HOLLY’S SPECIAL ADVENTURE

One of the things about Holly that first caught my attention was her sense of adventure. She had climbed to 18,000 feet in the mountains near Everest. When I was writing a book a few years ago on how our government compromises the health of patients suffering chronic pain, I asked Holly what was her dream. She said to go to Antarctica. So we planned this adventure and, as we did, I became infected by her vision to study a place that has been partly despoiled by humankind even though the environment is so harsh they can hardly live here except for short periods in base camps that are for research (and no doubt some to stake claims to minerals – when and as that becomes possible). We are quite well aware as well that trips such as the one we are taking may be curtailed or eliminated in the not so distant future. We have no illusion that we are not attempting anything like Ross, Amundsen, Shackleton, or what any of the others attempted or accomplished, but you get an appreciation by being here, you can only imagine.


JPF

BERGS TO THE RIGHT OF US, BERGS TO THE LEFT OF US, BERGS ALL AROUND …

This morning, we traveled Southwest down the Gerlache Strait, islands to the North, the Antarctic Peninsula to the South. We began our sail early this morning at South 64 degrees, 4.616 minutes Latitude, and West 61 degrees, 52.81 minutes Longitude. In all directions there were snowy cliffs and rock, breath-taking cloud formations, bergs on every side. In the early hours, the ocean was black. You can only imagine the early mariners in ships no larger than the small tender that took us ashore in the Falklands coming south down this strait, not knowing what to expect, having mariner’s tools, but nothing like we have today, watching this land of wonder unfold, taking measurements, risking that they might become encased in ice and not return, and yet they pressed on.


We had sun and patches of blue sky that broke through the shades of black and white.

The cliffs that breed bergs are more obvious here, and the rocks beneath appear riven from the separation of berg from glacier and cliff.

The shapes of these bergs, like the lines and incidents of a human face, tell you something of the history and character of these bergs and bergy bits.

We saw seals on the bergs, rare birds that sailed almost motionless above on wind currents in silouhette waiting for the right moment to fish.

JPF

THE WINDS OF THE ANTARCTIC

The waters of the Arctic can be as quiet as a lake and in a matter of minutes the air is full of extraordinary pressure and a gale that has you hanging on to the ship.


Our ship rides comfortably in the water because of its weight and the skill of the crew on the bridge but it’s like have a large sail above the water line with a keel that cannot run deep enough to resist the push across the surface of the water by the 50 knot winds that spring up. In fact, we changed course yesterday and bypassed ice berg alley because we were traveling sideways faster than we were going forward.

This morning I stood at the bow of the ship with my back to the wind and, with my arms outstretched, leaned backwards into the wind, and I was held fast and could feel the give and push of its force; I resisted risking too great an angle

Later in the day, when the wind pressed anew on the ship, this massive ship tilted at 6 degrees, prompting some small panic on board, water spilled from pools and tubs, dishes slid across tables and fell to the floor, and the captain issued warnings about walking on the top decks: “hold onto the rails if you do.” There was an advisory not to let the wind close the doors on your hands.

This wind came at us at 80 knots.

We were headed toward Neumayer Channel, north of the Antarctic peninsula, but the substantial force of the wind in that tight passage made any attempt foolhardy, in the words of the Captain, and so we backed out of the katabatic wind.

There’s a name for everything in Antarctica.

There are 100s of words for every variation of snow and ice – and the old hands can distinguish one from the other with ease.

Wind is no different.

As I’ve indicated in an earlier blog, we are in an in between place where the northerly waters around the world come in contact with the circumpolar waters of Antarctica.

Simarly, there are a powerful set of winds called the katabatic winds.

These are powerful gravity driven winds that have stronger inertial energy than other winds.

These winds descend from the inland snowfields toward the coast.

They scour the surface snowfields as they approach the coast and that makes them cold and they entrain a considerable volume of snow which gives them inertia, a thickness that makes them slow to warm when they do come to the cost.

When these winds drop from the plateau to the coast, the steepest descent, the winds can reach staggering velocities.

That how we found ourselves punched up and about by winds at 80 knots. When a cyclone and a katabatic shake hands, watch out. They act in concert.

What’s so amazing is how calm and comfortable it will feel standing outside, and then the waves have white tops, and wind is blowing and the ship is tilting.

The winds are fierce or muted – and there’s little in between.

