It’s not uncommon in Antarctica to see what does not exist—to see the mountains levitate in the distance, to see the rising towers of a city on the horizon. When the sea is colder than the air, a layer forms that creates a polar mirage. The more layers, the more refracted the light: Mountains are born from the sea; cliffs turn into castles. Such mirages usually last only moments, until the air layers mix, and then they disappear.
These illusions can be dangerous—they often caused explorers to miscalculate distances—or simply embarrassing, leading the explorers to identify land that was not actually there. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Captain Sir James Clark Ross discovered a mountain range he named the Parry Mountains, about twenty-five miles from his position east of Ross Island—but there were, in fact, no mountains there at all; what he’d seen was a reflection of another mountain range, more than three hundred miles away.
Such visions have a name—fata morgana—and I feel as though I’m seeing a mirage right now: a large, multilayered building rising from the sea, moving along the horizon. I’m on the foredeck, braced against a biting headwind, and I’m hoping that this is only a trick of the eyes. It’s normal to see a fata morgana just before a storm or change in the weather.
But this mirage doesn’t waver or blur; it doesn’t disappear. Heart thudding, I raise my binoculars to confirm what is even more bizarre than a fata morgana, and all too real—the Australis, about half a nautical mile away, headed in our direction. Headed south.
I run up to the bridge. Glenn is standing next to Captain Wylander, who’s speaking into the radio.
“What the hell is that ship doing down here?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
The captain hands the radio to Glenn, who barks a warning to the ship. “Lack of advance notification is in violation of IAATO protocol.”
“They’re making a run for the Gullet, aren’t they?”
“They won’t make it that far.”
I leave the bridge and return to the deck, raising my binoculars, as if I might see Keller on board. I look for an orange crew jacket, but it’s freezing cold, and hardly anyone’s outside—only a scattering of passengers among the Australis’s five decks, with no idea what their captain is risking. They are already fading in the mist and the sleet that is beginning to slicken the deck under my boots.
I peer through the fog at the stiffening ice. Just yesterday Glenn had been planning our own run for the Gullet, the scenic but narrow strip of water that cuts between Adelaide Island and the continent. Few tourist vessels ever make it that far, and given the changing weather and the amount of ice forming, Glenn had decided to turn around. Unlike whoever’s at the helm of the Australis, Glenn is far too careful to attempt anything tricky unless conditions are just right. And so we are headed north again as the Australis is heading south.
The sea is incredibly icy even here, with bergy bits clanging against the hull. Passengers always freak out when they hear the metallic thud of ice—I’ll spend most of my day reassuring skittish passengers that the Cormorant has a reinforced hull, that it’ll take a lot more than a few growlers to sink it. If only I could say the same about the Australis, which is not built to navigate the icy conditions she’s headed into.
In the hundred years since the Titanic sank, ship design and construction have improved drastically; it’s not a stretch to assure passengers that today’s cruises are safe. Yet the one thing that hasn’t changed is human nature—ego and folly and hubris and whatever outcomes these may bring—and every ship is only as safe as her captain and crew and the choices they make.
I listen to the smaller pieces of slushy ice rub against the steel like a wire brush; the familiar, uneven rhythm normally relaxes me. I lean on the railing, eyes still on the Australis. I’d like to think I’d have known the ship was this far south, that I’d have felt Keller’s proximity somehow. More than ever, I need to talk to him. But as I’m heading up to the communications room, Glenn radios.
“We’re doing an ice landing,” he tells me. “Be ready to scout in five.”
I LOWER THE gangway onto a wide plain of fast ice. The captain has nudged the Cormorant into a frozen expanse of ocean, and, despite the cloudy afternoon, the ice burns with white light. Another unforgettable experience for the tourists: a chance to walk on water.