the misty morning of the ghost ship

The first few days were natural untouched majestic overwhelming scenery, the last couple while still majestic have shown the heavy shove of man on this part of the world from mid 1800 to the mid 1900.

Today, Day 6, red dots had to be the early risers, I got up with the first alert and had breakfast and brought back coffee and pasteries for Mom (what a good daughter I am!) and we were both suited up and on the Zodiacs by 8 for an hour long tour around the edge of the glaciers and of course icebergs, in a intermittent misty, light snow. There are a lot of terms that are used when the experts talk about ice and glaciers and icebergs, this is the continent of science you know!
I'm not remembering the correct one, but the edges of the glaciers are breaking off faster than people have ever seen, slumping down into the ocean, calving big bergs. Which we heard happen and dealt with the wave it created and why we stayed so far away from them.



But the destination for the morning was the Gouvernøren a scuttled whaling ship that caught fire and went down. In the mist it loomed up, the rusty shape an unexpected earth tone in the dark water, the glow off the ice behind it , even on this dim day, a backlight that served to blur the edges until you were right up on top of it. The Zodiac drivers took us around slowly, we could see in the port holes and watch the terns that roost inside it. Strange and sad. The area seems to be rotting away. The ice, the ship, the remnants of their camp that you could see on the ridges. A very different sense than any of the other places we had been, even the ruins of the station at Whalers Bay yesterday.