Weathered spikes in shades of white, grey and pale blue. Contrast and shape rely on shadow. Sediment veins in patterns of pressure. My visual cortex is incapable of processing the intricacy and size of this mass. Creaking and lurching, it crawls toward me a fraction of a millimeter at a time. My life, my hopes and dreams are insignificant to the 34sq/km, 5,000 year old frozen geological wonder. Nature has done it again, I feel insignificant.
Check out the size of the 180 passenger ship in the above.A cracking sound pulls at my attention. I search for the first sign of movement along the seemingly infinite ice wall. There! As though in slow motion, a giant sheet of ice sloughs off. It appears to hang in the air. The bottom of the ice chunk catches on the water below. With nowhere to go, the upper portions lunge forward in an ice belly flop. Water flies through the air. The splash reverberates through the air. 
Submerged by weight and velocity, the ice chunk disappears below the churning water. Resurfacing, it bobs emitting ripples that would sink a ship. The motion slows and it floats innocently, like a giant ice cube in a punch bowl. All is still. Except for the light blue hue in the ice wall that indicates where the chunk previously clung, the mass is unchanged. Adrenaline pumps through my body. The air buzzes with the excited chatter of my fellow spectators. We scan the ice wall, sure that more is to come. No movement. Stillness. Creaking and lurching, we can hear the ice shifting in the center of the mass. No motion. We wait expectantly, any minute now. Now? Now? Nothing. The air is still.
An hour passes. We all feel lucky to have seen one large calving. The shared experience transcends language. We are connected by the glory of nature.
I have just determined that nothing more is to come, when a crack in the ice wall catches my attention. I can see the crack grow, splintering down the ice wall. This is the big one ….
Julie got it on film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YuvaUSW6ZA
Submerged by weight and velocity, the ice chunk disappears below the churning water. Resurfacing, it bobs emitting ripples that would sink a ship. The motion slows and it floats innocently, like a giant ice cube in a punch bowl. All is still. Except for the light blue hue in the ice wall that indicates where the chunk previously clung, the mass is unchanged. Adrenaline pumps through my body. The air buzzes with the excited chatter of my fellow spectators. We scan the ice wall, sure that more is to come. No movement. Stillness. Creaking and lurching, we can hear the ice shifting in the center of the mass. No motion. We wait expectantly, any minute now. Now? Now? Nothing. The air is still.
An hour passes. We all feel lucky to have seen one large calving. The shared experience transcends language. We are connected by the glory of nature.
I have just determined that nothing more is to come, when a crack in the ice wall catches my attention. I can see the crack grow, splintering down the ice wall. This is the big one ….
Julie got it on film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YuvaUSW6ZA
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