At 6:30 yesterday (Tuesday, March 10), I was tired, hungry, and depressed — each for good reason. According to my phone, I’d racked up more than 13,000 steps, the last several thousand hiking on a rocky island in a cold light rain. Dinner wouldn’t be served until 7:30. And we’d just completed our final Antarctic excursion. As the ship’s engine hummed and we started moving, our bow was pointed northeast, into open ocean.
We’d completed only three of the four days we’d expected to have on the continent, a change in plan to which we’d been alerted a few hours earlier. Our expedition leader, Gaby, had called a special briefing meeting; she displayed a series of weather charts filled with lines and numbers and vivid colors.
The details were hard to digest, but the big picture was clear: a couple of storm systems were moving in, packing 30-40 mph winds and swells that could easily reach 30 feet. We could stay another day, but Gaby and the captain both felt that would set us up for more trouble a few days hence. Instead we would head for our next destination, the South Sandwich Islands, hoping to outrun the worst of what was coming.
It made sense to me, and I think all my fellow passengers felt the same. No one tried to argue. We all knew what phenomenal luck we’d had over the past three days. We’d enjoyed superb weather; gotten off the Greg Mortimer for six separate excursions. We’d seen a head-spinning assortment of wildlife and icebergs. Who among us could complain?
Indeed my sadness disappeared in the camaraderie of our dinner table, but subtle whiffs of it have returned today as I’ve been looking at my photos. Maybe over the next two weeks we’ll see other things as beautiful or awesome, but it doesn’t seem likely. I don’t know when or where we’ll next see land.
On these sea days, I’ll try to post some of those sights that so moved me. And maybe others will pop up.
Like this one, a huge solitary iceberg I just spotted minutes ago from the window in the library, where I’ve been writing this post.
At home and abroad 