IVA Paradise Harbour
Our tall ship Europa ghosts down the Errera Channel beneath piebald peaks in a blare of morning light, sails furled, steaming slow ahead. We voyage along the Antarctic Peninsula, almost to 65 degrees South latitude now. Rounding a bend in the narrow channel we come upon two adult minke whales – pleasant neighbors in this bleak vastness.
Sfx – Reinoud “In Dutch- intercom report of minke whales.” Conny – “…about the minkes in Dutch-” “Minkes?” ”Yea.”
The tall ship whalers plied the planet for the riches of whales: ambergris, baleen, blubber and oil – no sea was safe – and the ferocious hunt continues. Recently, a fisheries spokesperson defended Japan’s annual catch of 500 whales, stating that he believes these minke whales to be, quote, “a cockroach in the oceans.” Sfx Seabirds-gulls
Sfx –whales blow and ambient sea from deck …
The animals’ lungs, like bellows, move roomfuls of air with every breath. Their blow suspends misted clots above the mirrored sea. In a practice known as spy-hopping, they raise their heads to better view us, their dark eyes devoid of blame. Periodically they disappear, leaving in their place only a rippling blank of water, a metaphor of their likely fate should we, as humans, continue to find them unworthy of reprieve.
We glide past the clutch of orange huts that is a windswept the Argentinean station Almirante Brown. The station was set afire in 1984 by the base leader who was demonstrating his opinion of spending yet another winter south. Paradise Harbor was named by the whaler’s for the dramatic beauty of the ice-veined massifs that plunge into this protected bay. Tabular ice the size of city blocks cant away from the glacier’s translucent sky blue face. The deep stir of currents move vagrant icebergs slowly around the bowl of the bay.
We anchor and, wanting no surprises in the night, Reinoud and I launch a boat to sound
the shallow rock ledge that, we know from the chart, lies somewhere close to the ship.
#5 @ 10;00 motoring ahead 10:03 “We’ve got ground here.” “Wow.” Good ice / 10:40 Leadline splash / Todd “Oh yea we’re about four meters.” “Four?” “Yeah.” / Todd “ How far are we from the rock now about forty meters?”
Reinoud think’s in meters, I think in feet, the line is in fathoms and our combined memory of the markings, where existent, is foggy, at best. We decide to call back to the ship in meters…
#5 @“Dwi mater!”(aloud) 28;43 “Vier mater!” ”Five mater” “Six.”29;33 “Ten.” “OK, we’re coming back.” Singing “A little moonlight boat ride again?” bag scrunching>> 31;10 R- “Just another day in the office.” Engine off “Quality time.” “Glispering…?”
We enjoy a moment of solitude and then gather bits of the crystalline, effervescent ice for the evening’s party.
Sfx – Decidedly drunk crew singing – #10 track 14/15
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IV B LeMaire and Peltier
With the earliest morning light the anchored Europa finds itself in the path of an incoming iceberg. The watch wakens the crew just in time to hear the ice hit the ship and push us off our anchorage. Sfx – single ice hit. (Isolate from other actualities) Ice “glispering.”
With the strengthening dawn, the snow and ice flush with the deepest hues of lavender and blue. Striated filaments of cirrus clouds blaze pink then orange in the day’s first rays, like neon cake frosting, furrowed with a rake. A sparkling day, we squint into the deep azure sky, reaching for sunscreen; the sky is stripped of its protective ozone.
We head for open water – such as it is, entering the spectacular Lemaire Channel. Nicknamed the “Kodak Gap,” the sea here cleaves a steep gorge steepled with dark stone. These spires are topped with snowcaps; colossal dollops like frozen meringue, twisted, and curled in the prevailing winds. Each wall leans back as if in solemn appraisal of the opposite’s bulk; corniced white brows wait to cataract into the languid waters below. Klaas must decide the best line to steer through this mosaic of hazards.
Sfx – Ice hits, thumps, scraping, etc.
Below decks the grinding thuds on Europa’s hull seem quite ominous, as though the ice comes to taste her metal. One feels the hull shiver, as though trembling, as the ice probes her belly for a soft spot. To every tall ship belongs a singular personality – as with people – a blending of talents and imperfections. The amateur’s attraction to a tall ship is a kind of infatuation, but to a sailor it is a pact of mutual survival based on trust and founded in sweat.
Sfx – Ice thumps, scraping, etc.
Sir Ernest Shackleton knew this as he was set onto the icepack from the deck of his sinking ship. Listening to the lingering death of his cherished Endurance in the strangle of the ice he mourned, “…straining and groaning, her timbers cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient life at the very outset of her career.” She was to be the only member of Shackleton’s party to be lost in the entire two-year Antarctic ordeal.
What must the polar winter be like, a sunless season at this far, bottom of the planet, without even the solace of a turning day to count the passing time? Waiting out the dark. Waiting for the warmth. Awaiting the sunken sun to surface and light the world… the faces of companions… one’s own hands. Adrift on a continent of ice, Shackleton spoke reverently of the period when the “friendly moon“ climbed above the horizon.
The wind has come up; it is quite cold on deck. But with so much beauty rampant at our fingertips no one retreats to the warmth of the deckhouse until the grand Lemaire is left far behind.
(3:44 read only)
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IV C Vernadsky Base
We are coasting, southward still, in the kind of day in which Antarctica specializes. The sea reflects a white sky around the scatters of ragged island mounts and jags of gleaming icebergs – a chrome soup of obsidian shards and broken teeth. In its summer snow the rumpled Antarctic coast gleams like a hospital coat. Europa’s radio crackles with a warm invitation from Vernadsky Base, a Ukrainian research station that huddles beside the bay on Galindez Island, still miles away.
Base- “ Uh, good evening , good evening, Eef. Is Gynady Miranirsky, here. Over”
Eef – ““Dobray vyetcher.”
Base- “Dobray vyetcher. Maybe you remember me, I‘ve been this station five years ago as base commander Vernadsky and I remember you only you were in Vernadsky in 1997. Over.”
Vernadsky Base – a gift to the Ukrainians in 1996 – once belonged to the British Antarctic Survey. A dozen or so men live here – a year at a time – isolated with new experiments and aging letters from home. Their one supply ship is the ship on which they arrive. Our visit coincides with the changeover; one group is now arriving, one group saying goodbye.
We make the short boat trip ashore and once inside the station scatter on do-it-yourself tours. I come upon the medical clinic, and meet, Rusalav, the doctor. Proud and earnest, he immediately begins my tour of his facility.
#7 – Track 10 – Rusalav “…measure blood pressure… pressure. uh, laser massage, laser massage. Dentist apparatcha. Dentist. Uuh, fill a tooth, fill a tooth. Uuh, pull a tooth, pull a tooth. Bandage material, bandage material. Uh, tabletas, tabletas. Tabletas. Injections. Injections. Electrocardiography. Electrocardiography. (Unintelligible x 2)
Todd – “ This is for massage?”
Rusalav -“Da”
Todd – “Oh like in the picture, it’s on his head actually.”
Rusalav– “Apparatcha…”
The station’s sole doctor, Rusalav is in a peculiar position. If one is, say, the only taxman in town and needs to audit one’s self, that’s one thing… but a doctor? This is something else entirely. Some years ago a Russian doctor had to remove his own appendix.
Beside the clinic is the ‘comm shack’ and radioman Paul Budanov stands ready to pass the daily weather codes to the British collection center at Rothera station. We have arrived in time for this Antarctic social hour between Rothera, some three hundred kilometers south on Adelaide Island, and the American Palmer Station, virtually next door at only sixty kilometers north. Paul waits politely…
Rothera- “Eh, I’ve got a little bottle of wine, um, a nice bottle of Bin 222, it’s 13 and a half percent and it’s a quality, a quality beverage, over.” American- “You’re going to get a quality buzz off it too, okay? Good night guys, we’re clear, this is Palmer Station. Clear.”
Rothera – “And Rothera clear with Palmer, good night. Break, break, Vernadsky , Vernadsky – Rothera, Rothera, 406X” (clips)
Paul-“ Yea, Rothera, Vernadsky (unintelligible)
Rothera- “Yea. Hi there, Paul. How are you doing?”
Paul “ Oh, yea, not doing bad and a lot of tourists has visited us here. Almost thirty persons and I have to be fast and after that to be upstairs and check a couple of drops of Ukrainian vodka, okay?” (3:43)
Rothera- “Roger, yes, plenty of Ukrainian vodka and we’ll be quick. Pass your numbers over.”
