Change continues here as it does everywhere. These are some of the changes I have noticed in the last couple of days.

The melting around McMurdo is almost complete. Only small isolated pockets of snow remain anywhere to be seen. What were once raging torrents of water pushing bowling ball size boulders with ease down sluiceways have now slowed to a gentle muddy trickle of water barely capable of pushing a pebble. The sun has reached its zenith and has begun its slow descent into the inevitable winter.

Last night at the coffee house several of us were talking about everything and nothing when one of the guys began mildly bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t met a woman to try to form a relationship with this season. He turned to me and with kind words of off-handed apology he said, “All the women young and old like to talk to you because you are the ‘Safe Old Guy’”. I didn’t know if I should be flattered or mad! When did I become “The safe old guy”? And exactly what is the “safe old guy”? I guess it means women don’t worry about talking to me because they know I don’t have any hidden agendas. I guess it’s nice to be thought of in that way but “the safe OLD guy”.

While on a walk to Hut Point this morning I saw several seals lying out on the ice. I find it interesting that they always haul themselves out the same distance from the water as if they have a measured distance they know killer whales can come up in pursuit of them. As I started to walk away I heard what I thought was a bird singing I stopped to look and listen to try to find the source of the song. There were no birds in sight and as I focused harder I realized it was one of the seals singing. He only sang for a few minutes and then concluded his aria with a series of sounds that reminded me of the sound I heard when I was tuning an old car radio or the sound a whale makes in nature movies. I didn’t know seals could sing.

The last little tidbit involves a change in thinking. While I was walking this morning I met a couple of other hikers one probably in his early 30’s the other a few years older that I. We were looking out over the McMurdo Sound and it looked like we could see the “ice edge”. It looked too close in to be the actual ice edge but the other two insisted it was. There was a time in my life when I would have engaged in a discussion/argument about the subject but as I’ve gotten older I’ve changed how I think. I no longer think I need to be positive that I have the correct answer to every situation and I suspect even if I did it wouldn’t change the course of human events anyway, or so I think.

It was a beautiful day indeed.