14th March – Past the Polar Circle
Today at sunrise Plancius slipped past the Polar Circle as an honor guard of minke whales dove elegantly alongside. We are now surrounded on all sides by the gently sunlit slopes of the “true” Antarctic, all impressive crags and snowy peaks shrouded in silence. We are sailing through iceberg heavy waters, which makes our journey more treacherous, yet more beautiful as well. When one ignores the danger, it feels as though we are drifting through the greatest sculpture garden in the world- every iceberg soars and sweeps and glimmers a hundred shades of blue and green. The amount of ice and the level of wind are such that we were unable to land at Detaille Island, which was rather nice, in a way, to have this day to spend drifting about in this mythical expanse. There are several species of seal that can be seen lounging as figures in this idyllic scene. Crabeater, leopard, and fur se als have all been spotted sunbathing or lazily swimming among the flamboyant blocks of ice. Seabirds are less prevalent, but the large, hardy skua can regularly be seen flying, pterodactyl-like, as dark shapes contrasted dramatically against the ice.
We were able to anchor in a sheltered bay where the water was so still it seemed like glass. Even the Zodiacs created hardly a ripple in the mirrored water as they skimmed across the surface. As before, we took conductivity, temperature, and depth readings, and we listened to a hydrophone near a glacier in the hopes of hearing the groans and creaks of the shifting ice.Certain parts of the bay were engulfed by floating blocks of ice of various shapes and sizes, but the utter lack of waves or wind caused the blocks to look as though they had been placed just so on a perfectly smooth sheet of glass. Now we have turned around and begun our journey back north. The late afternoon sun is brilliantly strong and causes everything to look the same perfect dark gold. Icebergs are floating, golden shadows. A thousand animals could be hidden in the brilliant strip of light under the sun and we would be blind to their existence. Those of us o n duty freeze in the cold polar air despite the fading sun, but not a soul minds the discomfort, not when we sail through such a dreamscape. I think that all of the organisms moving about Antarctica, including us, are, perhaps, the luckiest beings on this earth.
(Elizabeth, SH student)