Well, it wasn’t A-23, but it was the remnants of another massive iceberg, A-38B.
It was October 2004, and Dave Hahn, Dierdre Galbraith, and I had just finished leading our nine clients on a Shackleton crossing of South Georgia. We were back on the ship, guide hats replaced by tourist coats, guests of Lindblad Expeditions as we sailed around this magnificent island.
The beauty was everywhere, pressing upon us with grace, towering serrated peaks jutting from wild-blue water, glacier-ringed bays home to teeming wildlife - penguins, albatross, kestrel, leopard, elephant, and fur seal, and myriad more. Every step on the island was a clear reminder that, while not unwanted, we were also not home here on this tiny speck of land, but merely guests.
The ship, a quite luxurious one, felt like home more often than not, a safe harbor in a brutal environment, its strength and build and expert crew creating an air of invincibility. And then, from of the mists of the great Southern Ocean emerged impossible sights, plates of ice towering high and wide, skyscrapers of frozen water bobbing like white sea monsters.
Without great effort and with minimal fanfare, Mother Nature reminded us of our paltry insignificance, our utter frailty. We were dwarfed. Our 292 foot ship, the Lindblad Endeavor, seemed miniscule compared to the gargantuan plates of ice meandering through the great Southern Ocean. I could almost hear Nearer My God to Thee whipping off the waves.
The berg-filled waters were intimidating, but also strangely alluring. Our captain, Leif Skog, made navigating the minefield seem pedestrian, bringing us close to the behemoths on the ship. And, when in harbor, our Zodiac pilots zipped us through for up-close-and-personal visits with the icebergs, close enough to feel their wobble, hear their creaks and groans, and taste the freshwater pouring from their sides.
These icebergs we were seeing were huge, but if I’m being honest, they were much diminished from their stature just months before. They were here at South Georgia having made a 1,500 mile journey north after fracturing from the Ronne Ice Shelf six years prior. At the beginning, iceberg A-38 was immense, some 90 miles long and 30 wide, 1.5 times the size of Delaware. Once afloat, it fractured in the Southern Ocean, splitting off A-38B, which moved north over 5.5 years, eventually splitting into A-38G - its eastern section at 12 by 38 nautical miles (22 by 70 km) - and A-38B - the western section measuring 10 by 38 nautical miles (19 by 70 km). The latter grounded itself on the continental shelf just ENE of the island.
The effect of this grounding - and eventual fracturing, decay, and melting - was dire for South Georgia, altering the marine ecosystem and its smaller bergs blocking feeding access for many animals. To put its size in context, A-38B had a mass of roughly 300 gigatons and put an estimated 100 billion tons of freshwater into the ecosystem.
Twenty years on, a new - and older - mega-iceberg is making a move toward South Georgia. Named A-23A, it broke from the Filchner Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1986, became grounded, but is now making progress northward. Hopes are high that it will pass without issue, leaving the flora, fauna, and people of South Georgia unharmed.
