Drake Passage
We deserve a drubbing. Some kind of comeuppance. At least a sustained spell of mild misery. After a charmed crossing of the Drake, days of brilliant weather, non-stop wildlife spectaculars, and hours of carefree frivolity, we shouldn’t be surprised to wake to grey skies, tumultuous seas and the realization that our luck has run out.
So I crept cautiously from my crypt in the bilges and peered hesitantly from the bridge. The first officer was sprawled nonchalantly in his swivel chair, listening to the dulcet Swedish tones of Radio Gothenburg. The sea was flat, dimpled by picturesque wavelets. The sky was blue, tastefully decorated with pink pompoms. Three Antarctic petrels swept past the bridge, exulting in a perfect tailwind. Still lucky!
We are sailing, we are sailing, across the ocean, across the sea. But not alone – all day we have had our loyal escort of pintados, petrels and prions. As if to echo the exceptional nature of this trip, two pure white Snow Petrels led us north, the rarest of oceanic seabirds, last outriders of the white continent.
This morning, the shipping lanes are full - of whales. Last night in a pink sunset we had a surprise cabaret from a young humpback whale lunging hungrily through a krill buffet in the waters of Dallman Bay. We watched him from the bow as he swerved, herded and gulped food from the surface waters around the ship. Early this morning we passed his elders steaming south in convoy, groups of 2 and 3 humpbacks at a time, all making their way down to Antarctica. They must have been puzzled by our course: why would you head north just as spring is starting?
Our luck is holding, and yes, it is true that we have been unfairly fortunate in the last 10 days. Our suffering will come in due course, as we return to the hectic world of our homes. To the unholy haste of the motor car, the tyranny of the clock, moments measured in megabytes and all the madness and mayhem of the twenty-first century. Then we will remember the slow surge of southern tides and the peace of frozen landscapes. We are changed now, for we have seen a world before Man unmade it; there will be times when we long for such peace of mind, a form of polar nostalgia.
Little wonder that the early explorers could never properly settle once they had witnessed the Great White South. We are so very lucky to have seen this, and we should indeed be haunted by it; such rare privilege carries its own moral responsibility…….what story of this world and its wonders will you tell when you get home, and how will you change?
