Neko Harbour. It is early morning and the penguins are quiet. That soft sleepiness. Awakening. We sense their slumber. The sun arrives on their rocky beach. They go about their business and we ours.
Some penguins sleep prostrate, tiny feathered barrels with even smaller heads and feet. Others potter about with the patient homeliness of a squirrel gathering acorns for the winter. But of course without this purpose. They have nothing to do here now except moult and leave. Their food awaits at sea. And yet they do seem to waddle with this quiet intention.
And what about the water? How to find the words? We try ink velvet satin, try everything but nothing gets close to the feeling on your skin - of imagining it on your skin, through you, running your fingers through it, its coldness, its softness, the tingling numbness, the delicate lattice of grease ice forming on its surface with the autumn call.
The whale that surfaced right near the zodiac!!!!
The glacier that decorated the bay.
Little rocky outcrops dusted with snow. The edges, the outlines.
An avalanche pouring down a narrow couloir and onto the glacier. It looked gentle. Sounded violent. Was ineffable.
Over the radio: a leopard seal just chased a gentoo penguin up the beach. Up the beach. I wonder how everyone went down there. UP the beach? I try to imagine that face, beady eyes, slash of mouth, glistening fur, gliding up the beach.
It's so quiet we are all whispering. I turn the radio down.
Quiet chuckles at penguin waddle slides. We understand their majesty in the water, so it seems somehow acceptable to enjoy their ungainly gait on land. To kindly smile at the awkward adolescent fluff of a moulting chick, despite its obvious displeasure. It's hard to resist.