We left Antarctica yesterday evening, yet today our minds are still a swirl with images: ice and mountains, penguins and mosses. But there is more, we are no longer restricted to the world beneath our feet, we can now look beyond where we have ever seen before, beneath the chilly cloak of the Southern Ocean. Here the temperature is constant at several degrees below the freezing point of fresh water. Everything lives at the bitter edge of warm, but still there is an abundance of color and life. As I swim through the water, the world is slow like a dream; limpet, urchin, and sea star make imperceptible progress towards unfathomable goals. The blind sea star pursues the equally blind limpet in a universe of taste and feel. The limpet grazes on tiny golden-brown algae on the "stems" of a shrubby brown kelp, and there too goes the sea star, awkward on its thousand tube feet. One is chased, one pursues, a race so slow that the only observer is Nature Herself and, for a brief moment too, those of us on the Caledonian Star.
Call +1.800.397.3348 or contact your travel advisor