ANTARCTIC PEACE

Have you ever had the feeling, for a moment or for longer, that you are where you are meant to be and all that exists is what you are experiencing at that very moment? Just four days ago I experienced that feeling. Down here, in Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, for about an hour. I experienced a profound contentment and wonderment regarding myself and my place within this incredible  landscape. The experience was at once a feeling of just how insignificant I am in the seas surrounding the Great White Continent. Yet at the same time I felt very much at ease as if I had become an integral  part of this frozen place. 

There were ten of us, plus driver, in the zodiak. We had heard that there might be whales about a mile from the ship so off we went. On our way out to our little piece of ocean we passed very close to an exquisite iceberg where a leopard seal was cavorting in the water. He was very curious and kept bobbing up to peer at us and giving us a wonderful view of his big eyes and dog-like snout  When we arrived in the chosen area our driver, Hadley, turned off the motor and we silently sat and watched. There we were bobbing gently on the sea surrounded on all sides by snow and glacier covered mountains and islands, with enormous sculpted icebergs in the distance. The only sounds were water lapping at the sides of the zodiak, the occasional crack of a glacier calving, and the awesome and eerie wind that zipped around and between the stark mountains. As if by common agreement no one spoke. We just watched and listened. At times we could see a flock of penguins, all in line like little soldiers, porpoise diving in and out of the water. Sea birds flew past us. And in the far distance bobbed the head of a sleeping elephant seal.. 

Then a sudden and very loud "WHOOSH" caterpaulted us out of our reverie. The sound was immediately followed by the sight of an enormous dark grey humpback whale rising up out of the water, diving again, and then swimming under our boat where we could see it just below water level. Had the whale been a few feet closer we would have been able to reach out and touch it. We felt no fear, just wonderment as we watched this enormous mammal continue to surface and dive around us. 

What a privilege it was to be in such a place and observe its beauty and the wild creatures on their terms rather than our own. That moment, and that piece of frozen heaven, are imprinted in my memory as the highlight of this Antarctic adventure.