14 Feb 2020 It's five days from sunset. After the Ocean Giant offloaded cargo and took on the northbound load it left the harbor ahead of a storm.  In the two days after it left and before the wind, the sea ice began to congeal over the channel, clad in the snow that heralded the tempest.  The open water disappeared once more, a harbinger of the end of the short Antarctic summer, harbinger to the approaching winter. It grew cloudier, and darker before it became whiter and the world vanished in the lucent abyss.  The Heights, the Hill, the Town itself became a memory, a dream as the wind alone became the sole compass marker. I slept as we went into Condition, slept through the wind, the storm... slept and dreamed. ...and awoke to the stillness outside... McMurdo Sound was clear, just like that, the congested ice had gone.  It was open water for twenty miles out to the southwest and west, and open water to the horizon looking northward up the ...