The Princess of the Bottom of the World (Episode 3): Glaciers, Bones, and Ghost Towns

By Dan Linehan

Provocative, edgy, humorous, racy, thought-provoking, and full of wonder all describe The Princess of the Bottom of the World, a seven-episode series of multimedia novellas focusing on the natural world and international adventure.

Though a work of fiction, The Princess of the Bottom of the World is based on the author’s true adventures to Antarctica and the surrounding regions, time living abroad in Argentina, work with science and engineering, and nearly two decades of professional writing about the only world that we can call home.

About Episode 3:

In South Georgia, Scott ventures up peaks and to the edges of disintegrating glaciers where water frozen during the age of dinosaurs now melts into waterfalls. Penguin and albatross colonies seem to stretch from horizon to horizon. Painted birds dance through ice calving from glaciers. And electric-blue icebergs are just the tip.

Battles for food and life rage nonstop, as an abandoned whaling station shows that all bones are not the same. Scott and Cassandra feel the chemistry. The episode contains photos and connects to an online Multimedia Traveling Companion that includes additional photos, video footage, and more behind-the-scenes materials.

Praise for The Princess of the Bottom of the World:

“I loved going on the journey with Scott and the group. I was brought so close to the land and the wildlife by Scott’s descriptions, which can only be accomplished by someone with a heart invested in them. This beautiful travelogue swept me away.” —Mary Ackerman (nurse practitioner and book club member)

“I especially like Melina and Cassandra, who were both hard working, smart, personable, independent, risk takers, passionate, uninhibited, playful, and lived in the moment.” —Connie Clark (dean of health sciences and book club member)

“This is a great story! It was an adventure from the start! I like Scott, young and old, for his gumption and romanticism and resourcefulness and adventuresomeness, his humor and playfulness, his combination of regard for safety and protocols with his occasional interest in ignoring those very things. I like his sensuality and brains.” —Mary Rakow (author and editor)

“The Princess of the Bottom of the World reads like a collaboration between Paul Theroux, Rachel Carson, and Robert James Waller.” —Dan Bergmann (scientist and educator)

“Scott’s narrative voice is compelling, and imparts so much personality that I felt like I had gone on the expedition with him. And I was definitely craving Malbec (one of my favorite wines, too) the entire time!” —Deborah Steinberg (writer and editor)

“It’s really wonderful how strongly you express Scott’s emotions and excitement over every glacier. And all his descriptions are so vivid, right down to the feathers of the black-browed albatross. Whew, it’s a powerful ending and I am still crying!” —Gail Cheeseman (cofounder of Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris)

About the series:

Scott Sullivan must travel to the coldest and most remote place on Earth to warm his heart to love. He journeys to Antarctica and other distant regions to study and write about wildlife and environmental issues. For far too long he has put his personal life on ice.

Nothing could have prepared him for the spellbinding beauty and heart-wrenching reality he encounters. During the voyage he befriends a quirky crew member who begins the melting process on his heart. In his search to better understand the world, he unexpectedly finds a better understanding of himself.

But at the end of the voyage, Scott and Cassandra are forced to go their separate ways. When a shipwreck draws them back together, Scott makes his own course correction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Linehan
• Release date: Apr 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463444689

Dan Linehan

In 2000, