Paradise Bay, Antarctica
After last night’s probe towards the ice-packed Weddell Sea where Shackleton made his name, rewarded by beautiful alpenglowing hummocky multiyear ice floes and a sustained green flashed sunset, we made for the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Sailing silvery smooth waters engulfed by snow-caked glaciers, the Antarctic delivered sunny surreal surroundings throughout the day. At Cuverville Island, we engaged mutual curiosity with bipedal brethren. Scanning the Gentoo colony knolls, we pondered the lack of penguin chicks so late into austral summer. Zodiac cruises took us through dimpled, fluted and sculpted ice forms running a complete palette of white to blue. Crabeater seals, lounging on floes, drooled krill paste and displayed scars of escapes from leopard seal scrapes.
Down Errera Channel, Antarctic minke whales surfaced sleekly with sickle-shaped fins, black backs breaking through brash ice. Their chunkier humpback cousins fluked to krilly depths. One pair ‘mugged’ the Endeavour, seeking the close company of our ship, coming right to the bow for magical moments of mutual curiosity.
Pristine Paradise Bay, ensconced in glaciers, spattered with ice growlers, was our afternoon backdrop. Captain Leif Skog nosed the Endeavour up to a colorful cliff face, coated orange by crustose lichens, streaked teal by copper sulfite and painted pinkish by nesting blue-eyed shags. A few of these birds appeared at our landing site at the defunct Argentine Almirante Brown station in some attempt to seduce prospective mates from our party. Emulating penguins, we waddled up the high snowy rise above the orange buildings and tobogganed down with gleeful shrieks.
The sun blazed overhead creating air temperatures higher than many people’s hometowns in the other hemisphere. Polar paddlers rode inflatable kayaks through the summer soup, pondering icy puzzle pieces and probing the waters of this frosty paradise. From the deeps of the Antarctic sea, a whole other realm surfaced, as a drapery jellyfish pulsed past. The scyphomedusa Desmonema is a mouthful of a name for this gelatinous monster that preys on a smorgasbord of creatures, including krill and fish; it even drops to the ocean bottom to take seastars. This scarlet supernova appearing within the icy Antarctic monochrome, is a brilliant ambassador to other worlds of insight.
Antarctica is absolutely a magical place on this planet that reminds us that there is beauty and diversity and mystery and purity and inspiration to be found in our lives.
After last night’s probe towards the ice-packed Weddell Sea where Shackleton made his name, rewarded by beautiful alpenglowing hummocky multiyear ice floes and a sustained green flashed sunset, we made for the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Sailing silvery smooth waters engulfed by snow-caked glaciers, the Antarctic delivered sunny surreal surroundings throughout the day. At Cuverville Island, we engaged mutual curiosity with bipedal brethren. Scanning the Gentoo colony knolls, we pondered the lack of penguin chicks so late into austral summer. Zodiac cruises took us through dimpled, fluted and sculpted ice forms running a complete palette of white to blue. Crabeater seals, lounging on floes, drooled krill paste and displayed scars of escapes from leopard seal scrapes.
Down Errera Channel, Antarctic minke whales surfaced sleekly with sickle-shaped fins, black backs breaking through brash ice. Their chunkier humpback cousins fluked to krilly depths. One pair ‘mugged’ the Endeavour, seeking the close company of our ship, coming right to the bow for magical moments of mutual curiosity.
Pristine Paradise Bay, ensconced in glaciers, spattered with ice growlers, was our afternoon backdrop. Captain Leif Skog nosed the Endeavour up to a colorful cliff face, coated orange by crustose lichens, streaked teal by copper sulfite and painted pinkish by nesting blue-eyed shags. A few of these birds appeared at our landing site at the defunct Argentine Almirante Brown station in some attempt to seduce prospective mates from our party. Emulating penguins, we waddled up the high snowy rise above the orange buildings and tobogganed down with gleeful shrieks.
The sun blazed overhead creating air temperatures higher than many people’s hometowns in the other hemisphere. Polar paddlers rode inflatable kayaks through the summer soup, pondering icy puzzle pieces and probing the waters of this frosty paradise. From the deeps of the Antarctic sea, a whole other realm surfaced, as a drapery jellyfish pulsed past. The scyphomedusa Desmonema is a mouthful of a name for this gelatinous monster that preys on a smorgasbord of creatures, including krill and fish; it even drops to the ocean bottom to take seastars. This scarlet supernova appearing within the icy Antarctic monochrome, is a brilliant ambassador to other worlds of insight.
Antarctica is absolutely a magical place on this planet that reminds us that there is beauty and diversity and mystery and purity and inspiration to be found in our lives.
