Page 78 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

76 | WINTER 2013
T urtle Rock is tucked in the back corner of Erebus Bay,
which itself is tucked in a back corner of McMurdo
Sound in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. The seasonal fast-ice
was approximately 8 feet thick in that area in 2008, and
though that was more than sufficient for vehicles, it was
still in motion. The clockwise currents in the sound
slowly drive the entire cap of sea ice toward Turtle
Rock, and the ice had crumpled and piled up on top of itself on the north-
facing shore, forming a jumble of 25-foot-high uplifted ridges. The moving sea
ice also breaks around the corner of the island to form a long, wide crack in
nearly the same spot every year, providing predictable surface access for Turtle
Rock’s Weddell seal colony. The seals raised their heads off the ice to watch
the procession of strange buglike vehicles approach.
The blue door of the orange hut stood propped open as we hauled
the equipment inside. In the center of the floor, the dive hole stared up,
unblinking, like a giant
eye. We had returned
to Turtle Rock. We
suited up and dropped
straight through the iris
of the eye, squeezing
through the tunnel and
down into an ethereal
concert. Beneath the
veil of white is a world
of cyan shadows, and
there in the blue light,
the seals sing.
The song seems to start as semiconscious thought, a memory of wind
whistling through a drafty window, sharp and sweet. It has no direction or
source, and it cuts cleanly through the shadows of the mind until the tone
starts to accelerate and deepen, crossing fully into consciousness. The long,
descending note breaks abruptly into thumping vibration, almost too deep to
hear. Weddells are among the most vocal of seals, with 34 different varieties of
trills, chirps, knocks, glugs and growls. Overlapping calls filled the water as if the
sounds themselves had weight, and we swam suspended in the unearthly music.
The perennial sea-ice crack originating from the corner of the island was
50 yards east of the hole. Although invisible topside to the untrained eye,
underneath the crack was arched like a railroad tunnel, perhaps 20 feet across
and extending into the distance as far as I could see. In the center of the arch,
a line of irregularly shaped seal holes glowed hard white.
Voices Under