South America (Day 9)

April 7

December 28

Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting. ~ Martin Sheen

We’re going up a fjord to see a glacier! ~ Me

I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was… a large Arctic region covered with ice. ~ Robin Williams

We must always remember with gratitude and admiration the first sailors who steered their vessels through storms and mists, and increased our knowledge of the lands of ice in the South. ~ Roald Amundsen

Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they’re alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way – cleanly, clearly. That’s the essence of ice, the role it plays. ~ Haruki Murakami

[Cruising the coast, heading toward Peel Fjord from the Sarmiento Channel, the eastern side offers entry to three other fjords. Two of these, Amalia Fjord and Asia Fjord, end in massive walls of ice slowly flowing down from the immense Southern Patagonian Ice Field (seabourn.com).]

She had never known that ice could take on so many shades of blue: sharp lines of indigo like the deepest sea, aquamarine shadows, even the glint of blue-green where the sun struck just so. ~ Malinda Lo

[The view from our balcony . . . ]

One of the reasons there are so many terms for conditions of ice is that the mariners observing it were often trapped in it, and had nothing to do except look at it. ~ Alec Wilkinson

. . . about a league on either side of us, may be seen, indistinctly and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice, towering away into the desolate sky, and looking like the walls of the universe. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Like there’s actually a need for Greenland. You can get ice at 7-Eleven. ~ Steve Kluger

There it was, the land under 80 degrees, a land of stern magnificence, where icebergs rear up almost to the very mountaintops, and mountain rises above mountain . . . ~ Jeannette Mirsky

Life is only a flicker of melted ice. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

Justice has to be cold. Deal with it; it’s just ice. ~ Natalya Vorobyova

Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on Earth has it worse than an Emperor penguin. ~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard

[We’re HERE! Passengers rush to outside decks as Amalia Glacier appears dead ahead . . . ]

To ‘walk on thin ice’ is to demonstrate how thick my common sense is not. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

We could hear the ice cracking but it didn’t give, and we slid across it like seals. Oh, it was tremendous fun. The ice was clear as glass and you could see right to the bottom. ~ Mary Lawson

[Where the glacier meets the waterfront . . . ]

When we encounter tiny groups of atoms, interesting questions and special rules come into play. Take water, for instance: what is the smallest possible ice cube? It has been discovered that you need at least 275 water molecules in a cluster before it can show ice-like properties, with about 475 molecules before it becomes truly ice. That is a cube with about eight H2O molecules along each edge. The importance of this kind of knowledge is that it helps us model the process of cloud formation in the atmosphere as well as understand how liquids freeze. ~ Peter Atkins

The ending of the last ice age was not a gradual event, as most people would assume, but fast and intense. ~ Brien Foerster

The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below. ~ Ernest Shackleton

The ‘New Yorker’ asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn’t the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it’s dying. ~ James Balog

[The glacier’s height at water’s edge ranges from 50 – 70 meters . . . ]

If one looks at the glacier for long enough, words cease to have any meaning on God’s earth. ~ Halldór Laxness

This thing I’m doing can hardly be called living. Instead I’m lying dormant, like a bacterium in a glacier. Getting time over with. That’s all. ~ Margaret Atwood

Thin ice isn’t a problem for the sea; it’s a problem for the blind idiot who steps out on it. The fool who breaks it gets sucked under; the ice, it mends. ~ Jennifer Giesbrecht

[Cruise friend Rich provides perspective above and below . . . ]

There is no greater despair, than to tread with care upon ice that is already broken. ~ Johnathan Jena

Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. ~ Agatha Christie

[Ruthie moved to the front of the photo pack . . . ]

Ice no longer scared me. Its facets were beautiful, especially when it caught and held the vibrancy of flame. ~ Elly Blake

[And then she made her escape . . . ]

I do stupid stuff like that: I’ll call my wife from the road, send her pictures of glaciers. ~ Adam Ferrara

In the Andes and the Alps, I have seen melting glaciers. At both of the Earth’s Poles, I have seen open sea where ice once dominated the horizon. ~ Ban Ki-moon

A tie is what you get after ice cubes have wrestled with hot water. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Glaciers have receded. The tree-line is changing. That’s very rapid to see nature changing in a 20-year period. ~ Conrad Anker

