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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

 

Ice and snow sculptures:

Antarctic Peninsula

                Despite the summer thaw, large snow and ice fields persist throughout the year, both on the islands that fringe the peninsula and in the mountains on the mainland, and giant glaciers move inexorably to the sea.  Wind, sea, rain, and sun mould these natural features to create the enchanting ice sculptures that moved Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen to describe this as a ‘land [that] looks like a fairy tale’.

                              At Jougla Point, deep snowfields, precipitous snow cliffs and snow cornices with the fluffy smoothness of meringues dominate the natural harbour of Port Lockroy in the Palmer Archipelago.  In Paradise Bay, glaciers end in towering ice cliffs that plummet into the sea, groaning and creaking as crevasses widen until another huge block of ice breaks off as a glacier calves a new iceberg.

                   Glacier ice a packed so tightly that air bubbles are squeezed out and the ice absorbs most of the red and yellow light while reflecting the blue light.  This is why icebergs glow a brilliant, almost transparent blue.  Some icebergs are gigantic, the size of small towns.  Others sport huge domes, towers, sharp pinnacles or crowns.  Though some of them the sea has eroded great natural arches.  All around, the sea surface is littered with icy flotsam.  Some pieces are called ‘growlers’ because, when the ice melts, trapped air escapes with a sound like a growling animal.  Others are known as ‘bergy bits’, a term that may sound insubstantial, but these small icebergs threaten shipping because they are harder to see than the larger icebergs.

Location: Kiev Peninsula, Antarctica

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