At Sea
The Southern Ocean is true wilderness, a place of stark beauty and tangible mystery. Isolated in a regime of freezing cold for over 20 million years, it is a place of great stability where water temperature varies very little during each year; but at the same time it undergoes a dramatic change, unique in the world, as pack ice forms and breaks up over millions of square miles annually. It is the destination of migrating whales and the home of petrels, penguins and a host of strange marine creatures found nowhere else in the world. Surrounding the icy shores of Antarctica, turning in a slow clockwise gyre, flowing through the infamous Drake Passage (which is in one of its mellow moods as we pass through today), this was the last ocean to be named, the last sea to be explored. In fact, its exploration is very much an ongoing process, a process in which I have been lucky enough to play a small part.
In the past eight years I have logged 245 scuba dives in the Antarctic waters, every one of them from the National Geographic Endeavour. Over this period I have pioneered many new dive sites, become very familiar with a few places and a few common species and never lost the initial excitement and delight of exploring these frigid seas. I have met weird creatures like sea spiders and swimming crinoids and hovered over the blue abyss of the Erebus and Terror Gulf beside a vertical wall festooned with yellow sponges and huge orange anemones. I have had a few heart-pounding encounters with leopard seals and wandered slowly through the dim and silent world beneath the pack ice. It has been an incredible privilege.
Crossing the Drake is a time for contemplation, an opportunity to look back on the highlights of our expeditions, bask in the glow of marvelous memories and consider new insights. This time, as I make my final northward crossing on the National Geographic Endeavour before she moves to her new home in the Galápagos Islands, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone onboard the ship, the Captains and Officers, all the Crew and the Expedition Leaders and Staff, who have supported me so generously over the years. And most of all I would like to thank all of our guests who have been my companions on these voyages. Your enthusiasm for the strange world of the Southern Ocean and the excellent unexpected questions you ask have kept me excited and energized and made it all possible. Thank you, very much.
The Southern Ocean is true wilderness, a place of stark beauty and tangible mystery. Isolated in a regime of freezing cold for over 20 million years, it is a place of great stability where water temperature varies very little during each year; but at the same time it undergoes a dramatic change, unique in the world, as pack ice forms and breaks up over millions of square miles annually. It is the destination of migrating whales and the home of petrels, penguins and a host of strange marine creatures found nowhere else in the world. Surrounding the icy shores of Antarctica, turning in a slow clockwise gyre, flowing through the infamous Drake Passage (which is in one of its mellow moods as we pass through today), this was the last ocean to be named, the last sea to be explored. In fact, its exploration is very much an ongoing process, a process in which I have been lucky enough to play a small part.
In the past eight years I have logged 245 scuba dives in the Antarctic waters, every one of them from the National Geographic Endeavour. Over this period I have pioneered many new dive sites, become very familiar with a few places and a few common species and never lost the initial excitement and delight of exploring these frigid seas. I have met weird creatures like sea spiders and swimming crinoids and hovered over the blue abyss of the Erebus and Terror Gulf beside a vertical wall festooned with yellow sponges and huge orange anemones. I have had a few heart-pounding encounters with leopard seals and wandered slowly through the dim and silent world beneath the pack ice. It has been an incredible privilege.
Crossing the Drake is a time for contemplation, an opportunity to look back on the highlights of our expeditions, bask in the glow of marvelous memories and consider new insights. This time, as I make my final northward crossing on the National Geographic Endeavour before she moves to her new home in the Galápagos Islands, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone onboard the ship, the Captains and Officers, all the Crew and the Expedition Leaders and Staff, who have supported me so generously over the years. And most of all I would like to thank all of our guests who have been my companions on these voyages. Your enthusiasm for the strange world of the Southern Ocean and the excellent unexpected questions you ask have kept me excited and energized and made it all possible. Thank you, very much.
