Scotia Sea - Eastbound for South Georgia
As we wake there is a blue sky shining on lively blue sea. We are surging east from Falklands, surfing on a steady, following sea. It is the kind of day that the old-time sailors would have loved: enough wind to spread all their canvas, a stable weather pattern to free them from running aloft every 30minutes to trim sails, and bright warm sunshine to dry their sodden clothing. They’d be hunkered in the scuppers, stitching sailcloth, trading tall stories. Not so different from us, for we too are hunkered in lounge and library, stitching digital images into CDs and laptops, trading short stories, as we drink from tall glasses.
In the wake there is roiling foam from the propellers, stitching a lapis blue zig-zag into the deep, dense, aquamarine blue of the ocean. We are travelling in the wake of whalers, windjammers and worldwide wanderers. Speaking of wanderers, a huge white bird wheels in slow motion behind us, displaying its clean, white back and ebony wings. As it overhauls us, we are thrilled to recognise the Royal Albatross: it has sailed all the way from New Zealand on a single glide, and passes us doing a lazy 30-40 knots. Now a tiny black waif flicks low over our stern, skimming the wake. Dancing nonchalantly across giant swells, it is the storm-petrel, tiny relative to the albatross, less than an ounce in weight and barely 8”long. They named it Oceanites, “daughter of the ocean”.
Before we wake, we will have crossed the frigid frontier which defines Antarctica: the convergence. There is a sense of rising excitement now that we have left the last pub and phone box behind us. The clocks fall back an hour tonight. But we are going back to the Garden of Eden, to a land where rock, wind and ice hold sway. The adventure has begun... and though we sleep, we are surging still, waiting, to wake to new wonders.
As we wake there is a blue sky shining on lively blue sea. We are surging east from Falklands, surfing on a steady, following sea. It is the kind of day that the old-time sailors would have loved: enough wind to spread all their canvas, a stable weather pattern to free them from running aloft every 30minutes to trim sails, and bright warm sunshine to dry their sodden clothing. They’d be hunkered in the scuppers, stitching sailcloth, trading tall stories. Not so different from us, for we too are hunkered in lounge and library, stitching digital images into CDs and laptops, trading short stories, as we drink from tall glasses.
In the wake there is roiling foam from the propellers, stitching a lapis blue zig-zag into the deep, dense, aquamarine blue of the ocean. We are travelling in the wake of whalers, windjammers and worldwide wanderers. Speaking of wanderers, a huge white bird wheels in slow motion behind us, displaying its clean, white back and ebony wings. As it overhauls us, we are thrilled to recognise the Royal Albatross: it has sailed all the way from New Zealand on a single glide, and passes us doing a lazy 30-40 knots. Now a tiny black waif flicks low over our stern, skimming the wake. Dancing nonchalantly across giant swells, it is the storm-petrel, tiny relative to the albatross, less than an ounce in weight and barely 8”long. They named it Oceanites, “daughter of the ocean”.
Before we wake, we will have crossed the frigid frontier which defines Antarctica: the convergence. There is a sense of rising excitement now that we have left the last pub and phone box behind us. The clocks fall back an hour tonight. But we are going back to the Garden of Eden, to a land where rock, wind and ice hold sway. The adventure has begun... and though we sleep, we are surging still, waiting, to wake to new wonders.
