It’s been a (long) while since the last Salt Water. I intended to write about the end of winter, how the elephant seal breeding season was looming, but in the meantime spring has come and gone, as have the elephant seal females. Winter let go of the island reluctantly and we had heavy snowfalls well into October. But the island was humming with animals - feathered, finned and flippered, adult and hours
old - by then.

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Around 08:15. Sunrise. But only barely. The sun will describe a low arc through the sky before disappearing behind the western horizon eight and a half hours later. The days are short and the light low, but Marion doesn’t share the extremes of the high latitudes which have near or complete darkness for most of the winter.

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These ‘newsletters’ (I’ve used the plural, but don’t count on too many) will let you know I’m alive and will let me share a few words and images from Marion Island - my home for the next year.  I blame my procrastination in writing on the creative dead end I initially encountered when trying to think of a title for these newsletters.  I’ve chosen ‘Salt Water’ because of the following paraphrase from Isak Dinesen’s ‘The Deluge at Norderney’:  the cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.  Its inscribed on the first page of our Sealer work plan and describes well what we’ll experience through the year.

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