Off our bow, sharp-etched in the summer sunlight of January, towers a wild gaunt island of black cliffs and glacier-cloaked mountains. Icebergs drift all around us, a stark white fleet riding an ink-blue sea.

Across half the horizon, south and east, marches a jagged succession of snow peaks. They seem only a few miles off, but our chart shows that they lie more than 50 miles away. They stand on the Antarctic Peninsula, the long, beckoning finger of the Antarctic Continent that reaches north toward Cape Horn and South America.

I brace between bulkhead and hatch rail to keep from sliding across the ice-lookout house. Belowdecks, cans crash from stowage shelves and the cook shouts dark oaths. Each time we roll, water cascades over the side onto the weather deck.

The stubby little trawler flies a blue flag with the initials USARP—U. S. Antarctic Research Program. Her name is Hero.

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