Land!

Today, our third day at sea, we finally came upon land. It was just after breakfast and we were gathered in the lounge for an ornithology lecture. At the shout of land, everyone ran to the bridge and foredeck to witness the sight of glaciated rock rising up from the ocean—the South Shetland Archipelago. Seeing land after two full days on the open sea is exhilarating. It’s been fewer than one hundred years since Captain William Smith and the crew of the Williams discovered the Shetland Islands in 1819, and it’s easy to understand the elation of the crew upon first seeing these islands. It’s so wild and remote in the Antarctic: we’ve seen no other vessels, no other signs of life except the seabirds that follow the ship. Out of nowhere, like heat lightening in the sky, there was land.