Ella Down South: A World of Liquid Light

On Saturday it snowed a little. On Sunday and Monday the skies opened and snow, big fluffy flakes, crystalline and so big that you could see each individual one, floated from the sky like cherry blossom in the spring. It has been cold here. The mercury hasn’t risen much above -4’C all week. This has been good but it has meant that the snow hasn’t bedded down yet, resulting in billows of pinprick cold every time you kick it. The snow is knee deep which means that until we got tracks run into the snow around base your boots would fill unless you took great care. Doing my earlies rounds on Tuesday I tried to follow Rod’s footsteps in the snow but he is 6 foot something and has an enormous stride so I found myself flat on the floor in the snow laughing at my own predicament. I think I might start wearing my waterproof socks!

On Monday Hazel taught me how to ski. I have never skied in my life and I will admit to the fact that the thought of it doesn’t fill me with all the warm fuzzy feelings it should. I have bad knees and I am not looking forward to learning how to go downhill. On the flat and uphill it is fine. It is easier than snowshoeing and actually quite fun once you’re in someone else’s tracks. In this snow however, breaking trail is a real trial and very hard going.

On Wednesday I had to do some night boating. This is rather a palaver here. We need three people on board, rather than the normal two. You have the coxswain (me) then a deck crew and an icelight operator. The icelight operator also maintains a radio watch while the cox and deck crew are on deck dealing with transfers. In the coastal waters of the UK there is nearly always light at night. Whether it is the coastal towns casting their orange glow over the bays or the reassuring flash of the guardian lighthouses guiding you home, there is nearly always light. In London, where I do most of my lifeboating nowadays, going down the Thames at night is literally like floating on a river of light, with all the lights from the city reflected under the hull of the boat. Going to sea at night is a strange experience, even when you can see the lights on the coast; your other senses are pulled compellingly to the fore. Hearing becomes more important but I find that your sense of smell becomes incredibly powerful. Whenever I was out in the Bristol Channel at night I could always tell when I was close to a river by the smell of the freshwater hitting the sea. It is quite difficult to describe but it is intensely powerful. You can imagine what going out at night here is like. There is only the lights from the base and the leading lights on the shore to orientate you (leading lights guide you in through a channel; as long as you keep them in line, you are in safe water). Once we had picked our slow careful way out of the bay, avoiding the kelp only by seeing it lit up in the icelight that Joe was sweeping across the bows, the only light we could see was that of the ship we were meeting. Her icelight swung across the bows, mimicking ours and her deck lights lit up a patch of sea around her hull. You could almost smell the snow as well as the kelp giving off its familiar ozone tang. Everything can be a bit disorientating in the dark and you have to take much more care while out boating but it all went fine and we returned to the safety of the lights of the base and Rod’s excellent bean burgers.

Hazel, Jo and I tried to get to Maiviken on Friday, for a night off base, but in the end the snow and the rapidly gathering darkness defeated us. Instead we skied around Grytviken and the bay and enjoyed the cold, crisp sunset. The sky wavered from cloudless blue to pastel pink with the mountains on the Barff painted an exquisitely delicate shade of coral. As time went on the pink darkened to purple and above the mountains the air was a deep electric blue. It looked too real to be true and we just stood and drank it all in, listening to the pancake ice on the bay crackle as ripples made it sway in the water. Hazel and I took up Jo’s kind offer of dinner at Carse house that night and we had a really nice evening on her sofas just chatting. When it came time to leave we wandered out into the cold air and found that the new moon was picking out every facet of every snow crystal on the ground, making it feel like we were walking on diamonds. We looked up and I suddenly felt very, very small, with the whole weight of the universe towering over me. I have never seen skies like that. There was no black. The illusion of darkness was only there when you didn’t focus your eyes on the stars that were in every corner of the sky. The Milky Way swept across our view like a brush stroke of light across a canvas of velvet and while we were transfixed a shooting star suddenly flashed. across the sky. It was breathtaking, literally breathtaking and a sight I don’t think I will ever forget. I was reminded of a phrase in C.S. Lewis’s ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’. Eustace says “In our world a star is huge ball of burning gas”. He is answered by Corriakin (a star resting on earth till he can take up the dance once more): “Even in your world that is only what a star is made of, not what a star is.”

This week is Midwinter’s week and it is going to be quite busy, with krill boats to licence and Midwinter activities to do. I won’t write another blog till after Midwinter so I will say Happy Midwinter now and leave you to enjoy your week.