In The Wake
Off the bow of the boat that moved us through the waters near the Antarctic Peninsula, the waves rolled over at their tips. But then a funny thing happened.
The white dissolved, the crests disappeared and all that disruption integrated into the gentle, smooth ripples characteristic of calm seas. Not ten meters from a giant boat displacing thousands of gallons of water, the surface was largely undisturbed.
The waves from the boat impacted the waves from the shore: everything met and rose and settled. I could think of few other big changes that became so small so quickly – both geographically and temporally.
We motored through the vistas and the fog and the wind of the Antarctic for ten days. Then, we stopped and stayed that way. The skies were socked in and planes can’t land if they can’t tell the difference between the sky and the runway.
On that liminal day, we turned circles around the anchor. The cloud ceiling lowered, if that was possible. The fog became mist and the red buildings faded into orange, then pink, then color there isn’t a word for. The waves we made were small enough to dissipate before I could see them even if I hung too far over the railing.
On that still day, the one where we moved the least, it became most obvious that we shouldn’t be there: not that wet, not that South, not that cold. And yet we were. It shouldn’t have been possible but I was squinting at the glare.
I was awed, sad, guilty and thrilled. I was there enough to be all of those things.
There enough to leave a wake and then have it disappear. There enough to have created an unobserved wave. One that didn’t make a difference to penguins or whales. It is unlikely I’ll be remembered by anyone we met on the boat, passenger or otherwise. It is even more unlikely that anything but my footsteps were left and they likely faded within a few days.
That’s a good thing - I wouldn’t want to leave a mark in an ugly way - but also a sad one. None of us want to have a bad affect, but some affect at all might be nice.
The thought of disappearing just like that wave is frightening in a different way than the subzero temperatures and the double digit winds. It’s not measurable by a thermometer or an anemometer.
I would like to have been courageous enough to share more of myself. To make a little wake and watch it resorb.
But that ship has sailed.
Inspired by events on the Antarctic Peninsula