The Melt

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things4 Comments

This winter we got about 120 inches (10 feet) of snow at our house.  It snowed a lot in December followed by the cold months of January and February so the snow never had a chance to melt.  It just compacted and settled in for the winter.  It covered everything in the yard with a white glittery blanket – pure simple beauty. 

Then, typical in April, it starts to melt.  In a period of a few days, the edges of the yard begin to appear, while the center of the yard remains a pile of bulletproof white stuff.  Then it gets covered in fresh snow, then it melts, fresh snow again, more melt.  Soon all the snow is ringed in mud.  Mud everywhere – so much mud that you can’t even see your car from all the mud on it.  During the day, huge icicles form off the roof and all the pavement becomes wet from the melt.  At night the icicles freeze into place and the pavement becomes a skating rink.  Then the icicles melt again, then freeze again creating lumpy icicles. 

At first glance, this seems like a dirty, sad part of the year.  But there is a lot of beauty in the melt.  Sitting outside you hear everything dripping, soft patter of moving water.  There are more birds arriving every day chirping and fluttering as they look for food and start making nests.  The sun is bright, the sky is blue.  The air feels warm in comparison to the past few months.  I enjoy knocking off all the icicles I can reach trying to avoid injury from impalement.  I love to hear them crash, shatter and skitter on the ground.  If they happen to hit snow instead of ground, they make a dull thud sound instead as they embed themselves in the snow.  Everything is shiny even the air.   Everything is moving and making soft sounds.  The patio furniture re-appeared from under the mountains of snow.  The aspen are budding.  The column of ice hanging from the gutter is starting to reveal the rain chain it formed around. 

If you look past the mud, you will see the beauty in the details of the melt.   

Swaying

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We got off the ship this morning after breakfast.  We dropped our luggage at our hotel.  Since we couldn’t check into the hotel this early in the morning, we decided to head down town and find a place to get some coffee.  Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to catch up on emails and what was going on in the world outside of Antarctica.

It was quite remarkable that we could even walk after 9 days on a ship.  I remember in the past feeling rocking motion when on land for the first time in days.  But there was none of that.  We found a coffee shop with a big booth and set up to stick our faces in our computers for hours.  About two or three hours in the booth began to sway and rock.  It was moving so much that is was actually difficult to type as I had to hold on to the table not to fall over.  I found it interesting that while standing and walking, there was no swaying, but sitting was difficult.  I wondered if half the tourists in this town were currently holding on to a table or a wall somewhere as a lot of people in Ushuaia are here to go on an Antarctica cruise, or just getting back from one and holding on to their coffee for dear life.

The swaying continued most of the day but finally calmed down a bit by the time I went to bed.  I usually have to go to the bathroom once or five times in the middle of the night.  I got up at 0-dark-30 and as soon as I was on my feet, the entire room pitched at about a 40 degree angle, the wall in front of me sloping away.  I couldn’t stand where I was as I slid uncontrollably into the wall.  I slammed into the wall with quite a bit of force before the room started to pitch in the opposite direction.  I did manage to resist the second pitch, but had a bit of difficulty making it to the bathroom and then back to bed.  I’m so glad I didn’t need to get up again until morning.  By morning, the room had settled back into being flat and was no longer moving.

