Pléneau Island
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
Samuel T. Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798)
The ice was all round when we landed on Pléneau Island. On the island the snow was pink from the algae growing in it and in places where the sun had melted the snow and concentrated the algae the snow was red. Neither snow nor ice hampered our hike or these Gentoo’s penguins trek across the island to their nests.
The weather changed rapidly. Gentoo penguins acted as weathervanes pointing their backs to the wind as they brooded their chicks. Like school children listening to a teacher they were lined up and their posture and orientation protected them from the cooling winds of the Antarctic. We framed the beauty of the sea and land in pictures of penguins and icebergs. Zodiacs snaked their way among the bergs so everyone could see blue ice, layer cakes attesting to the passed history of snowfalls from glaciers, and we saw the exit holes of bubbles of air that had escaped from the glacier’s surface.
Recrystallization and rearrangement of a simple substance, water, makes this wonderland of ice possible. Surely this is the Disneyland of ice. The bergs, the pack, the shelf, the glaciers, the sheet all are from the amazing chemical properties of water in its solid state. The sculptures we saw blended the history of decades with the current erosion of seawater lapping at the berg’s base and sunlight forcing the ice to drip its’ fresh water back into the sea.
The cycle of ice is longer than a human life but no less impressive. Antarctica produces about 5,000 bergs a year. Nothing compared to the numbers added to the human population each year. The lifetime of a berg is limited, more limited than our life. Each berg may have a million tons of pure fresh water but they often last less than six years. It is this water, this ice that is the nourishment of the Antarctic. It is refuge, sustenance, and critical for all life from the krill to the penguin to us.
The ice may crack, roar, and howl but its beauty holds us close. Blues, whites, reds, greens and yellows dazzle our senses. What makes the life of a berg interesting is how it changes place, form, and shape over time. At Pléneau, in the Lemaire Channel and at Dallman Bay we saw the penguins, beheld the ice, and took in the beauty of the frozen continent.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
Samuel T. Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798)
The ice was all round when we landed on Pléneau Island. On the island the snow was pink from the algae growing in it and in places where the sun had melted the snow and concentrated the algae the snow was red. Neither snow nor ice hampered our hike or these Gentoo’s penguins trek across the island to their nests.
The weather changed rapidly. Gentoo penguins acted as weathervanes pointing their backs to the wind as they brooded their chicks. Like school children listening to a teacher they were lined up and their posture and orientation protected them from the cooling winds of the Antarctic. We framed the beauty of the sea and land in pictures of penguins and icebergs. Zodiacs snaked their way among the bergs so everyone could see blue ice, layer cakes attesting to the passed history of snowfalls from glaciers, and we saw the exit holes of bubbles of air that had escaped from the glacier’s surface.
Recrystallization and rearrangement of a simple substance, water, makes this wonderland of ice possible. Surely this is the Disneyland of ice. The bergs, the pack, the shelf, the glaciers, the sheet all are from the amazing chemical properties of water in its solid state. The sculptures we saw blended the history of decades with the current erosion of seawater lapping at the berg’s base and sunlight forcing the ice to drip its’ fresh water back into the sea.
The cycle of ice is longer than a human life but no less impressive. Antarctica produces about 5,000 bergs a year. Nothing compared to the numbers added to the human population each year. The lifetime of a berg is limited, more limited than our life. Each berg may have a million tons of pure fresh water but they often last less than six years. It is this water, this ice that is the nourishment of the Antarctic. It is refuge, sustenance, and critical for all life from the krill to the penguin to us.
The ice may crack, roar, and howl but its beauty holds us close. Blues, whites, reds, greens and yellows dazzle our senses. What makes the life of a berg interesting is how it changes place, form, and shape over time. At Pléneau, in the Lemaire Channel and at Dallman Bay we saw the penguins, beheld the ice, and took in the beauty of the frozen continent.
