The Gerlache Strait

February 1, 1994

2:00pm

We are passing through the Gerlache Strait now, and it is visually stunning, even more so than what we've seen so far. There are mountains right up along the channel that are covered with snow except for patchy spots on the sides. Along the coast it's solid ice and snow, at least a hundred feet high I'd bet. There are fissures everywhere, and there are many icebergs floating by now. It seems that everywhere there's a turn in the channel, there's a patch of large icebergs.

Icebergs in the Gerlache Strait

Much of this ice is blue now, formed by the pressure under the glaciers. The ice recrystalizes, forming a harder ice that refracts the light differently, making it blue.

The water is a dark powdery cornflower blue with navy waves and some whitecaps. The mountains are white and light gray (snow) and navy blue (rock). The clouds are pigeon gray above that. It's almost eerie the way the mountains are brighter than the sky. They seem to be glowing.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of haze and cloud cover, so we can't see the tops of most of these mountains. I certainly hope that things are better when we get to Paradise Bay, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the Antarctic.

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