Port Lockroy & Cuverville Island, Antarctica
The sun poured through a hole in the cloud and slid down the smooth contour of a glacier into the sea. It disappeared beneath the floes and emerged again, liquid silver that sparkled and danced in its own luminosity.
Back home, in northern latitudes, we often hear the phrase, “Today will be cloudy with sunny breaks.” But how often have we stopped to notice what that meant? Sunny breaks, slivers of blue in a coverlet of gray, bestow their favors on the world below in a very selective way.
Patience is a virtue, so they say. So often the meaning implies tolerance of the faults of others but it is so much more. Patience is waiting, watching and anticipating. It is lying flat on the snow covered ground, eye to eye with a seal, inhaling in time with the rhythm of its breaths. Patience is staying power, pausing to listen to the voice of the gentoo, to hear its meowing call of fear when a threatening skua draws near. Patience is endurance, the ability to ignore the nip of cold on fingertips and nose while waiting for the light, the light that paints the icebergs gelid blue.
Endurance. Here in the southern ocean that simple word calls forth a myriad of images and tales. The HMS Endurance, beset, her crew cast out upon the frozen sea. We thought of her today as we pushed through the drifting pack in the Neumayer Channel. We felt the disappointment of those men as they sighted the continent they were never to set foot upon. For we too were so close but oh-so-far away from the rocky landing place at Port Lockroy. Our Endeavour gave it a valiant try inching closer and ever closer to the lonely figure waiting there. Only twenty meters more, but it was not to be and we had to leave, to back away, foiled by the density of the pack. Did the men of the Endurance play soccer upon the ice? We did today. Parked in the solid fast ice we went out for a stroll to the penguins of Jougla Point and stood high on a ridge to stand at eye level with a glacier face.
Cuverville Island reaches to the clouds. Around its base a gallery of grandiose sculptures sailed, their edges polished and fluted. Patience brings the serenity of beauty to our souls when one has the time to wait for “sunny breaks.”
The sun poured through a hole in the cloud and slid down the smooth contour of a glacier into the sea. It disappeared beneath the floes and emerged again, liquid silver that sparkled and danced in its own luminosity.
Back home, in northern latitudes, we often hear the phrase, “Today will be cloudy with sunny breaks.” But how often have we stopped to notice what that meant? Sunny breaks, slivers of blue in a coverlet of gray, bestow their favors on the world below in a very selective way.
Patience is a virtue, so they say. So often the meaning implies tolerance of the faults of others but it is so much more. Patience is waiting, watching and anticipating. It is lying flat on the snow covered ground, eye to eye with a seal, inhaling in time with the rhythm of its breaths. Patience is staying power, pausing to listen to the voice of the gentoo, to hear its meowing call of fear when a threatening skua draws near. Patience is endurance, the ability to ignore the nip of cold on fingertips and nose while waiting for the light, the light that paints the icebergs gelid blue.
Endurance. Here in the southern ocean that simple word calls forth a myriad of images and tales. The HMS Endurance, beset, her crew cast out upon the frozen sea. We thought of her today as we pushed through the drifting pack in the Neumayer Channel. We felt the disappointment of those men as they sighted the continent they were never to set foot upon. For we too were so close but oh-so-far away from the rocky landing place at Port Lockroy. Our Endeavour gave it a valiant try inching closer and ever closer to the lonely figure waiting there. Only twenty meters more, but it was not to be and we had to leave, to back away, foiled by the density of the pack. Did the men of the Endurance play soccer upon the ice? We did today. Parked in the solid fast ice we went out for a stroll to the penguins of Jougla Point and stood high on a ridge to stand at eye level with a glacier face.
Cuverville Island reaches to the clouds. Around its base a gallery of grandiose sculptures sailed, their edges polished and fluted. Patience brings the serenity of beauty to our souls when one has the time to wait for “sunny breaks.”