Polar Plunge

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Today our morning landing is to Pendulum Cove of Deception Island.  I didn’t know there was going to be a polar plunge.  Everyone else on the ship seems to know this was going to happen.  I was wondering how I didn’t read about it or did our travel agent leave out some information?  I had brought a bathing suit since our trip went through Miami and Buenos Aries so I was prepared.  I still felt unprepared.  It would be a short landing in the morning since the point of the landing was to do the polar plunge.  This is the type of activity that has never interested me.  I have never heard “polar plunge” and thought “I want to do that” or “that sounds fun”.  Bungee jumping is the other activity that comes to mind that I just don’t get why anyone would want to do it or how it could appear fun.  They asked who was interested in doing it so they had an idea how many towels to bring and how many zodiacs to have on standby for bringing people back to the ship.  It looked like almost everyone on the ship raised their hands.  The rationalization begins.  If I do this in Antarctica, I never have to do it again.  Who can try to goad you into doing a polar plunge when you can say, “well, I did it in Antarctica and I don’t need to do it again”?  Is it actually a polar plunge if you are not near one of the poles?  Maybe it would be fun.  It can’t actually be that cold – it’s warmer in summer in Antarctica than it is in Granby in winter.  Deception Island is a volcano, if it’s low tide, the first few feet of water is warmer due to heat coming from the island.  I have a bathing suit.  I’m 50 and I’m all about experiencing what I can.  Just standing on the ship before everyone went to their rooms to change clothing was tiring. Hearing everyone talk about it, the combination of fear, excitement and bravado was palpable.  Some girls were trying feverishly to guilt each other into it.  Some of the younger men were energetically showing off their testosterone levels.  As the zodiac was getting close to the island you could see the steam coming off the water.  The weather was overcast and breezy when we arrived at the beach.  The beach and the peaks around us were all a deep black color.  There are no plants and only a patch of snow.  The clouds hang low just above us so the tops of the peaks are missing.  It was quite ominous.  Other than the breeze, it seemed quite warm to me.  This will be easy if it stays this warm.  The rocky beach was cold on the feet, but it didn’t hurt the way I’ve experienced at home when your feet hit bare ground in the winter.  Still, I had no desire to hang out in the cold water for long.  The water was almost warm when you first walked in and I wondered for a split second if we had been duped and it would be more like a hot spring visit than a polar plunge.  Then the water got much colder, not as cold as I expected, but nowhere on the scale of warm.  I’ve been in cold mountain lakes where your breath is gone because the temperature actually compresses your lungs.  I didn’t experience that here.  Once it got deep enough to dip all the way in and it was cold, I dipped in and then turned to walk very very quickly out.  It wasn’t as cold as I expected, but there was no reason to hang out and splash around.  I expected it to feel warm outside for a while after as that is usually the experience I’ve had with coming out of the water into cold air.  It felt warm long enough to get clothes back on and then it didn’t feel cold at all.  The ride back to the ship was easy, my toes and finger tips were a bit cold, but my body was not.  I think about other places I could do the polar plunge.  I could do it in Grand Lake, CO where they have to drill a hole in the ice to get to the water.  The air temperature is probably around 0 degrees F and the water barely 33 degrees.  That sounds way worse than our polar plunge in Antarctica.  Still, if anyone tries to convince me to do a polar plunge, I can truthfully say I’ve done it in Antarctica and don’t need to do another.

Antarctica Scenery

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I have always been fascinated by ice.  I remember the first time I was able to see a glacier.  I came home with hundreds of pictures.  I love how it’s sometimes clear or white or blue, and every shade of color in between.  But of course, the blue is the best.  How wonderful to float by giant icebergs of so many sizes and textures silently knowing there is even more beneath the surface that you cannot see.  Although seeing thousands of penguins and hundreds of whales might seem like the highlight of going to Antarctica, I’d have to say the icebergs and the winter wonderland scenery was actually the highlight for me.

It was so amazing see glaciers or snow fields so thick that the snow on the island appears thicker than the land mass below it.  To realize that some of that snow and ice has been there for 15 million years and that some of that land mass hasn’t seen the light of day in that long – it’s hard to fathom.  The ice, snow, wind and waves produce an innumerable amount of shapes, sizes and patterns in the snow and ice.  You never tire of looking at the next iceberg or snow field.  Even though we didn’t see any glaciers calving, we could hear them moving.  Any time you sat quiet you could hear the low random rumbles of snow and ice shifting and moving.  You’d look off in the distance and expect to see the side of the mountain drop into the sea, but we didn’t get to see that.  It was still amazing to hear the movement.  You could see evidence of the movement in the avalanche debris on almost every steep slope and the icebergs small and large floating in every bay.

Seals

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Seals are not very exciting.  Most of the seals we saw in Antarctica looked like rocks.  If I showed you all my pictures of seals, you’d wonder why I had so many pictures of rocks.  Every once in a while, one would move and everyone would start snapping pictures.  Very rarely one would flop from one place to another.  That was exciting for about a second.

One day we went to an island that had a lot of elephant seals.  They were juvenile and the males were practice fighting for a later year when they will fight, often to the death, to own the beach of female seals.  Their practice fighting was more exciting than rocks, but kind of like watching teenage boys burping.  The females were just rocks cuddling.  They lifted their head or scratched their belly sometimes.  We stayed a great distance from the males.  But this excitement waned for me after about 10 minutes.  The males are not the cute big-eyed seals either.  There’s nothing cute about the male elephant seal.  Nothing.  So, eventually we found some penguins and sat down to watch them.  Now this is excitement and entertainment.

We did see some Weddell seals and some fur seals here and there, but they were just different rocks on a different island.  If you didn’t like this blog, tough, go back one blog and look at penguins again.  That’ll fix you right up.