Paul- “Okay, I will be fast. The midnight XXX from Vernadsy… (passing weather codes of Vernadsky from 3:58 to 4:30)
Those who sail in these waters know about Vernadsky vodka – its reputation precedes it. The proper name is ‘gorilka’ – named from the verb gorit, ”to burn” – and in it are steeped finger-fat red peppers to bring out a fiery heat to fight the fearsome cold.
Paul – “That’s all, have a copy over.” Rothera – “Yea, roger, thanks for that and that’s all copied and I’ll go back to my wine and you’ll go back to your vodka. Over?” Laughs. Paul- “Okay so have an enjoyable evening with your wine. Bye-bye.” Rothera- “Yea, likewise have an enjoyable evening with your vodka. This is Rothera again, clear.” Paul– “So have a good night, bye-bye. (then to us ) ”So that’s all, come upstairs.” Laughs. Backgrnd voices.
At the top of the stairs Paul shows us the first floor door used in winter to exit atop the winter snowpack; we are two and one half meters above the ground.
Sfx – #8 Track 4 –Very upbeat Ukrainian music – ends with pool table break and “ooOOHh!”
Paul takes us to the bar, built by the British station many years ago when they were meant to be doing something else. There is a corner bar, a low table and sofa, people playing pool. We are introduced to gorilka and though it is made from sixteen hundred year old ice cap water, it is every bit as hot and strong as were led to believe.
Todd –…Glasses clink… “Nostrovia” Paul – “So, ah, no, nostrovia is usually for Russians and for Ukranians this will be ‘Boudumua’.” Todd – “Boudumua.” Paul – Glasses Clink… “Boudumua.”
Everyone knows this gorilka is a quality product of Antarctica – distilled here on the base. Even so, answers to questions regarding its local origins are polite but decidedly vague – the new commander has just arrived. All other topics are open. Of the last year Stanislaw’s best memory is the Mid-Winter’s Day swim at the edge of the icepack. Igor’s worst time was running out of tobacco and smoking tea. Eventually the conversation turns serious; these scientists are quite worried about the depleted ozone and the warming sea and air.
Slavik Skrypnik is a meteorologist who also runs the makeshift gift shop. His parents met in Antarctica in the nineteen-fifties on a whaling factory ship.
Slavic – “It is very old history. My father and mother met one another in Antarctica in a whaling ship. They were whalers and they met one another maybe in 1951… in 1952… met one another. And that’s why I am here I like this place. It may be in my blood, in a (xxxxx?), I don’t know. I’m happy because I am second time here. Yes.”
The incoming station commander, Anotoly Vassa, introduces me to Victor Omel’chenko, whose grandfather, Anton Omel’chnko, served as a pony wrangler with Robert Falcon Scott on his fatal Antarctic expedition.
Anotoly –“ Yes, His grandfather was in expedition of Scott to the South Pole. He was a jockey… jockey?… in Vladivosstock. And he was horseman in expedition of Scott in 1910, 1912. Anotoly – “He was… he don’t die with Scott and, uh, arrive to the Ukraine and live…”
Out in the sharp night beneath the pinwheel of bright stars some of our Ukrainian friends prepare to fire rescue rockets, as much in celebration of their nearing departure as of our brief visit. Others – perhaps more sober, perhaps less – talk of returning some day or wax nostalgic for this place they have not yet left.
Sfx – Rockets firing into the night w/ambient outside station sounds and covnversation.
Ukrainians – “I think these islands must give for whole people only peace without wars between nations, between countries.” “Yea that’s right, that’s good. Very peaceful” “ Antarctica is a very special continent.” “ I think if whole people must come here then go home…it will be ok. No any problems.”
Astronauts express the same sort of sentiment. From the dizzying altitude of a spacecraft or the dark depths of an isolated polar winter many of mankind’s differences, as if viewed from the wrong end of the binoculars, must seem decidedly trivial.
Some eighteen nations hold bases on Antarctica, ostensibly for research, but some, despite what they say, are also here to maintain political presence for political purposes and territorial claims. But the roots that will eventually bind this land to the rest of the human world spring not from sovereignty but from the family trees of people like Victor and Slavic; roots that lay in this land that guards no border, that prints no passports; where no bands play its anthem. Sfx – Ior the barman singing a vodka toasting song
