2 am anchor watch and the falling snowflakes reflected in the ship's lights are a rain of stars, a galaxy of stars shaken loose from the night sky. Radar readings show one large iceberg grounded about a nautical mile away and the smudged tracks of others moving north with the tide in the narrow channel between Ronge and Cuverville Islands.

2 am anchor watch and the falling snowflakes reflected in the ship's lights are a rain of stars, a galaxy of stars shaken loose from the night sky. Radar readings show one large iceberg grounded about a nautical mile away and the smudged tracks of others moving north with the tide in the narrow channel between Ronge and Cuverville Islands. 

On our first inspection tour a small floe bumps gently into the stern. Other, larger ones move ghostlike just at the edge of vision; the snow, now blowing sideways, obscures everything in the searchlight's beam. Snow petrels confused by the ship's lights stumble drunkenly at our feet. 

The whiteness of the birds and the snow accumulating on deck turn the Europa into an island of brightness in the Antarctic dark. There is no place else on earth I would rather be this night.