We've spent some time on this voyage discussing the relative virtues of experiencing a landscape through a camera lens and leaving the camera behind. Being in Antarctica, where every scene offers the opportunity to capture something of the sublime for later - possibly at the expense of being here now - this seems to be a pertinent question, on both practical and philosophical levels. It's something I'd like to consider in more depth soon.
For now though, here is the result of an experiment: leaving the camera behind and taking paper and a pen instead (because I wasn't quite ready for entirely undocumented experience yet). Among the many arguments for leaving the camera behind (and the pen, in truth) is the staggering closeness of everything when there is nothing standing between you and it. Nothing mediating the experience, no way of distancing yourself or escaping the frankly discomfiting sensation of genuine awe. The explosive wonder. Purest love. The existential angst of truly seeing.
"I am outside, on the stern. The wind tearing warmth from my sleepy indoor body, the wake of the ship moving apace through the calm seas. I watch the wake.
A bird over the sea!
And white blocks, hard edged lines illuminated by sun pouring into the sea.
East, how can I describe this? There is no word. Many have tried. I feel nothing but the humility of failure, the fall to your knees drop your head to the ground wonder and I am enthralled, in the thrall of this snow-clad island, the ocean chrome Poseidon blue, mottled by gentlest breeze.
Now, more of the impossible! Wait - a mountain bathed in the kindness of mist, mist sinking deep into all the dark places, concealing crevices, softening all that is hard until all that remains is a suggestion, the subtlety of a line, a continuum. Inside, we know, there is a mountain. That is everything I need right now.
Dazzling, golden band of sunlight atop a snow rimmed sea.
The boat begins to nod a little, hours pass.
She sleeps, the light turns some.
From here we can see the Drake, and an iceberg like a castle with three triangular towers. It sings to me this thing. It calls like so many other castles, perched atop a lonely rise. Like Mont St Michel with its whispered invitations to wander its cobbled corridors, to fondle its walls in the secret of darkness, when no one is watching as you lay your cheek upon its cold sides and breathe. This distant thing, I draw it closer with binoculars and magnify its grandeur, grasp for a net of language to scoop it up. I will never walk your walls. I will never gaze so closely upon the delicate grooves carved by the currents that I lose focus and forget myself. I will never stroke your blue underside, wrought by Antarctic seas, relentlessly lapping. Your flanks are too deep blue cold and slippery smooth, your straight lines defined and impenetrable, your moat without end."