When Rosi Dagit was asked on a two-month volunteer trip to Antarctica, it seemed improbable she could go. She was 38 with a young son, Sean, as well as a husband and a job as a biologist, arborist, and educator with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. “I was a multitasking, working mom,” she says. “It was all about: getting my kid to school, getting food on the table, making sure the house was in order, and getting my work done at 4 a.m. and on weekends.”

The friend who had invited her, Ron Naveen, had just founded the Antarctic Site Inventory Project, and if Dagit accepted this volunteer work, she would help set up the project’s field protocol then board a ship headed south—way south. The objective of this adventure? To track the state of Gentoo, Adelie, and Chinstrap penguins.

“The logistics were crazy—my son was only 4—but my husband said, ‘Go,’ God bless him, and so I went.” To deal with Dagit’s absence, the family went as far as asking a retired friend to move in with them to help care for Sean.

Once on the shores of Antarctica, Dagit found herself surrounded by thousands and thousands of penguins, all in the midst of procreating and nesting. “Any time we are someplace where another species dominates, it’s very humbling,” she says. “I stood there in awe. It’s during those kinds of moments that you see how you are one small speck in the universe’s eye, how much is going on around you.”

She spent the next two months counting nests and then, later in season, counting chicks and tracking any shifts in penguin populations. It was often cold, wet, and uncomfortable in Antarctica, but once back in California, Dagit made a major realization about the trip: “It was the best thing I have ever done, and I knew, no matter what, no matter how difficult the logistics, I had to go back,” she says.

With the support of her husband, she spoke to her supervisors at work and figured out an annual leave for this volunteer work.

Now 56, Dagit continues to take a “penguin sabbatical” every year, leaving her family and job behind to live for one to two months on a ship with other scientists and track the ever-in-flux state of these penguin species. “It’s time to focus and time that allows me to recognize and appreciate how beautiful our world is,” she says.

For those wondering if they’re too old to continue doing something they love or to take their own huge leap of faith, Dagit has these words of advice: “If you have a passion for something, what are you waiting for? Get on the phone, email, volunteer, get yourself involved in whatever you are interested in one way or another.” She says, “My life philosophy is, if someone gives you a chance, don’t wait around, just go. I don’t know if I am going to wake up tomorrow. But if I don't, I'll have no regrets. I will have done everything I have wanted to do, and how cool is that?”