Around the Lens - Leopold

Since the earliest days of Austral Polar exploration, Leopard Seals have been portrayed as fearsome and aggressive creatures.  With a snake like appearance and huge mouths lined with sharp, menacing teeth, it’s no wonder these beautiful creatures have gotten a bad rap.  Paul Nicklen, a famous National Geographic photographer specializing in underwater polar imagery, attempted to dispel the negative myths about Leopard Seals by capturing intimate one on one photos with them in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean.  As I came eye to eye with a 3 meter long female, my mind went blank.

Alone in my zodiac, I was searching for a safe place to drop anchor - away from drifting icebergs and rocky shoals exposing themselves with the falling tide.  There were two Leopard Seals in the area- one napping peacefully on an ice floe and one very inquisitive individual who was diving under the boats, investigating our strange fast moving black rubber icebergs.  All of the sudden, less than a meter from my face a long sleek body emerged from the water to meet my standing position, starting square at me with gigantic brown eyes.

Mesmerized, all I could do was stare back, admiring the power and beauty of this amazing creature.  This behavior called spy hopping, is used by nautical predators to see what tasty wildlife may be atop an ice floe or along the shore.  I knew she was hunting, but somehow I wasn’t afraid, more in awe - studying the subtle curves of her powerful jaw and gigantic mouth, the small whiskers below flaring nostrils, and those captivatingly investigative eyes.  

She seemed to hang in the air and a moment later, slipped silently back beneath the icy sea while the moment we shared hung languidly in the crisp air.  It took a moment to realize that I was still holding my breath.  I watched her dark shadow glide gracefully around the boat, sometimes playfully swimming on her back, revealing a lighter coloured underbelly.  The shadow slowly faded from site and I sat down to enshrine the intimate experience shared between man and beast.

- February 2016

Around the Lens - Down Hill Boating

Despite the fact that our 110 meter ship looked like a toy in an icy bathtub, the bay felt oppressively small.  Low clouds obscured the tops of surrounding jagged peaks and tidewater glaciers terminating into the blackness of the water.  The windless morning, dark and thick with sodden mist dampened the continuous squawking of gentoo penguins.  It was eerie.  Somewhere on the other side of vast Neko Harbour, unbeknownst to us, a glacier had calved a massive hulk of ice from its face, creating another colossal iceberg.

I had just picked up Tammie who had anchored the zodiac she was driving 100 meters off the beach, out of the reach of the dropping tide.  On our way to shore, we paused to take in the scene.  Floating amongst small blocks of brash ice, the intensity of grey, white, cold, and damp resonated a deep chill to the bone.  Penguin highways stained brick red with guano weaved their way like frozen arteries up the white snow slope to a rocky outcrop.  Gigantic blue seracs hung precariously from the glacier beyond, creating an ominous backdrop as the penguins obliviously hopped around on the rocks, collecting and stealing stones for their nests.  Small waves lapped at the bouldery shore line as I pulled up to our landing site.  Tammie and I hopped out and began to secure our boat when a larger wave violently crashed into the stern of the boat, sending a shudder through the rubber pontoons.

Waves marched in without a hint of warning, successively growing larger and as they reared out of the water carrying blocks of ice with them up the shoreline.  With each blow, the boat was thrashed erratically about, pushed higher and higher up the pink granite boulders.  Tammie had seen the futility and danger in staying near the boat and made her way to higher ground, while I stubbornly hung on to a line secured to the length of the pontoon as the boat came to rest on a large pedestal 20 meters from the waterline.  Two other guides now joined me to make sure I hadn’t been pinned or crushed by the force of the water.

With only a few seconds before the next, and by far the largest wave reached us, I climbed into the boat and instructed the other guides that when I was lifted by the wave, to turn the boat so the nose was facing down hill towards the water.  Crashing up the rocks, the wave swept me off the boulders, pulling the boat down the beach with barely enough water under the keel to keep me a float as the wave retreated.  Seeing a gap in the rocks, I lowered the engine and managed to get enough of the propeller into the water to gain some forward momentum as another 2 meter wave hit, threatening to take me up the beach and into the rocks once again.  The engine screamed as I hit the throttle, spraying a rooster tail of water as I struggled against the shoreward momentum.  Then, as the wave receded, I was free!  The waves dissipated as quickly as they had come and once again, the only audible sound were the penguins.

- January 2015