Awful Predicaments

Dear oh dear, some days just don't start right! This poor old polar bear is hanging on to that knob-end of ice for dear life, but it's not looking hopeful. Another couple of hours at most and that stub of ice will have melted beneath him and he'll be in the drink. And I think he knows it despite the look of feigned nonchalance! I just wonder whether he has a Plan B as he clings to his ice mushroom while he takes stock of his situation. If Plan B is for him to sink gracefully below the waves and drown, he's on to a winner, but if he hopes to come out of this predicament alive and kicking he'll have to come up with something pretty sharpish.


His options are distinctly limited. He can wait for a passing ship to spot him and rescue him - unlikely to say the least. He can sit tight in the hope that a larger ice-flow drifts his way - chances of this are slim as the knob of ice he's on hasn't got long to go. Or he can make a dash for it and try to swim his way back to firmer land. As we cannot see the bigger picture, it's impossible to know how feasible this is. And, frankly, he doesn't seem to have set his mind to the task. Nonchalance is all very well but some situations call for action. But maybe he's bypassed Plan B altogether for Plan C. Pray for a miracle! Not very practical, but it does give the comforting illusion of there being a number of alternative plans and therefore a chance of survival.


Well, there we must leave our intrepid Mr Bear as he ponders his fate in this vast expanse of ice-cold sea and perhaps devises a way to get out of this fix. But maybe he doesn't need to come up with anything and rescue is close at hand. After all, he's been caught on film, so what does that tell us?!

Awestruck

There are some sights which are so beautiful, so wondrous, that they leave you staring at them open-mouthed. That's the effect the picture below has on me. This pure white wilderness, stretching as far as the eye can see, seemingly untouched by man, is a scene of absolute peace and calm. You can almost feel yourself breathing in the exhilaratingly cold fresh air deep into your lungs. The scene has a reassuringly permanent and unchanging quality about it. How long it will be before the hand of man brings an end to its changeless permanence is anyone's guess but that will be a sad day.

I feel a similar but different effect when I look at this second photo. The similarity is in the clean fresh purity of the scene, the difference is the movement taking place here. A powerful churning sea flows between the ice. You can almost sense the force of the body of water pounding against the mass of the ice floes. There is beauty here as in the previous image but there is also motion, force, energy. This scene does not have the reassuring permanence of the other one. There is no calm here. It is just a matter of time before the ice is broken up, worn down, and swallowed by the water.

Two powerfully striking scenes, both awesome in their own way. The first is a vast open landscape that transmits an air of permanence and total tranquillity. The second, equally awesome, is a depiction of the powerful forces of Nature, the foaming sea tirelessly pounding the ice that we know will eventually yield to the surging waters. In both instances we are awestruck by the beauty and energy of the natural world, a world which we are now all too aware is under threat from man's deleterious activities from one end of the planet to the other.