Yet, in the very act of visiting, this amazing place is endangered.  Ships carry fuels and wastes which can spill into frigid waters coating sea birds and contaminating rocky shores.  The intense cold slows, and in some cases stops, the natural processes which, in most areas of the world, would eventually clean the beaches.  Outboard motors on Zodiacs spew oily smoke which settles on pristine snow and ice leaving chemical traces where none existed before.  And even the most careful and thoughtful tourist occasionally loses a film case, a gum wrapper or a mitten in the stones and pebbles.

Early explorers, whalers, fishermen and scientists gave little thought to the pristine beauty around them.  Like people in all other places on earth, they used the resources of the southern oceans as if there was no end to them. They littered with their discards all places where they set foot on land, and they used the sea as a garbage dump.  Wooden huts, boats and barrels more than a hundred years old are still found, as Antarctica has few decomposing organisms to break them down.  Graveyards of whale bones are scattered on beaches.  Only iron disappears.  The iron bands around barrels rust away leaving  'flowers' of fallen staves lying in the gravel.

But, the continent is big, and the number of visitors has been relatively small. Thus,  you can look out from the deck of the ship as you cruise along the coast line and see hundreds of glaciers sliding down mountain sides into the sea; places where human feet have never stood.  

PHOTOS

I'd love to hear your comments.   I'd appreciate an e-mail at the following e-mail address which is not 'hot' but has to be typed - to foil e-mail harvesters and decrease spam in my mailbox.