Marguerite Bay, Antarctica
What a glorious Christmas day to be at sea! Very early this morning we crossed the Antarctic Circle and continued south into Marguerite Bay. After two days of the Drake Passage we were all ready to stretch our legs a little and get to shore. We chose Bongrain Point on Pourquoi-pas Island as the site of our first landing. Adelie penguins were strewn about in small breeding colonies and welcomed us all ashore in their raucous customary manner. Most breeding pairs in the colonies were already with one or two chicks, some as much as two weeks old. There were still a few parents on nests with eggs, certainly about to hatch. We were all mesmerized to watch penguin-parenting antics, and all too soon the last Zodiac returned to the ship.
This afternoon brought us all an unexpected Christmas gift…a chance to walk on frozen ocean in the form of fast ice in Bourgeois Fjord. Captain Skog literally ran the ship hard “aground” in the fast ice so that we might all get out and walk on the frozen sea. A short walk brought us to Crabeater seals which lay basking in the sun around an iceberg caught up and frozen to the fast ice. A lone Adelie penguin made the rounds between groups of folks and south polar skuas wheeled in the skies above us. A group of us got together for a photo opportunity to “warp” the ship ashore, but she was held fast in ice. In fact, the ship was so comfortably wedged into the ice that our expedition leader Matt Drennan and Captain Skog decided to stay “stuck” in the ice through the evening.
After dinner the truly hard-core photographers waited in vain for the sunset, which never came. At this latitude, so far below the Antarctica circle, and only four days after the summer solstice, the sun just lay low in the sky and never set. For photographers and spectators alike this was the perfect Christmas gift: a golden hour that lasts and lasts…
Christmas at Sea
- Robert Louis Stevenson
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only thing a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But it was only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliff and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
All hands to loose topgallant sails, I heard the captain call
By the lord, she’ll never stand it, our first mate, Jackson, cried.
It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson, he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good.
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
What a glorious Christmas day to be at sea! Very early this morning we crossed the Antarctic Circle and continued south into Marguerite Bay. After two days of the Drake Passage we were all ready to stretch our legs a little and get to shore. We chose Bongrain Point on Pourquoi-pas Island as the site of our first landing. Adelie penguins were strewn about in small breeding colonies and welcomed us all ashore in their raucous customary manner. Most breeding pairs in the colonies were already with one or two chicks, some as much as two weeks old. There were still a few parents on nests with eggs, certainly about to hatch. We were all mesmerized to watch penguin-parenting antics, and all too soon the last Zodiac returned to the ship.
This afternoon brought us all an unexpected Christmas gift…a chance to walk on frozen ocean in the form of fast ice in Bourgeois Fjord. Captain Skog literally ran the ship hard “aground” in the fast ice so that we might all get out and walk on the frozen sea. A short walk brought us to Crabeater seals which lay basking in the sun around an iceberg caught up and frozen to the fast ice. A lone Adelie penguin made the rounds between groups of folks and south polar skuas wheeled in the skies above us. A group of us got together for a photo opportunity to “warp” the ship ashore, but she was held fast in ice. In fact, the ship was so comfortably wedged into the ice that our expedition leader Matt Drennan and Captain Skog decided to stay “stuck” in the ice through the evening.
After dinner the truly hard-core photographers waited in vain for the sunset, which never came. At this latitude, so far below the Antarctica circle, and only four days after the summer solstice, the sun just lay low in the sky and never set. For photographers and spectators alike this was the perfect Christmas gift: a golden hour that lasts and lasts…
Christmas at Sea
- Robert Louis Stevenson
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only thing a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But it was only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliff and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
All hands to loose topgallant sails, I heard the captain call
By the lord, she’ll never stand it, our first mate, Jackson, cried.
It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson, he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good.
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
