The horizon was a mystery of grays, as I squinted into the south. The wind pulled at my jacket and the deck pitched and rolled beneath my spread stance, but I continued to look intently toward the south over the bow. Sea spray flashed as the ship hit a wave, and then – there to the left off the bow – were penguins, dolphining through the sea beside us, flashing black and white. They sped through the water as fast as the ship, and then they were gone. I leaned over the port side to find them again, but saw nothing but gray, pitching sea. Soon though, petrels appeared, soaring in perfectly choreographed flocks first showing their black and white painted backs and top wings, then turning gracefully and vanishing, but returning to repeat the dance. Chris, an avid birder, told me all about them and followed their path with his binoculars, but I was mostly intent on getting my first glimpse of Antarctica. We saw some floating ice, also to port. “Iceberg!” Chris shouted. “Ice bit,” corrected the captain. And then, gray on gray in the south, we saw ghostly mountains. These were the South Shetland Islands, growing in definition as we slammed, rolled and pitched toward them. Gradually I could distinguish differences in shades, the mountains taking shape slowly, until it was apparent that we were seeing ice – huge cliffs and sheets – from crest to the sea. Glaciers. Although this wasn’t what I thought of as the “big ice” of Antarctica, it was enough for me in my eagerness, and I giggled with gulps of sobs as I raked the horizon, overwhelmed with the fact of it. We were here. We were reaching Antarctica.
I stayed on deck trying to see more in the misty grays of the South Shetlands until we were called to a talk on zodiac protocol. The 80 or so passengers wandered into the third deck lounge to hear how to board and disembark from the zodiacs, how to use the life vests and what the drill would be for landings. We paid attention dutifully, but there were murmurs that we were seeing ice, and an electric feeling, seemingly from everyone, that we were nearing something very big.
I returned to the rail to peer toward the south, seeing more and more ice bits, with their beautiful blue cores and curving or angular forms sculpted by the waves. The weather alternated from completely overcast to just gray, with shapes of land visible and then disappearing. Hours passed, broken by trips inside to warm myself, but slowly we began to see a horizon that grew tall and taller, solid white. Massive. It rose many hundreds of feet and stretched horizontally out of sight. The Big Ice! The edge of the enormous Antarctic ice sheet. Known yet foreign, expected but mysterious. Something immensely strong, harsh, beautiful. Incredibly beautiful.