a day like today but in 2006 , companion and friend of this house, María Inés Mato , swam for about 20 minutes lengthy, in the icy waters of Antarctica Caletta Potter Argentina, on the same stage where a year ago, a British biologist, passed away not to accept the invitation to play in a leopard seal.
gulls, cormorants, penguins, the endless sea plankton, glaciers surrounding hubbub greeted with approval and reaffirmation of pure stroke of National Sovereignty by Agnes.
then share the words of Griselda Gambaro, who wrote a children's story telling this new historical and creative sovereign gesture on our southernmost territory.
the book: A swim with Maria Ines
Griselda Gambaro
I tell my latest adventure. Bundle up, because it is much colder than the Beagle Channel
or Lake Argentino.
I ask: what is the coldest place in the country? (Ay! A clueless Mar de Ajo answer me!).
Antarctica, of course!
I wanted to swim in a cove of the island on May 25 which is within walking distance of Yubany base in the Antarctic continent.
On my dive was set for February 6, year: 2006.
That day, the captain of Puerto Deseado, it was the name of the ship that gave us shelter, I spoke a few words, the stern tone, the words very seriously, as calling to order:
- Already listed? Do not take more.
What say? He would not send! But then I realized I did not want to send me.
simply was looking at the horizon and knew a lot as you could read a book from school.
- Those clouds - he said - indicating that time may change soon. I looked
the - to the clouds - and I realized it was better hurry.
Two rubber boats were already enrolled to get going.
Why two, if ever a boat with me? Because in the cove of the island had a leopard seal calls
could crawl at the bottom. They used to be many and deep depths as if I dragged, I could hardly re-emerge to the surface.
So, goodbye, María Inés!
But when I swam, you're so lucky, seals were missing.
I decided to swim. I realized I needed a propitious sign.
And suddenly, came the signal: a seagull.
Antarctica gulls are not like those of Mar del Tuyú or San Bernardo, which in comparison with her sisters seem to birds. These, Antarctica, are enormous and, with outspread wings, as big as eagles.
eaglesBut nothing threatening.
The gull flew quietly and I thought that gave me permission to jump in the water.
This is the time, I thought.
Then I dove! Stroke
is, stroke is, swimming in the sea and landscape of whiteness of snow where
just sticking the darkness of a small mountain peak on the island.
And I saw that peak forward, forming a perfect circle, three seagulls, also large
impressive.
Nature or not to accept that something is happening in their environment, something unexpected and rubber boats could be those who accompanied me and a figurine (I) in water. At that moment I knew that Nature accepted me and told me.
Suddenly, one of the gulls left the circle and began to plan down to me.
very close and were arrested, had been the sun, its shadow would have covered me.
gomones I heard that from the exalted yelled to his lungs. They pointed out the gull:
- you are watching, watching you!
I extend the arm in a new stroke and as he lifted his head to breathe, slightly twisted neck in his direction and our eyes met.
Ah, that look that I exchanged with the seagull!
'll never forget.
She told me of the vastness in which she lived, of their flights, their declines in bite to eat fish, the wind that pounded the crop and combined with their wings to sustain flight. The place where brooding and their offspring gaviotitas.
And I told her what? For how much I wanted to swim in the Antarctic ice surrounded these
immensities she knew like the palm of your hand I say, his leg.
long look at that we became friends, for a moment she entered my world and I in theirs.
Then she turned and rose to fly again with the other gulls who waited higher, closer to heaven. And widened the circle and accompanied me until I left the water. He had swum
twenty minutes and, of course, I felt colder when it hit the air.
keep me warm at once with an old blanket the north, soft, furry, she always carried with me.
just sat on the raft, what happened to the ship's captain? He
the siren!
Pi, piiiii!, And happily the siren sounded in the silence of Antarctica. Celebrated the siren had been fulfilled. Fulfilled my desire, with the sea ice, with my friend, the gull, who also told me, with his eyes, that his dream had been to see a creature of the earth to swim like a seal, finally, in those waters .
Pi, piiiiii! Mission accomplished
0 comments:
Post a Comment