Enterprise Islands & Hydrurga Rocks
A cinematographer once said, "How hard it will be to return and become ordinary citizens again." No eyes can look upon this land and not learn to see. It is our last day on the Antarctic Peninsula and the leaving makes one somewhat retrospective. Even now our bow begins a gentle sway as we slip towards the Drake but our minds ramble through the week and through this day which summarized neatly all that went before.
One wishes that a photo could wrap the vision of the morning into a concise memory. But technology cannot capture the colors of dawn down here. Clouds may be seen to mask the sky or to enhance its mystery. How can one explain a gray that is both pink and blue in pastel tones? Mountains spilled their icy loads through u-shaped valleys. One moment the ice appeared as white, the next as azure blue. The pewter sea bore sailing ships and dinosaurs and other sculpted forms that in reality are bergs but in our minds they can be anything we choose them to be. Misty geysers painted ephemeral hearts upon the waters, blown from exhaling whales. Long white pectoral flippers glowed turquoise green. Three humpbacks moved in a seemingly choreographed dance but in reality the encounter might have been more competitive than cooperative. Foraging for life sustaining krill their graceful moves exhibited blocks and checks upon each other that might make a hockey parent proud.
The weather brought diversity, sun and rain and snow, all of which we had seen before. This time the succession was more rapid and repeated itself so fast that all one needed to do was draw the blinds on snow and pop them back up again to sunny skies. Back home we might have hesitated or even refused to budge when precipitation filtered earthward. To go outside on a rainy day might have been a foreign concept but now, it is routine. It is only weather, after all.
All modes of transportation were utilized today. Zodiacs crept along rocky edges and sidled onto cobbled beaches. Kayaks silently slipped around glacially rounded islets. We walked or slipped one last time on guano painted shores.
Antarctic terns creaked to their chicks from the rusting rails of the factory ship, the Gouvernøren, sent to its icy grave ninety plus years ago. Signs of that time were abundant in the Enterprise Islands. Primitive cleats were anchored in rock waiting for ships that come no more. Waterboats, cast upon the land, reminded us of the days of whaling. Beauty appeared and distracted us from even these depressing thoughts. Layer upon layer of metamorphosed snow piled high and fractured into pillars and triangles on ragged faces of the islands. Where rock was exposed gardens of lichens and mosses painted them with orange and glaucous grey.
Hydrurga Rocks sounded ominous, named for the leopard seal. One wondered why, for this species was conspicuously absent from its shores. Only fur seals growled from rocky perches and Weddell seals were silent slugs waking infrequently to scratch an itchy pelt. As if the mammalian world was not enough to entertain us here the raucous cries of rowdy chinstrap penguins invited us to view their moulting chicks. The sun reached out between puffy clouds and sprinkled glitter upon the glaciers of Two Hummock Island, not too shabby a backdrop for the afternoon's performance.
Life is not ordinary here. Thus, having experienced it, we are no longer ordinary citizens.
A cinematographer once said, "How hard it will be to return and become ordinary citizens again." No eyes can look upon this land and not learn to see. It is our last day on the Antarctic Peninsula and the leaving makes one somewhat retrospective. Even now our bow begins a gentle sway as we slip towards the Drake but our minds ramble through the week and through this day which summarized neatly all that went before.
One wishes that a photo could wrap the vision of the morning into a concise memory. But technology cannot capture the colors of dawn down here. Clouds may be seen to mask the sky or to enhance its mystery. How can one explain a gray that is both pink and blue in pastel tones? Mountains spilled their icy loads through u-shaped valleys. One moment the ice appeared as white, the next as azure blue. The pewter sea bore sailing ships and dinosaurs and other sculpted forms that in reality are bergs but in our minds they can be anything we choose them to be. Misty geysers painted ephemeral hearts upon the waters, blown from exhaling whales. Long white pectoral flippers glowed turquoise green. Three humpbacks moved in a seemingly choreographed dance but in reality the encounter might have been more competitive than cooperative. Foraging for life sustaining krill their graceful moves exhibited blocks and checks upon each other that might make a hockey parent proud.
The weather brought diversity, sun and rain and snow, all of which we had seen before. This time the succession was more rapid and repeated itself so fast that all one needed to do was draw the blinds on snow and pop them back up again to sunny skies. Back home we might have hesitated or even refused to budge when precipitation filtered earthward. To go outside on a rainy day might have been a foreign concept but now, it is routine. It is only weather, after all.
All modes of transportation were utilized today. Zodiacs crept along rocky edges and sidled onto cobbled beaches. Kayaks silently slipped around glacially rounded islets. We walked or slipped one last time on guano painted shores.
Antarctic terns creaked to their chicks from the rusting rails of the factory ship, the Gouvernøren, sent to its icy grave ninety plus years ago. Signs of that time were abundant in the Enterprise Islands. Primitive cleats were anchored in rock waiting for ships that come no more. Waterboats, cast upon the land, reminded us of the days of whaling. Beauty appeared and distracted us from even these depressing thoughts. Layer upon layer of metamorphosed snow piled high and fractured into pillars and triangles on ragged faces of the islands. Where rock was exposed gardens of lichens and mosses painted them with orange and glaucous grey.
Hydrurga Rocks sounded ominous, named for the leopard seal. One wondered why, for this species was conspicuously absent from its shores. Only fur seals growled from rocky perches and Weddell seals were silent slugs waking infrequently to scratch an itchy pelt. As if the mammalian world was not enough to entertain us here the raucous cries of rowdy chinstrap penguins invited us to view their moulting chicks. The sun reached out between puffy clouds and sprinkled glitter upon the glaciers of Two Hummock Island, not too shabby a backdrop for the afternoon's performance.
Life is not ordinary here. Thus, having experienced it, we are no longer ordinary citizens.
