This morning, our last in Antarctica proper, we woke at Port Lockroy, the home of British Base A. We flocked to its gift shop and post office, collecting knickknacks and mailing postcards for loved ones around the world, then studied the artifacts of its museum—a wondrous time capsule of life at an incredibly remote Antarctic research outpost in the 1950s. Apart from a little rust and dust, the tools, rations, books, and magazines all looked just as they had when the men communicated with the outside world via Morse code. An open cookbook presented a recipe for broiled penguin breast. The men’s quarters, complete with hand paintings of beautiful lady movie stars of the era covering the walls, had rumpled sheets with boots and clothes beside them. One half expected to find a hand-rolled cigarette still smoldering in the ashtray.
Wandering around the gentoo penguin colonies surrounding the base, we found wreckage of an even earlier time, when Port Lockroy served as a major whaling station in the early 20th century. Whale bones of phenomenal girth and heft were strewn in disarray among concrete blocks that once served as anchor points to winch whales up on land. These quiet testaments to untold carnage now peacefully pedestal the nests of blue-eyed shags. Facing into the bitter wind, the full-grown shag chicks impulsively exercised their wings; no doubt some will take flight for the first time within only a few days.
During lunch, the crew of the National Geographic Explorer pulled the anchor off Antarctic bedrock for the final time of our voyage. We were steaming north. Not until midnight would we reach the rough open waters of the Drake Passage; until then, we wistfully gazed out at the dramatic mountains and glaciers that surrounded us. Our sensory and emotional lives have been full to bursting over the past week, pushing the outside world far to the periphery. Soon we will have to face that world again, but not yet. This evening we toasted with new friends to the epic lands, creatures, and stories of Antarctica.
