To entertain your imaginations before we begin posting, I thought I'd share a couple excerpts from the book Scott of the Antarctic by Elspeth Huxley. These two excerpts describe Robert Falcon Scott and company entering the pack ice of the Ross Sea aboard the Terra Nova in December 1910:
"The pack, with its variety of ice formations, was full of interest and of beauty. It teemed with life: above the surface penguins, both Emperor and Ad̩lie; seals propelling themselves over the floes; several species of albatross; skuas, Cape Pigeons, petrels of various kinds, including the loveliest of all, the pure white Snow Petrel; in the sea whales, Sea Leopards, fish of many kinds and millions of Euphausia or krills Рreddish orange little shrimp-like schizopods Рwhich formed the food of almost every other living creature, from seals to penguins, fish to whales. At the bottom of the food-chain were the diatoms, a kind of plankton present in such quantities as to colour the ice orange and yellow on its underside. The tow-nets of the biologists brought to the surface a great variety of marine creatures; curiously enough, Antarctic waters proved to be much richer in life than temperate or tropic seas."
"The 'great white South' was not white at all but kaleidoscopic in colour: the ice violet and purple in shadow, and gold, orange and rose-red where its broken edges caught the light; the sky emerald green and salmon pink, reflected in still pools between the floes. Wonderful as day-time tints were, 'no scene in the whole world was ever more beautiful than a clear midnight in the pack'."
Looking forward to sharing our stories from the Ross Sea with you,
–Andrew
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