Magic in Antarctica
By:  Phil

Everything about exploring the Antarctic Peninsula was more vivid than I had expected, and it stays more sharply in the mind’s eye. I imagined a bleak and monotonous landscape of ice and crevasses raked by horizontal blizzards - and, no doubt, in the remote interior of the vast continent that is what it is often like. But what I actually discovered was a wonderland of broad bays and jagged inlets, high cliffs and snow slopes and blue water starred with ice. The sun shone on the towering icebergs, and the cold was of the rosy-cheeks, hearty-appetite kind, never miserable or threatening. 

In this benign atmosphere it was a joy to explore the beaches and the snowy hills - but the best adventure of all, for me, was to venture out on the polar sea in a kayak. Peregrine Mariner’s guide led us away from the mother-fleet of Zodiacs in a little convoy of one- and two-man boats. These sea kayaks are more stable in the water than the fibreglass shell I learned to paddle in back on the canal in London, and they are reassuringly easy to maneuver.  We were dressed up in dry-suits with layers of fleece underneath, and often the problem was getting too hot with the exertion of paddling, rather than feeling cold. A capsize would have been a different matter, though. You don’t have long to play around immersed in water this cold. To send the prow of the boat knifing through the clinking ice is completely exhilarating, while drops of spray needle your face and the sun lays a track of dazzle over the wave swell. You can paddle close to the bergs and see a million different textures of ice, and gaze at the shades of blue trapped within. The vast substructure  glimmers underwater, so deep that you can never see the foot of it.  Glaciers sweep down to the shoreline and huge chunks calve off them. The kayaks are quiet, and they are so near to the water that you can hear that it is alive with the constant rattle and crack of ice. A series of blips erupt ahead – a flock of penguins are porpoising along, heading for shore and navigating by sight as they flip out of the water. A swirl of water over a huge submerged shape warns of the proximity of a minke whale, cruising the calm bay. Sometimes there are dolphins playing nearby, and petrels and shags swoop overhead. 

To paddle through all this is to feel almost part of it, half amazed and half exultant at your own good luck. You have to pinch yourself and remember where you are, and stare harder at everything to store it up in your memory. And when you look up there is the ship, riding calmly half a mile away, with hot showers and hot drinks waiting on board. Its bright orange lifeboats slung from their davits are so vivid in this monochrome landscape that they seem almost on fire. 

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