Through mists of ice, we tailgaters lean over the gunwales of our boats and shake our pinky-beige swimmerets, tracing moody shapes onto the dark surface. What does this do for Team Krill? Skeptics, marine biologists, and my ex-wife, Maureen, will tell you: nothing. Can the krill hear us cheering for them? Probably not. Do they understand what they are seeing with their shrimpy compound eyes? Yes. Definitely. After seventeen seasons I am sure of this. I’ve seen the magic of cheering, in costume, for the almost invisible, indefatigable krill. I’ve seen krill accelerate toward the maw of Team Whale, streaming bubbles, a mute shrimp battle cry. It’s a beautiful sight, and beautiful to feel you were a part of it. That our screaming and our gyrations on the surface reach down to them, to the tiny, tumbling bodies deep below the ice: our team.

In fact, sometimes the little guys wave their plentiful legs back at us, as if they are cheering on our cheering.

If you’re really serious about tailgating, like my cousins and me, you’ll want to sequester yourself in your bedroom for two to three months prevoyage with old National Geographic footage and practice swishing. Most people lead with their hips, but for me it’s all in the ribs.

Denny Fitzpatrick, who is like the commissioner of our tailgates down there — this red-nosed Irishman who looks a little like a krill himself, whiskery and furious, and who started tailgating around the South Pole when I was still in diapers — Denny can do this one waggly thing, with his elbow. It really seems to get them going.

I mean, you really should try to look as much like a krill as you can.

Rule Five-A: If your wife leaves you for a millionaire motel-chain-owning douchebag fan of Team Whale, make sure you get your beloved mock-bioluminescent Team Krill eyestalks out of the trunk of her Civic before she takes off

Rule Six: Tip the Russians well

I’m assuming that you rented a boat crewed by Russians. They control a lot of the Antarctic tailgating industry, so treat them well. We usually tip 5 percent of the charter cost of the ex-polar navigator. If and when you make it to the ice caves, you’ll be family.

Team Whale tailgaters fly into Ushuaia, Argentina. Typically, they roll into the harbor of the ice caves on the day of the game, their fleet puttering through the blue archways as lazily as a series of yawns, all those hundreds of Team Whale fans looking so smugly upholstered in their Disney-manufactured whale suits. I hear those cushioned baleens are as comfortable as pajamas. Just the fin portion costs three thousand dollars. Good for you, Team Whale tailgaters! It must be nice for you, to have that kind of money. It must be real tough , you cetaceous fucks, to support the best team in the league.

Excuse me.

Your average Team Krill tailgater can’t afford that kind of luxury. He wouldn’t want to. We like to travel in our own style. For example, my cousins and I have converted a Russian schooner into The Krill Cruiser , whose only purpose is to visually and audibly support Team Krill. Cousin Larry is an electrician and he did just an incredible job on the cabin. Strobe lights, a birch bar for beers and “hot” peanuts. The Russians love that little flourish, though theirs is not a culture of tailgaters. I sometimes get the sense the Russians think us a little silly.

You might also want to bring a little gift for the mailman at Port Lockroy. They had some British guy installed there last time we sailed through. Young guy. He gets so lonely. Some magazines, some chocolate mints. It’s really just the thought.

Rule Seven: Tailgating is all about sharing

Quick and easy cooking is a must for the Antarctic tailgater. Here is a family recipe that will give your Antarctic tailgate some “regional flavor”:

1. Whale meat

2. Fire

Salt to taste and all that.

Although, typically, I don’t bother with salt. I don’t really bother with forks and such, either. I like to pluck the meat from the burning coals and bare my teeth and let out a piercing, unearthly howl at the Team Whale tailgaters moored across the ice floes, personally. Just to razz them a little.