by
Susan Ellis
For over 24 hours we sailed east across the Southern Ocean from the South Shetlands to the South Orkney Islands. This group of islands was discovered by sealers, the American Palmer and the British Powell, in 1821. In 1823 Weddell arrived and made a crude map of the area. The afternoon of 4th March 2008 was one spent, dare I use the words - in rapture? I know what I mean when I use the word but I think it has been hijacked by religion. I saw it as an "expression or manifestation of ecstasy or passion -a state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion. This was not about second comings - my second coming had been to Elephant Island the day before. This was about intense "now" moments. I have described the intensity of light and experience which I absorbed while at Elephant Island. The blue skies produced a similar light this day but the experience was different. The iced wind dug into the skin of my face, my eyes constantly tearing, even the inside of my sun glasses fogged up. The deep blue ocean was white capped with the spray being tossed backwards over the curving waves by the wind. Albatross and petrels skimmed the wave troughs with gliding wings.

The M/V Polar Star wove a path through confrontational icebergs. Mountains of ice which made us seem so small and insignificant by comparison. Tabular icebergs are the remains of ice shelves broken from land and sailing free. They are moved by the wind and currents; they are battered and shaped by the elements. This day waves beat on them the spray glistening on their massive flanks. It is the blue of icebergs that is unforgettable.

The huge icebergs were on the move. Each showed its unique history through its colour and shape, angulations or smoothness. Sometimes the ship sliced through an area of brash, representing the end stages of a berg or that ground up from contact with the ocean floor or ice from a calving glacier. Growlers are about 3 ft long, bergy bits may be 10 ft long. Then come the small medium and large icebergs, some miles in length. We did not see those, but all the others in various stages of dissolve. All new icebergs are named and their journey charted.

A run in with any one of these passing monsters would have sent our small ship to the ocean floor. Maybe that was the awe inspiring nature of the experience. I trusted the crew to navigate us through this liquid jungle where we were the intruder. The giants were only exposing to us a tenth of their physical form. Awe, fear, wonder, excitement and yes reverence. Now where did that come from? Not the rapture I hope. What was that feeling? Perhaps I was not really feeling the voyage of an intruder. Perhaps I understood that I was confronting my world. Not mine in the possessive physical sense, but mine in belonging to the whole. I was moving a little further beyond what I had created in my DVD Antarctica-A Soul Journey - "awakening." In that DVD created following my first trip to Antarctica I had written

"What I experience now is that my essence is radiating out and I am being refilled by what is out there.  There is no boundary defining me and that ice berg. There is no longer any out there, in here. Let’s face it I am breathing in air. Air that was released by that iceberg as it melts. Air which was trapped 1 million, 2 million years ago. And that same air has come into my body has moved from my lungs into my blood. I ‘m awed receiving that ice berg into me. I feel that we are all one. Every part of me is a part of everything else."

Here I was, two years later, different location but similar sight and I am moving deeper into that awareness of unity - the interconnectedness of all things, the cause and effect of all things. I felt it all within my cells.

As we approached each iceberg we await a new experience. With anticipation we searched the surface for evidence of life. Penguins. For me it was a surreal encounter with the world.

Gradually behind the icebergs the contours of mountains came into view. Katabatic winds raced down their frozen slopes and gusted around us. First there was Coronation Island and finally Laurie Island where we dropped anchor in Scotia Bay. The South Orkneys are short on welcoming beaches presenting instead steep cliffs, glaciers and mountains to the visitor. But here at the Argentinean Orcadas research station there was a strip of pebbled beach, with water on both sides, stretching between two mountains. The water around the islands would be frozen from late April to November.

The light was fading as we landed, greeted by penguins and noisy boisterous fur seals. The young Argentineans entertained us with sweet coffee. How quick they were to try out their English “where you from?” on the younger females in our group. 15 researchers were there year round each on a two year mission. They happily sold us tourist caps and pens and we took a tour. A line of graves and memorials facing north lined the beach, a reminder that this can be a savage environment. There was an interesting small museum displaying the history of the research at the base. Also to be seen, the remains of the Ormond House, the residence of the very first researchers.

A Scottish oceanographer, William Spiers Bruce led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition in 1903 with the intention of doing hydrographic studies of the Weddell Sea and over the winter study wildlife in the South Orkneys. He was a man who shunned publicity and quietly went about his task while believing the hoopla around Scott’s expedition to the South Pole (1901-1904) was sensationalizing science.

Bruce’s ship was the Scotia and she sailed as far south as 70° 25’ S and on 4th February came to Laurie Island. Three days later the sea was frozen. I stood on the shore and looked out at the M/V Polar Star. It was, after all, 4th March. No, the sea was not going to freeze around me that day. The Bruce Expedition built a stone hut on the beach measuring 18 square feet designed by the architect RT Ormond for whom it was named.

After studying the wildlife and geology of the island and surrounding waters they left for Buenos Aries and transferred ownership of the meteorological station to the Argentinean Government. The Argentineans have manned the base ever since changing its name to Orcadas in 1951. It is the oldest research station continuously staffed in the Antarctic.



One of the officers at the base took a photo of me in my full Antarctic gear. It was an autumnal evening and I knew I was returning to a warm ship. We waved goodbye. Maybe we were the last visitors before the ice crept around them. They therefore were probably very grateful for the gifts of fresh fruit and vegetables we left.  

Our ship headed out into open water to begin a journey which would last 2 and a half days before we would make land fall again.