Another day exploring Erebus and Terror Gulf
Summer is ending. The days are shortening after long weeks of almost perpetual sun. Sun that warmed the air, gave life to the sea, animated the krill in their vast swarms that nourished the fish, the birds, the seals and the whales. The water is beginning to become transparent again. The algal bloom has almost been consumed. The tiny herbivores have cast their seed and are spent. Jellies, krill and salps drift ashore, lifeless. Yet still there is ice. While icebergs always seem a fantasy of shapes and colors, they become indescribable with tints of red, pink and purple from the low rays of an autumn sun at dusk and dawn. And do we have icebergs! All day yesterday, all day today we push through brash, navigate around growlers and hill-sized bergs, and gaze with awe as we pass huge tabular bergs, vast cliffs afloat, landless shores of an unknown country. We are in ‘Iceberg Ally’, on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, on the Weddell Sea, among the countless children of the Larsen Ice Shelf and the spawn of innumerable glaciers. Here and there penguins gather on flow and berg. They are leaving their rookeries. Summer is ending. We made rare landings on Camp Hill Island and Devil Island, encased in ice for thousands of years, the Larsen Ice Shelf is crumbling, water now laps at their shores after the spring thaw. At Devil Island the tide is lower than we could believe. A full moon tugs at the sea and many bergs are aground near shore and ashore. Along the beach we are visitors to an eclectic gallery of ice and stone. Afloat, our Zodiacs are dwarfed by grand, glacial galleons. The young, fledgling Adelie penguins are gathered here on the rocks, on the ice, unsure and surely afraid. Then the moment! They take flight low over rocks under fair autumn skies, well, in shallow water beneath brash ice and those pictured here are gentoos; but nothing is perfect for dark winter is near.
Summer is ending. The days are shortening after long weeks of almost perpetual sun. Sun that warmed the air, gave life to the sea, animated the krill in their vast swarms that nourished the fish, the birds, the seals and the whales. The water is beginning to become transparent again. The algal bloom has almost been consumed. The tiny herbivores have cast their seed and are spent. Jellies, krill and salps drift ashore, lifeless. Yet still there is ice. While icebergs always seem a fantasy of shapes and colors, they become indescribable with tints of red, pink and purple from the low rays of an autumn sun at dusk and dawn. And do we have icebergs! All day yesterday, all day today we push through brash, navigate around growlers and hill-sized bergs, and gaze with awe as we pass huge tabular bergs, vast cliffs afloat, landless shores of an unknown country. We are in ‘Iceberg Ally’, on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, on the Weddell Sea, among the countless children of the Larsen Ice Shelf and the spawn of innumerable glaciers. Here and there penguins gather on flow and berg. They are leaving their rookeries. Summer is ending. We made rare landings on Camp Hill Island and Devil Island, encased in ice for thousands of years, the Larsen Ice Shelf is crumbling, water now laps at their shores after the spring thaw. At Devil Island the tide is lower than we could believe. A full moon tugs at the sea and many bergs are aground near shore and ashore. Along the beach we are visitors to an eclectic gallery of ice and stone. Afloat, our Zodiacs are dwarfed by grand, glacial galleons. The young, fledgling Adelie penguins are gathered here on the rocks, on the ice, unsure and surely afraid. Then the moment! They take flight low over rocks under fair autumn skies, well, in shallow water beneath brash ice and those pictured here are gentoos; but nothing is perfect for dark winter is near.
