Weddell Sea, Antarctica
A New Year begins. The events of the past are now by-gones and the slate is wiped clean, ready to be written on once again. There was no night in reality as the new decade was ushered in. A blue moon rose and disappeared masked by a cloudy sky. Some celebrated as the clock ran round and others rose to see the lingering dawn.
The sea was smooth as a mirror. Not even a hint of a whispering wind could be found. Gradients of gray tumbled through the cottony clouds and turned the ocean pewter. A snow shower chased away the solemn shades and resurfaced floating floes preparing them to record the life that came and went today. The ocean’s guest book might be akin to writing with invisible ink for ripples representing seal or penguin action slowly disappeared. But in the snow lay a story to be read.
Wide trenches led to lounging crabeater seals, their shiny golden pelage scored with parallel scars. A leopard seal squirmed snake-like, grinning all the while it drew a perfect circle in the snow. Rotund bellies pressed the glistening surface into sinuous troughs regularly punctuated by sharp clawed toes. Beside each channel paddle-like wings left arching designs as they sculled along. Adélie penguins and emperors too demonstrated their technique as they tobogganed about.
We too drew lines across the ice, our trail wide and winding. Like penguins marching to the sounds of silence we meandered far from the icy edge. Sunny skies seemed to entice some to shed their warm outer layers and to the delight of amused observers they plunged into the frigid waters deep in the Weddell Sea.
The ice itself made patterns. Here and there floes packed densely together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, our passage obstructed or confined. There the fragments floated free inviting us to enter. Tabular bergs tilted this way and that, sides with angular fractures and bits that were once roots smoothed by shifting tides.
And so our New Year began with light on ice and seals and emperor penguins!
