The ice is thick around us now. It’s the beginning of spring, and the pack has reached its greatest extent—stretching across half the Southern Ocean. I’ve read that the freezing of seawater around Antarctica is the largest and fastest annual event on Earth, and that the pack moves forward at fifty-seven square kilometres a minute. The frozen blanket has become our refuge, our place of escape. From now on, as spring advances, the ice will retreat south. I can hear it groan underneath us, squeezing our hull like a vice, heaving and sighing as we cut our path. It wants to take us with it.
I saw a magnificent iceberg today. Ancient water from another time cut free from a frozen continent, like a giant broken tooth. At this latitude, it could drift for many months, losing water and altering its form—an ever-changing sculpture. A snow-white petrel disappeared as it flew in front of the tabular berg, and then reappeared, as if by magic, on the other side. The Antarctic sun, ringed by a halo of high cloud, barely clung to the horizon. In its haze, here at the edge of the ice, there were seals, creatures that appear to me to be as different from other animals as the Antarctic is from the other continents. Their presence provides unexpected comfort and makes me feel less alone.
Just before nightfall, there was an explosion of birdlife—a celebration—as plummeting beaks swooped to spear fish plump with krill. Adelie penguins reflected metallic flashes through the water, while fulmars, albatrosses and whale birds startled the sky.
How I would love to soar with these birds. To fly above all that I know and reach a higher plane. To rise beyond what my father and his father dreamed of for me. To write. Perhaps it seems odd for a fisherman to hold such esoteric ambitions. But do not underestimate us—our dreams, our experience. There are other artists here, too: poets, painters and musicians. The sea might flow in our veins, but surely we are permitted to bleed ourselves of it on occasion. To express our respect, even our love for it. Instead we are taking from it all that we can. Devising schemes to make money fast, so we can one day be free.