You could engineer a human to survive the greenhouse effect because you think that’s what’s going to happen, and then all of a sudden the glaciers are creeping down on you. ~ Paul Di Filippo

[The color of the water marked the demarcation of melt water coming off the land and the ocean-based water . . . ]

A snowflake contains ten quintillion water molecules. That’s ten million trillion. Ten snowflakes—which can fit on your thumb tip—have the same number of molecules as there are grains of sand on the earth. Or stars in the visible universe. ~ Bob Berman

[Grand explorers from the shop’s crew set off to collect ice from the glacier . . . ]

Where the glacier meets the sky, the land ceases to be earthly, and the earth becomes one with the heavens . . . ~ Halldór Laxness

[Gives on a good perspective on the size of the glacier wall and the distance our explorers had to traverse . . . ]

The iceman thawed a bit for you. ~ Sylvia Day

My dad, a geologist, was an expert in glaciers and permafrost, so we moved to a lot of cold places such as Canada, Iceland and Norway. ~ Lucy Worsley

[Ice fishing?]

Ice has a social life. Its changeability shapes the culture, language and stories of those who live near it. ~ Robert Macfarlane

[Racing back to the ship with glacier ice that will be sculpted for holiday displays . . . ]

I have two eyes, and I go to see the ice. ~ Deyth Banger

[The excitement over, back to routine living on a beautiful cruise ship . . . ]

Patience is to wait for the ice to melt instead of breaking it. ~ Munia Khan

[Several of the following photos were taken in here, the Dome Planetarium on the top deck, because what else are you going to do on a ship in the ocean? (Photo on loan from the internet.)]

f you compare Everest photographs in 1953 with its current state, things are melting. I imagine if I were a golfer in Indiana, I’d be hard-pressed to believe in climate change because nothing’s going on there. But when you’re up in the mountains and seeing the glaciers melt away, it’s an obvious physical manifestation of a warming planet. ~ Conrad Anker

[Believed to be little Jupiter on the far right . . . ]

One by one the ponds gulped down their ice like big, painful pills. ~ Anthony Doerr

[Believed to be big Jupiter in the middle . . . ]

I just thought that it was magical having to glide across the ice. ~ Debi Thomas

[As I recall, Ruthie once owned a Saturn . . . ]

This air we breathe is precious, and the glaciers helped me understand that and stay focused on that. ~ James Balog

[Since I never did see Crux live and in person . . . ]

Up here on the Ice each of us is singular, isolate, I as cut off from those like me, from my society, and its rules, as he from his. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

[And another interesting lecture . . . ]

Ice can kill as dead as fire. ~ George R.R. Martin

[Beyond my comprehension . . . ]

There’s always that first step in skating, from dry ground to slick ice, when it just seems impossible. Impossible that two thin blades of metal will support you, impossible that because its molecules have begun to dance a little slower water will hold you up. ~ Carol Goodman

[Now Orion I can find on a cloudy night . . . ]

I went to Alaska a while back and surfed the waves generated from a glacier calving and ever since then, I’ve never been afraid in the ocean. ~ Garrett McNamara

[In his position at the Admiralty, Barrow was a great promoter of Arctic voyages of discovery, including those of John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross and John Franklin. The Barrow Strait in the Canadian Arctic as well as Point Barrow and the city of Barrow in Alaska are named after him (Wikipedia).]

There is no point in trying to freeze the ice! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan

[Lectures on polar explorers . . . ]

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

[And here are three of them . . . ]

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. ~ Gary Shilling

[Why not gold?]

How far fewer words we need to tell our stories than we imagine we do. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

[Always a sucker for an interesting story . . . ]

The U.S. will need the equivalent of about 34 new nuclear power plants to meet rising demand for electricity over the next five years. The growing number of power-hungry computer data centers is driving the surge, which comes after three decades of falling or flat demand for electricity. ~ The Guardian

I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass. ~ David Lee Roth

[Next stop, Punta Arenas . . . ]

The Himalayan glaciers, China’s trade surplus, Olympic ice hockey – the world is full of pressing subjects that people never consult me about. ~ Elif Batuman

I know it’s hard to believe, but another year has passed in which I failed to qualify for the Masters. ~ Me

Up Next: Day 10