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Whales

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We saw a lot of whales in Antarctica.  Most of the whales we saw were humpback whales.  We saw one minke whale, but I wouldn’t have known what type it was if one of the guides hadn’t told us.  It was just a smaller fin coming out of the water.  I was hoping to see some orca whales, but that was not to be.  The humpback whales were everywhere.  Just when you got excited and saw one, then you’d notice that there were 5 to 10 more nearby.  You could see them off in the distance almost anytime you looked out.  One day we even took a zodiac ride to watch them at a closer distance.  Even though there were so many, it was surprisingly difficult to get a picture of one, but out of the 40 or 50 photos I took of whales, I managed to get one that actually looks like a whale.  I did a little better on the video.  I’m not sure I ever need to pay for a whale watching tour.  I’m not sure this can ever be topped.

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Penguins

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Who doesn’t love penguins?  What is it that we love about them?  They are so cute.  Is it because they are clumsy and awkward?  They are a hunting machine in the water.  They swim so fast that’s it’s hard to follow them.  They dart back and forth and jump out of the water like dolphins.  They are so graceful.  Their bodies are perfectly adapted to swimming.  Then they pop out of the water and hit the land and it’s a totally different bird.  Their little legs aren’t quite meant for walking so they waddle around.  They hold their flippers out, probably for balance which makes them look even sillier.  This doesn’t seem to help a lot with their balance as they still seem to fall over or face plant a lot.  They aren’t walking on flat ground either.  Some penguins build their nests high up in the rocks and getting up and back from there would be tough for a human, but they hop, scoot, waddle and fall down getting there.  After watching them for several days, I’m convinced they are confused most of the time.  Remember that feeling when you walk into a room and stop, cock you head to the side and ask “why did I come in here?”  I think a lot of penguins are in a constant state of “what was I just doing?”, “how did I get here?” or “where was I going?”  I would watch them waddle along, stop and look around and then head back the way they just came from – over and over.  The penguins you see in the zoo or in pictures are all black and white and shiny.  What no one tells you is that most of the time penguins are dirty, covered in their own filth.  Only the penguins running around in snow or just coming out of the water were black and white.  The others were black and pink and not a pretty, girly shade of pink. As you can imagine, there’s a certain smell the goes along with these pink penguins.  As we would approach an island from the zodiacs, you’d think “mmmm smells like penguins”.  Penguins are loud, but as you can tell from my videos below, not as loud as us humans.  We saw a few babies, but none up close.  They weren’t old enough to stray far from the nests yet.  You needed binoculars to see them, but they sure were adorable little fluff balls running around the nest in random spurts of frantic energy.  They were testing their legs and flapping their flippers, probably building up the muscle strength for future swimming. On the last day we sat in front of a bunch of nests for about and hour and watched the penguin show.  I could have watched for hours more. The adult penguins that were wandering around had no care in the world that we were there.  They would waddle within inches of you if you weren’t paying attention to what was behind or beside you.  What a wonderful experience to be able to see them in their natural habitat where none of them were afraid of us because we are not predators.  I really hope it stays that way.

 

I took a lot more videos than pictures – enjoy!

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China

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We stopped at the Great Wall Research Station on King George Island.  About half the ship is Chinese so they were quite excited about the landing. Yesterday we were not sure if we would have permission to land there.  This morning we found out we had permission from the Chinese government, but the actual station had not granted permission yet.  Minutes before getting there, we got permission.  I don’t think there are any attractive research stations anywhere in Antarctica.  So, for me, this didn’t sound like fun.  Still, I went.  We got there and got briefed that we could go to the building with the museum in it.  There was a big bell and a piece of the Great Wall.  We could go look at those.  We could take pictures of certain things, but couldn’t take pictures of 99% of the station.  We couldn’t take pictures of any people at the station.  We couldn’t touch anything.  No other flag could be displayed except the Chinese flag.  What?  Who brings flags to display with them when they travel?  It took about 15 minutes to see everything we were allowed to see and take a couple photos.  We had an hour to spend there.  Then, out of nowhere, almost every Chinese tourist has a Chinese flag in their hand and several had flag stickers on their cheeks.  Ok, I stand corrected.  I might not travel with a flag to display, but Chinese do.  They were so excited and so proud.  They took pictures with their flags in front of everything.  They took pictures with their family.  They took pictures with their friends.  They took selfies.  They probably sent their pictures home to their friends instantly.  So much pride.  So much “look at me”.  So much joy for their nationality.  Even if we had gone to a US station, I don’t think I would have felt that much pride or have gotten that excited about it – especially if the US station was as unwelcoming as the China station was.  I would have been there without my flag, but would have taken some photos.  I think the tour would have been way more interesting if we could see the labs or see how people live and eat.  It would have been interesting to hear about the research being done or get a glimpse of what it’s like to live there. That would have been more interesting than a bell and a piece of the Wall.

