Pack Ice

When the sea’s temperature falls almost two full degrees below freezing, the salt crystallizes out of the water and the surface of the ocean freezes. This is pack ice.

We were wrapping up a photography workshop when the ship started to list strongly. I knew right away the stabilizers were off, which meant we were in the ice. I ran to the bridge. What I saw was astonishing. The entire sea was clogged with ice floes. It was no longer the sea, but now the parched and cracked earth of the desert, the pockmarked surface of the moon. This enormous body of water was masquerading as its inverse.

It doesn’t appear to be fluid or passable, but the ship moves through these loosely joined puzzle pieces Like cannon fire, the ship collides with ice. Glasses clang, the ship rattles. Waves don’t break through. Instead, the entire surface undulates like the surface of a cake, cracked and solid on top, but molten just beneath the surface. Is it solid or liquid, or something in between? Antarctica is made of oobleck. Captain Skog calls it porridge; to me it looks like a primordial stew.