Crossing 66˚

Iceberg just north of the Antarctic Circle

Day 31; February 22, 2009; Southern Ocean, Antarctic Circle
Average Daily Temperature: 33.88˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 10.82 mph
Feels Like: 17.65˚ F

One doesn’t forget the first glimpse of an albatross. With wingspans up to ten feet, they are stunning in flight—ever graceful in the thick ocean wind. Albatross are known for their gliding, and hardly need flap their wings. By using the updraft of the wind off the ocean’s surface and the shape of their long elegant wings they can glide endlessly. I was quite fortunate to see five species today: the majestic wandering albatross, the sooty albatross, the light-mantled sooty albatross, the black-browed albatross and the grey-hooded albatross.

Sitting on up on the monkey deck with birder Dennis Weir, I learned a great many things about the albatross, as well as the many other birds that were emerging as we traversed the latitudes northward. It is quite amazing, these birds that live out here in the middle of the ocean, with only the restless sea to land on! Albatross can go periods of years wandering the sea before returning to the South Atlantic islands where they were born in order to mate.

Several times through the day we also saw Humpback Whales, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in pods, and often near the lone icebergs that still persisted along the horizon. I was thrilled to witness one in the distance leap completely out of the water, and caught glimpses of others waving their fins or tails above the water. These graceful marine mammals had migrated here with their young for the austral summer.

Although we are now far from their origin, the ice shelf, the icebergs endure the distance. The gray and misty day displayed their ghost-like silhouettes along the horizon. Their forms emerged and dissipated as if memories, yet in their fortitude they persevered despite the warming waters that now surround them. I cannot help but wonder at the their fate, and at the fate of Antarctica itself, as well as the Arctic, as ocean waters in general continue to increase in temperature and as Earth’s climate changes. How can we reconcile the loss of these lands and their unique phenomena? How can we bear their possible extinction by what may be our own hand? Can we make the changes necessary to save these environments, these pieces of our natural heritage?

Just after noon, we crossed latitude 66 degrees and 29 minutes, and I left the Antarctic Circle behind. I have spent 26 days in Antarctica, 22 on the continent and four in the Antarctic Ocean. I have been opened to a world that I will not soon relinquish to memory, wanting to carry this experience afresh with me in every moment until I go back. This journey has strengthened my intent with my project, and impassioned me with the courage to accomplish it.

For previous posts and more information about The Polar Project visit http://www.thepolarproject.com/blog/

Frozen Sea

Pancake ice forming on the surface of the ocean

Day 30; February 21, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 24.53˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 14.77 mph
Feels Like: 2.38˚ F

This morning I awoke to find that the sea had literally begun to freeze. All around the ship, and as far as I could see, the surface of the ocean was covered in small discs of solid ice. Though the equinox is still a month away, which definitively marks the change of seasons, one can already see the signs of the quickly approaching winter.

Watching the Southern Ocean freeze before my eyes was an awesome sight—completely profound, if not seemingly impossible.

Pancake Ice

The discs of ice that had appeared overnight are called “pancake ice,” and they are formed in a most remarkable way. As the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop to the point of freezing, the surface water, which has less salinity, will begin to freeze first. However, as the ocean is never still, when the ice begins to form it knocks about gently on the surface waves, bumping into other forming bits of ice. The persistence of the motion means the ice plates are always colliding into one another, eroding each other’s edges which results in their round shape.

The last flights from SANAE arrived before lunch, and with everyone on board, the ship embarked on the long voyage north. As we moved away from the ice shelf, and the continent of Antarctica, the boat made its way through the newly frozen surface of the calm ocean, marking our path behind us. The petrels were darting around the ship, following our northerly tack. Icebergs towered, ever luminous, in all directions.

The panorama held my vision in earnest for the next six hours. The sunlight, which disappeared occasionally behind light cloud cover, was creating the seascape anew minute by minute. Literally, I could photograph the same direction three times within a short period, and the color of the ocean would be a gloomy gray in one, a radiant gold in another, and an icy deep blue in the third. Impossibly striking scenes passed before our eyes, every direction a new opportunity to gasp. I have over 800 photographs from this day, and have found it an entirely hopeless effort to try to edit them—each one holds a unique beauty, leaving me quite confounded as to how claim one superior to another.

