By Susan Ellis of Key Life Journeys

A 6am landing was scheduled on the beach below Brown Bluff, 2,300ft (700metres) of yellow-brown basalt.. This was our only mainland landing, not only in the continent of Antarctica, but for the whole trip. Snow laden clouds were around but the sun was rising to brighten the scene. The water was still. There was a dark pink glow and a silence for the first time on this trip.  No gale force wind, no crashing waves, no sound of creaking ship.
 
 




The Zodiac which carried me gently nosed its way around the small icebergs, compact as in a glass of gin and tonic, that hugged the shore. Gentoo Penguins greeted us. Many were standing still and forlorn, molting. They looked untidy with tufts of brownish feathers sticking up over sleek black and white. It takes a month to molt and since they cannot swim during this period they must fast. They did not look like happy campers.
 





Much more noisy and boisterous were the fur seals. In their hundreds during our trip they were forever edging closer hoping to take a nick out of us. The young pups were willing to challenge anything. We learned to clap our hands or bang two stones together to send them packing. In the real sense of the word they are not true seals, having ears and large front flippers which enable them to move quickly. The real seal does not have any external ears visible and must slide along the ground to move.





Most of the Adelie Penguins had already molted and had returned to the sea following the breeding season. But some with their completely black heads remained. The Gentoo are distinguished from the Adelie by the white patches around the eyes. Further along the beach was a Weddell Seal lying gracefully exposing its mottled coat. Birds flew overhead, some nesting in the cliffs. There were gulls and painted petrels; and the scavengers found in any nesting area - Skuas and Snowy Sheathbills.  
 


The sun rose higher bathing the ice in bright light. Fresh snow on the shore covered the excrement called guano. Occasionally there were patches of green mosses visible -greenery on mainland Antarctica.


I thought back to words of my psychic, heard so long ago. "I'm looking at it, it's white. I don't see anything green".   Today I see green. This time yesterday a storm was about to descend on our landing party and shroud us into invisibility. I look out to sea, reassured that the M.V.Polar Star was resting at anchor off shore and Zodiacs skimmed over passive waters. How could two days be so dissimilar? The aggressive roar of the tempest had given way to the sounds of birds and seals captured on soft breezes. The tension I had been holding throughout the gale drifted away and I could feel at peace. "The skimming of water beetles."  I had used that metaphor to describe the Zodiacs I had seen two years previously when on the western side of this same Antarctic Peninsula. The image is recorded in my DVD "Antarctica -A Soul Journey - awakening."


 So I set about familiarizing myself with the video aspects of my small digital cameras. I had not anticipated needing to use them, but corrosion had set into the video camera and it was finished for this journey. Again the words of Catherine come back to me as I write this -  "I'm not seeing you film it… "
 

Our landing party was slow to return to the Zodiacs.  We were enchanted. It is our first landing where wild life approached us. Some remained oblivious allowing us to share their habitat. We witnessed two species of penguins and two species of seals and numerous birds. I was on a land I could feel and today Antarctica was showing me her soft side.