There are no words that could describe this day. No photograph can possibly portray the images recorded in our minds. From sunrise to sunset, each event seemed to propel us to the pinnacle of pleasure and yet one by one each was surpassed. The ship is quiet now late at night as individuals collect their own special moments and file them in their own unique way.
The morning was a moonscape. High winds buffeted the ridges of Bald Head as we set foot upon the slate tiled shore of Antarctica. For many this completed their transit of the globe, the seventh continent visited. For all it was a landmark event. As far as recorded history showed we were the first nonscientific group to walk on this land.
Devil Island, a tiny dot of an isle sitting on the northern shoulder of Vega, embraced an assemblage of contoured and polished icebergs that would rival the world's best glass sculptor's show. Our fleet of Zodiacs transported us to the ice palaces of a formally attired crowd. Deposited by a low tide, bergy-bits were the buildings lining a convoluted winding street. We meandered through the maze. In lanes on either side, big-eyed Adelie penguins whisked by as they hustled back and forth to the plankton-laden sea. There were young to be fed in the condos on the ridge above. Thousands of pot-bellied young, collected in creches or still in their nests but all hungry for whatever their parents could supply.
The ship sailed onward, onward to the icy treasures of Fridtjof Sound. Huge tabular bergs up to a mile long looked like aircraft carriers or landing fields. Tiny floating bits were the ships for crabeater seals or blue-eyed shags. Killer whales and Minke whales silently patrolled. We thought it was over, no more for the day. Recap and dinner and then to bed. Or showers to take and postcards to write. And then the big one appeared.
