Gerlache Strait
We woke to find Endeavour moving quietly up the Gerlache Strait, the sky scraped clean of cloud, the plunging mountain slopes which line the channel spotlit by fresh sunshine. Each sheer face, covered by new snow, and freshly chiselled by last nights winds, had frozen overnight into perfect sculpted meringues. We turned in past Orne Island to a sheltered bay between Anvers Island and the Arctowski Peninsula, finally to anchor alongside Cuverville Island, its brown and khaki slopes draped in snow. Landing on the cobble beach in the first Zodiac, we set up base camp for our intrepid guests, who would be coming ashore to look at the gentoo penguin colony. I could have gazed out across slate-grey waters to the blue tints of a fleet of icebergs moored in the bay. Or looked up at the snow slopes above Ketley Point, rose-tinted with snow algae. Or raised my eyes to the high peaks where soaring black spires of rock were being unveiled from the last shreds of cloud. But for once I was spellbound by the beach cobbles under my feet. No two were alike, each streaked, rippled or stippled with its own unique pattern. Granites, granodiorites, quartzites, greenshists, gneisses and basaltic tuffs. Such rocks were formed over 100 million years ago, each one a record of titanic forces at work in the earth’s crust, vast blisters of lava cooling at depth beneath volcanoes, some baked again under extreme heat until the silica was squeezed out like cream from a bun, others crushed like plasticene in a giant fist, until the white streaks rippled and ran. For some their origins might be hundreds of miles from here in the different mountain arcs of the Antarctic Peninsula, ferried from all corners by rivers of ice, deposited here in this one bay, and now bonded by the surge of the ocean into a single beach brotherhood.
As we all gathered on the beach to marvel at this quiet meeting of ocean , ice and rock, I was struck by the simile: we have come in the footsteps of past explorers who each named peaks and headlands to celebrate their origins: Gerlache, Anvers and Cuverville (Belgian), Arctowski (Polish), Orne (Norwegian), Ketley (British). And we ourselves represent a dozen nations: American, Australian, Belgian, British, Croatian, Filipino, German, New Zealander, and Swedish. No two of us are alike, each smoothed, ruffled or stubbled with his own unique pattern. For most, our origins are hundreds of miles from here, drawn from all corners by the reverie of ice, deposited here in this one bay and now bonded by the surge of the ocean into a single beach brotherhood.
We woke to find Endeavour moving quietly up the Gerlache Strait, the sky scraped clean of cloud, the plunging mountain slopes which line the channel spotlit by fresh sunshine. Each sheer face, covered by new snow, and freshly chiselled by last nights winds, had frozen overnight into perfect sculpted meringues. We turned in past Orne Island to a sheltered bay between Anvers Island and the Arctowski Peninsula, finally to anchor alongside Cuverville Island, its brown and khaki slopes draped in snow. Landing on the cobble beach in the first Zodiac, we set up base camp for our intrepid guests, who would be coming ashore to look at the gentoo penguin colony. I could have gazed out across slate-grey waters to the blue tints of a fleet of icebergs moored in the bay. Or looked up at the snow slopes above Ketley Point, rose-tinted with snow algae. Or raised my eyes to the high peaks where soaring black spires of rock were being unveiled from the last shreds of cloud. But for once I was spellbound by the beach cobbles under my feet. No two were alike, each streaked, rippled or stippled with its own unique pattern. Granites, granodiorites, quartzites, greenshists, gneisses and basaltic tuffs. Such rocks were formed over 100 million years ago, each one a record of titanic forces at work in the earth’s crust, vast blisters of lava cooling at depth beneath volcanoes, some baked again under extreme heat until the silica was squeezed out like cream from a bun, others crushed like plasticene in a giant fist, until the white streaks rippled and ran. For some their origins might be hundreds of miles from here in the different mountain arcs of the Antarctic Peninsula, ferried from all corners by rivers of ice, deposited here in this one bay, and now bonded by the surge of the ocean into a single beach brotherhood.
As we all gathered on the beach to marvel at this quiet meeting of ocean , ice and rock, I was struck by the simile: we have come in the footsteps of past explorers who each named peaks and headlands to celebrate their origins: Gerlache, Anvers and Cuverville (Belgian), Arctowski (Polish), Orne (Norwegian), Ketley (British). And we ourselves represent a dozen nations: American, Australian, Belgian, British, Croatian, Filipino, German, New Zealander, and Swedish. No two of us are alike, each smoothed, ruffled or stubbled with his own unique pattern. For most, our origins are hundreds of miles from here, drawn from all corners by the reverie of ice, deposited here in this one bay and now bonded by the surge of the ocean into a single beach brotherhood.