Before long, the pack ice, which is the ice left over from the previous winter’s freeze, was scattered across the horizon, forming a theatrical stage upon which the light continued to play. Every moment was a magnum opus. Large flat pieces of ice in the shapes of squares or triangles became like monochromatic light sculptures. Jagged pieces, which sliced upward into the sky or downward into the sea, were like truculent brushstrokes upon the foreground. As I watched the landscape before me, I esteem more deeply the paintings I had seen at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts the day before I left on this journey—a wonderfully curated exhibition of historic paintings of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

These artists, some of the first to see Antarctica, let alone paint it, had sought to represent the landscape with an air of emotionality—they attempted to reproduce nature accurately, but ever imbued with the human effort and adventure that led them to be there. I remember, as I looked into those paintings, wondering if they were a bit sensational in their approach, but now I believe that not to be the case at all. They are sensational, yes, but insofar as they accurately portray the real and persistent drama of the nature itself. Those paintings are more impressive to me now, having seen this place with my own eyes—I couldn’t have known beforehand the land those paintings yearned after. Now, I know.

I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of penguins amongst the pack ice several times throughout the day. On one large flow, there were four Adélie penguins and one Emperor penguin, which allowed a clear view of the size difference. Scurrying along the ice, sometimes standing upright looking directly at you, and then suddenly dropping on to their bellies and sliding around on the ice, they seem somehow comical and noble at the same time. I also spotted a small pod of Minke Whales in the distance, their dark fins emerging elegantly from the water as they surfaced for air.

At dusk, light continued in vain to pursue the expanding darkness. Several times the vista before me would be entirely a dark grayish blue, save for a single iceberg in the distance, which would be fully illuminated in the warm brilliance of the remaining sunlight. Perfectly horizontal lines of light would appear and disappear in seconds. The day, indeed a masterpiece in color and light, finally dissolved into night with the sun setting on the last remaining pack ice before we reached the open ocean. Behind me, Antarctica would still be illuminated, but in my growing distance, I could no longer see it.
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For previous posts and more information about The Polar Project visit http://www.thepolarproject.com/blog/

At Sea

February 19 - March 5, 2009; Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica to Cape Town, South Africa

    

Erika, on the Ice, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

From today until March 5, I will be traveling from Antarctica to South Africa aboard the South African National Antarctic Program’s Research Vessel, the SA Agulhas. I will not have internet access while on the ship, and so my blog posts from this last week at SANAE Base and the ones I will write while on the Agulhas will not be posted until I get to Cape Town. I look forward to sharing this final leg of my journey with you then.

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For previous posts and more information about The Polar Project visit http://www.thepolarproject.com/blog/

Co-sponsored by the Essex County Ornithological Club. The E.C.O.C. meeting will be held from 7:30–7:45 pm, Phillips Library Auditorium

Keep up-to-date on what else Lucia deLeiris is involved in check out her blog at http://deleiris.blogspot.com/

Barne Glacier by Lucia deLeiris (Artist featured in Polar Attractions)

Visitors to Polar Attractions are invited to draw their own penguin.  To get the feel of sketching a penguin in Antarctica, visitors can try sketching wearing a mitten. Drawing instructions and an Adelie penguin mount provide inspiration and reference. Here are a few great examples of visitor sketches.  Check back often as images will be updated. 

Lita Albuquerque is an internationally renowned environmental artist, painter and sculptor whose visual language reduces vast time and space to a human scale. In 2006, she received an Artist and Writers Program Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Stellar Axis: Antarctica, which brought the stars to earth. Albuquerque placed 99 ultramarine spheres on the Antarctic ice, mirroring a map of the stars computed by NSF astronomer Simon P. Balm, professor of astronomy at Santa Monica College. Dr. Balm joins Ms. Albuquerque for a conversation about this project.
Jane Winchell, curator of the interactive Polar Attractions exhibition, moderates the discussion. For more information about Albuquerque’s work, visit www.stellaraxis.com.
This program is held during the closing weekend of To the Ends of the Earth, Painting the Polar Landscape. Be sure to visit the galleries before or after the presentation.

Made possible in part by the Lyceum Lecture Fund

Saturday, February 28th, 2009 3-4:30 pm (Snow date is March 1)

Almost Winter, by Cory Trepanier. Oil on linen

View video #24

Aurora Borealis #17, by Ellen Hardy.  

Aurora Borealis #18, by Ellen Hardy.  

I Saw Bylot Island, by Heidi Burkhardt

“I prefer painting on location, I like to feel the wind, smell the air, hear the rush of water, birds, echoes… I am not a studio painter. Only sometimes do I paint very large interpretations of a smaller work indoors to be practical.”- Heidi Burkhardt  

http://www.heidiburkhardt.com

Landscape with Lichen Antarctica (study), by Lisa Goren   

“Seeing this landscape made me rethink how we perceive water and ice which have so many manifestations that are beautiful and ever changing.  In Antarctica, dirt and snow algae can create amazing effects in what might be assumed to be a totally white landscape and icebergs are so dense that the only light waves which pass through are what I call a ‘Caribbean’ blue.”- Lisa Goren