Drake Passage
The Antarctic Peninsula is an extraordinary place. It is ice and rock and penguins and whales and tabular bergs. But it is much more. It is camaraderie, shared experiences, vastness and emotion. The nouns can be described, photographed, recorded; the adjectives are harder to assimilate.
We are, this morning, in the Drake Passage in sight of Cape Horn and we have yet to feel the enormous power of its winds and waves. In a way we have been blessed with the sailor’s admonition, ‘may you have calm winds and a following sea.’ And so in a sense we have been cheated of having really crossed the Drake. Some blessings, however, should not be refused.
But even homeward bound we trail the remnants of our visit. Pintado petrels still fleck the sea with their beautiful wings and the giants of the air, those magnificent soarers, the albatrosses, cross our bow and follow our wake. We joined Robert Cushman Murphy who said after seeing his first albatross, “I now belong to a higher cult of mortals, for I have seen the albatross.” We too feel higher.
How can we explain the excitement of the pod of pilot whales in the Drake or the sighting of a rare right whale just north of Aitcho Island? How extraordinary was the ballet of four minke whales around a zodiac and filmed by our videographer? Who would have expected that a visit to Siffrey Point on the continent for possibly the shortest hike ever would touch our emotions so fully? And who would have expected that wallowing in the volcanic waters at the water’s edge on Deception Island would produce so much fun?
One morning we passed a four-mile long tabular berg on our way to Devil’s Island. Our ship passed through ice of breath-taking beauty. Skillfully, Captain Lampe found us a passage through the brash and bergy bits so we could land. Later we passed eastward through a landscape littered with bergs from the Larsen Ice Shelf to Paulet Island. Here the history of Antarctic whaling, the Nordenskjold Expedition and hundreds of thousands of Adelie Penguins intersect.
In our wake are days of exceptional clarity. The day at Palmer Station, the site of a National Science Foundation research facility was typical. After hosting us ashore on Torgeson Island where an Adelie Penguin colony faces serious decline and at the research station, we hosted their staff on board. After dinner the party continued on the aft deck with mild weather. The good will was palpable as visiting artists and journalists sponsored by NSF, scientists and guests talked about the Antarctic. One of the most beautiful sunsets we had ever seen intensified our feelings about the Seventh Continent.
And so as we near Cape Horn with the sculpture of an albatross reaching across to us, we heard the poem engraved on the base.
I am the albatross who awaits you
at the end of the world.
I am the soul of ancient mariners
who rounded Cape Horn
from all the seas of the world.
They did not perish in the furious waves.
Today they fly on my wings
for all eternity
in the ultimate embrace
of the Antarctic winds.
Sara Vial
December, 1992
As we stood on deck talking about our trip in warm weather contemplating our trip, we knew that our images would show our friends what we had seen. We were equally sure that we would have an impossible task to explain the emotions that coursed through our thoughts. But it was these emotions that were the most important part of our expedition.
The Antarctic Peninsula is an extraordinary place. It is ice and rock and penguins and whales and tabular bergs. But it is much more. It is camaraderie, shared experiences, vastness and emotion. The nouns can be described, photographed, recorded; the adjectives are harder to assimilate.
We are, this morning, in the Drake Passage in sight of Cape Horn and we have yet to feel the enormous power of its winds and waves. In a way we have been blessed with the sailor’s admonition, ‘may you have calm winds and a following sea.’ And so in a sense we have been cheated of having really crossed the Drake. Some blessings, however, should not be refused.
But even homeward bound we trail the remnants of our visit. Pintado petrels still fleck the sea with their beautiful wings and the giants of the air, those magnificent soarers, the albatrosses, cross our bow and follow our wake. We joined Robert Cushman Murphy who said after seeing his first albatross, “I now belong to a higher cult of mortals, for I have seen the albatross.” We too feel higher.
How can we explain the excitement of the pod of pilot whales in the Drake or the sighting of a rare right whale just north of Aitcho Island? How extraordinary was the ballet of four minke whales around a zodiac and filmed by our videographer? Who would have expected that a visit to Siffrey Point on the continent for possibly the shortest hike ever would touch our emotions so fully? And who would have expected that wallowing in the volcanic waters at the water’s edge on Deception Island would produce so much fun?
One morning we passed a four-mile long tabular berg on our way to Devil’s Island. Our ship passed through ice of breath-taking beauty. Skillfully, Captain Lampe found us a passage through the brash and bergy bits so we could land. Later we passed eastward through a landscape littered with bergs from the Larsen Ice Shelf to Paulet Island. Here the history of Antarctic whaling, the Nordenskjold Expedition and hundreds of thousands of Adelie Penguins intersect.
In our wake are days of exceptional clarity. The day at Palmer Station, the site of a National Science Foundation research facility was typical. After hosting us ashore on Torgeson Island where an Adelie Penguin colony faces serious decline and at the research station, we hosted their staff on board. After dinner the party continued on the aft deck with mild weather. The good will was palpable as visiting artists and journalists sponsored by NSF, scientists and guests talked about the Antarctic. One of the most beautiful sunsets we had ever seen intensified our feelings about the Seventh Continent.
And so as we near Cape Horn with the sculpture of an albatross reaching across to us, we heard the poem engraved on the base.
I am the albatross who awaits you
at the end of the world.
I am the soul of ancient mariners
who rounded Cape Horn
from all the seas of the world.
They did not perish in the furious waves.
Today they fly on my wings
for all eternity
in the ultimate embrace
of the Antarctic winds.
Sara Vial
December, 1992
As we stood on deck talking about our trip in warm weather contemplating our trip, we knew that our images would show our friends what we had seen. We were equally sure that we would have an impossible task to explain the emotions that coursed through our thoughts. But it was these emotions that were the most important part of our expedition.
