By the time we came to leave Neko Harbour on the Antarctic mainland (13.30 ship’s time; 16.30 GMT) on Monday afternoon (25 February), the cloud cover had all but disappeared and the Fram was gliding effortlessly through a glass-like sea under deep blue skies. We were surrounded by extraordinary vistas on all sides and any frustrations felt by the Fearless Four were down to simply being able to look only in one direction at a time. It is scarily and indescribably beautiful.
Elsewhere on this Blog, there is a quote from one of the early explorers of the Heroic Age in which he suggested that he would like to somehow take what he was seeing away with him. I now understand what he meant although such a thing could never be possible. Even the wonders of modern photography cannot do this place justice. My preference would be to gather all the people that I would like to share this with in one place and somehow transport them magically to this wonderous land. If there is a place more beautiful than this on the planet, I have not yet been there. My worry is that I risk spending the rest of my life looking for it. It really does take your breath away.
I had no idea that there were so many shades of blue ranging in the spectrum from the deep azure of the sky to the bright turquoise of the icebergs just beneath the surface. In every direction there are snow covered peaks and snow fissured valleys, some of which look ready to avalanche at any time. The surface of the sea is littlered with large icebergs and and smaller ice-floes and the loud cracking and crunching sounds as the Fram barges through them is a little unnerving at times. Meanwhile, the biting cold would scour the enamel from your teeth.
It hurts my head trying to think of the words need to describe this place. And then I realise that everything I have ever read, and probably everything that has ever been written about Antarctica falls short of the reality because I don’t believe that the words required to describe its unimaginable beauty have yet been invented.