This is our second last trip of the season and it's been one of the best I've ever had. Everything from the very first landing to the last has been impeccable. The weather: almost no wind, no chop, no hard rain. Only mysterious grey and purple skies, unusual stripes of cool blue tracing the edge of the snowy plateaus, huge bunches of dry snowflakes and the quick bracing cold of the coming winter. I don't even know where to start with all the amazing things that have happened.
Did I tell you about the rainbow across the Beagle Channel as we sailed from Ushuaia? It bridged the channel, this enormous, radiant band of colour, so bright that it cast its own golden light like a waterfall cascading from the underside of the rainbow. We sailed into it as if through a door into the calmest Drake I have ever seen. Sky reflecting sea reflecting sky, silken sway of silent ocean all the way to the horizon.
On this voyage we crossed the Antarctic Circle. I find it interesting how many people find this significant, because I do not. However, it is nice to be so far south. I think there's a different feeling down there. There's something magical about the light, the broad bays. There was also the chance we would visit Detaille Island, which was the first landing I ever made here a few years ago.
It turned out we couldn't land - the wind was too strong - but we were able to sail to a sheltered bay a bit further south and drop the Zodiacs for a cruise. Over 110 crabeater seals were hauled out on ice (apparently a passenger counted to there and just stopped counting), innumerable bergs to explore, and also some very cool brash to navigate through, which is always fun and a bit exciting. There was even a piece of sea ice (frozen ocean, as opposed to land ice that comes from glaciers and creates icebergs) left over from last season, which we were able to land passengers on. So they got to stand on a block of ice floating on the ocean. Pretty cool :)
Since then we've had several landings, each of them sublime. The most playful of penguins approached us at Cuverville, weaving between passengers' legs as they sat, pecking at any tabs dangling from pants and bags, even jumping on top of some people, much to their delight. These chicks are recently fledged, and the ones that weren't approaching us with their youthful curiosity were braving the shallow waters by the landing site, learning to swim. If watching penguins porpoise is one of my favourite things, watching chicks learn to porpoise, their bodies askew as they exit the water and wobbling off-axis as they re-enter has to be a close second. This is how the ease and grace of mastery begins. It's a good reminder.
There were several leopard seals skulking by the shore, stalking, hunting and eating these penguins. Leopard seals are the most incredible predators, inescapably sinister in their slinky pursuit, precise and efficient in executing the kill. Sometimes I find it hard not to anthropomorphise. Even using words like sinister - or the ones I withheld, like creepy, villainous and reptilian - it's not right. It doesn't do justice to the leopard seal's fierce and most importantly essential pragmatism. They are not malevolent. They are focused and single-minded. A seal's gotta eat.
Another day. Deep mist dissipating to reveal the hulking mass of ice-covered mountains towering above us in Paradise Harbour. And sun! The strange warmth of it.
Endless autumn sunsets setting the clouds alight, softening mountains pink, peach, then mauve. Icebergs rolling and calving off the beach.
Humpback whales breaching, feeding and travelling alongside . . .
I don't really know how to capture the awe, almost rapture of all of this. I'll have to share some photos and footage with you when I'm home.
Hard to believe the season is nearly over. I have mixed feelings. I am tired and it's time to replenish, eat some fresh food, have some good rest, run and climb and see you all. At the same time this place and everything that lives here really has my heart. I can't believe how lucky I am to work here.