JPF

RESEARCH IN THE ARCTIC

Yesterday, we served as a taxi for some science researchers who were dropping off on King George Island and we were going away with two others who were not going to winter in Antarctica. It was the Arctowski Base named after Henry who overwintered (as they call it) in this station in 1897-1899. It’s a base managed by the Polish Academy of Sciences. The two scientists boated out from the base and gave us some idea of what it was like to live and work there. Mostly they were concerned about marine biology, oceanography, geology, glaciology, meteorology, seismology, magnetism and ecology. This is a site designated as a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSI). Holly and I may catch a flight if the weather permits to fly to another research base on this same island. We all wanted to know the mundane things. How do you communicate? Of course, by internet and they phone by skype. They come with a year’s frozen food. They have a small gym. They visit the nearby Brazilian research station. The Americans have a station nearby they’ve nicknamed the Copacabana because it’s on the beach. But they are – ahem – most of them anyhow – on the beach, on the coast. This location has an opportunity to observe whales and seals, and is very busy. They get back and forth in small vessels called Zodiaks.


JPF

LAND SEA ICE AND AIR AS ONE ....

In the last blog, we described how it appears.  We thought this photo might give you some idea of what we mean.

JPF

THE ICE - THE REAL ADVENTURE!

When Holly and I came out on the top deck, within a few miles of Elephant Island, about 61 degrees South latitude, and 54 degrees West longitude, the northernmost island of the South Shetland Islands, there were ice bergs off the starboard side (right) and a blast of icy wind that froze the skin.


We dressed in layers of warm underclothing, ski coverall pants, thick gloves, wool socks, and the kind of head gear any respectable burglar would wear.

As my eyes and nose were the only thing exposed to the elements, and I was dressed all in black, Holly said, I looked like a Ninja. I took that as a compliment – but, of course, I’m a guy.

The not-well-planned-ahead challenge was how to take off the gloves to push the tiny buttons and turn the gauges to capture digitally the incredible sights spread all around.

In addition, I was trying to mark latitude and longitude on a hand held GPS – not that the captain’s equipment wasn’t state of the art, and not that he didn’t share his findings. In fact, he made frequent oral and written postings of every relevant statistic you could possibly imagine about weather and location and what we could expect. We also had a raft of experts to supplement and observe what we were seeing. But it’s not the same as having a device that makes the measurements instantaneously, by steps you take, by doing it yourself. At least, that’s how I felt about it.

After gathering ourselves, Holly and walked forward to the tip of the spear, the prow of our ship, where the wind and cold were more severe and the view was equivalently spectacular.

We couldn’t take our eyes off the bright blue ice of a nearby berg, off port side, against a field of gray sky and churning waters.

Looking closely, we saw that the berg had squatting tenants, first appearing like dots, then moving, and then you realized there were penguins aboard the berg, who somehow climbed to the upper reaches of these gargantuan ice crystal creations.

As our ship turned in toward and past these ice bergs, and bergy bits (not to be confused with the still smaller growlers), they appeared differently at different angles.

The character of a berg begins with its birth and release from its parental glacier, “calving” they call its separation, and how this is accomplished, the stresses and fractures that the icy offspring undergoes, affects its size and shape, as does the wind, water, islands, ice floes, and whatever else it brushes and bangs against once it has been released from the glacier.

If you have the patience to just be quiet and observe for a time, to embrace the peace of the moment, despite the harsh cold, you’ll appreciate a natural aesthetic in the shape and variation of this lumpy mass of countless cold hexagonal ice crystals, made into a berg, now turning slowly in the icy arctic waters.

Words are a poor expression to capture the exalted feeling when tasting this ice cold ocean air, feeling it sting your hands, while surrounded by bergs and white cliffs and clouds and open water in every direction.

The most striking observation I found besides the feeling of vastness was the relative absence of color.

Yes, there are colors, the glacier blue, green tints, mineral impurities, marred brown patches, and refracted sunlight through the waters.

But color is the more dramatic by its sparseness. Color is an accent.

I would compare the experience to Anselm Adams’ famed black and white nature photographs although these images are of the sea in an atmosphere that blurs the sharp images that Adams preferred.

What you see is a dark gray sea, rising and falling, defined principally by black brush strokes and lines and shifting blocks of black shadow that contrast sharply with the white swells and swirls at the heights and valleys of the ever-changing seascape waters.

Where land and ice meet, the air, the snow, fog, mist and clouds obscure the curved horizon that is distinguishable mostly by the lighter shade of battle gray.
Not all the time, but there are extended periods when the seas, bergs, snow, cliffs, land, clouds, mist and sky seem to merge into each other’s domain, challenging your perception to distinguish one element from the other, solid from liquid and from gaseous substances, as they participate in some indescribably glorious union, that is so complex as to appear chaotic, while allowing but one conclusion to reconcile the observation, and it is that what we’re observing is truly interconnected and interdependent, and we are necessarily part of this grand natural order.

JPF

NOW I’LL NEVER GET HIRED BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

If you have been following this blog, you will notice that on several occasions, I have said that Shackleton left his men on Elephant Island and went to King George Island. Wrong!


King George is an island in the S. Shetlands that we will pass tomorrow or the next day but that’s not where Shackleton went to save his men.

He had to travel 800 miles from Elephant Island but it was northeast to SOUTH GEORGIA island.

JPF