Last updated: 17 February, 1998
From Roy's journal:"A sunny day at the end of an otherwise gray week. We have come again to land after leaving the shores of Tierra del Fuego four days ago. Days of waves and clouds, mist and wind, of albatrosses, all wings, and of storm petrels with dancing feet. This morning I awoke at 0500. Sitting up and looking out the window of our cabin I saw the jagged black and white forms of mountains and glaciers, a stark backdrop of light and dark against which whirled hundreds of wheeling Antarctic Prions. I was instantly awake. Open-mouthed, I watched the birds wing by for almost four minutes.
On deck the mountains continued to march by the starboard side of the ship, many of the peaks unbelievably sharp and angular, chipped by glaciers much as flint was chipped by antler when men still used stone tools. All the glacier terminology took meaning on those starboard shores: cirques, horns, aretes, hanging valleys, tide-water glaciers, crevasses.
As we round into Cumberland Bay the Grytviken Whaling Station comes into view. Rusty orange structures stretch across the base of Grytviken mountain, adding a slash of warm color to the olive, brown and gray slopes in the foreground. Grytviken itself looms overhead. We glimpse a dam and reservoir on the side of the hill and angular segments of water pipe haphazardly descending to the buildings below. The pipes have sprung several leaks and brilliant streams of water ascend the sky, break into spray, and wet the hillside. A group of King Penguins stand at the edge of the spray soberly enjoying the sprinkle. A white cross within a white-fenced cemetery gleams in the sunlight, nearly as brilliant as the white breasts of the penguins. We will gather there later for a toast to Sir Ernest Shackleton, one of the bold and honorable explorers who opened the way for future visitors to these waters and these lands.
Here we experience many firsts: our initial zodiac ride, our first encounter with a pugnacious little fur seal, our first look into the doe-eyed dreamy face of an Elephant Seal, our first encounter with King and Gentoo Penguins.
We reboard the ship to find charcoal grills and music on deck and enjoy an afternoon barbecue with the residents of Grytviken. Incongruous Latin music mixes with the cold salty air of the Southern Sea quite nicely, it turns out, whetting our appetites for more sights and sounds and experiences."
- Roy Beckemeyer, January 24, 1998
"Is there anything as incongruous as a downy penguin in repose? Wings and feet askew as if dropped from a great height - yet looking so comfortable. As if arranged feather by feather on a bed of silk. But this bed is rock, the wind is cold, and its body is pecked and pushed by innumerable other penguins. Yet it rests, oblivious to the world!"
- Pat Beckemeyer, January, 1998