 

It was interesting to see the excitement of the Chinese, their exitement of being there and the pride they have in their country.  They didn’t seem to see the control and secrecy.  They didn’t seem to see the unwelcoming attitude.  It’s difficult to see how they can be so proud of a country that controls them so much.  We were taught as children to value freedom and individuality.  And the lack of theirs seems so obvious to us.  Still their country provides jobs and heat and so much more.  They are taught loyalty and pride in their country.  How do we know one is better than the other?  We live in a country that is torn with so much hate and violence.  Their country won’t allow social media such as facebook and Instagram.  We look at that as a horrible offence to our freedom.  But, are they free of a generation that is addicted to social media?  I don’t know.  We have a generation that never learned to connect on a human to human level.  Is that better than a lack of freedom?  Or do they have the same issue of addiction on a different level?  Overall, I don’t think it’s an issue of better or worse so much as it’s an issue of familiarity.  What you were taught as a child, what you are familiar with is what you feel is better.  They travel a lot, but still seem to not be aware of other cultures and don’t seem to change.  I think when we travel, we get a new insight to the world around us.  I try to be considerate of the culture I am traveling to.  This doesn’t appear to happen with Chinese.  Maybe it is and I don’t see it.  And obviously some Americans travel and don’t learn awareness of other cultures or Americans might not have the reputation we have in other countries.  But for me, travel has been an exciting learning in culture, food, religion and beauty.

Catastrophic Molting

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On the way to Antarctica, we had a few talks about the different animals and birds we would see.  When talking about seals they talked about the period of time when the seals do catastrophic molting.  What?  That’s even a phrase, catastrophic molting?  We didn’t see any seals that were doing catastrophic molting.  I didn’t see very many seals that looked like anything other than large rocks.  Apparently penguins also do catastrophic molting also.  We didn’t see any of those either.  So, I did a google search on catastrophic molting and here is what I learned: https://sites.google.com/site/elephantsealnotes/events-on-land/molting

First Iceberg

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Our crossing of the Drake Passage was pretty mild although a few people on the ship had trouble with motion sickness.  They gave out motion sickness medication for free.  We are now done with the rough water and the ride is much smoother.  We are told that we are coming into the South Shetland Islands and should start seeing ocean birds, whales and land.  I meet quite a few people I haven’t seen before – they were hiding out in their rooms with motion sickness.  Most people are out on the decks looking for the first signs of Antarctica.  I’ve spent many hours on the boat now eating and napping.  I have a cold so there is not much energy for anything else.  The cold brisk air feels so good to my sinuses. There are smallish white birds doing laps around the ship.  They fly in a pack of 4 or 6 and come in from the starboard side, fly around in front of us in formation and then fly off to the port side.  There are other large birds that fly by from time to time, petrels and albatross, checking out the ship.  Then we see what looks like jumping fish.  When we get a little closer, you realize it’s not jumping fish, but penguins.  They are fast, graceful swimmers.  They jump like tiny dolphin.  They look so much smaller than I expected.  We started seeing whales too, mostly humpback whales.  The first few were exciting and you tried to get a photo or video of them, but my camera was never quite in sync with the whales.  Just when you thought, darn, I missed it, there was another.  If you looked off in the distance you saw 6-10 more.  So many whales and penguins.  I stopped trying to photograph them (it’ll just look like a dark spot on a picture) and just enjoyed watching life jump in and out of the ocean waves.  I enjoyed watching the white birds circle the ship.  Then someone said they saw the first iceberg.  I looked off in the distance where they pointed.  All I see is a random white wave every now and then.  Then I look at the actual horizon line.  It is a fuzzy white line out in the distance.  I notice that there was one spot where the white line looked like a jagged tooth sticking up sharply instead of being a bit fuzzy.  It was very white.  First iceberg!  It looked hours away so I turned my attention back to birds and whales.  About 20 minutes later I can see the iceberg.  It feels official that we are in Antarctica now.  A little bit later I could see dark shapes on the horizon.  That seemed odd.  I don’t think they are dirty icebergs.  Oh, duh, land.  There was mist around the land forms.  It was overcast above them.  It appeared that the land was being born from the mist.  Dark shapes would appear out of the mist and then become more detailed as we got closer.  Soon islands came into view.  We have arrived to the South Shetland Islands.

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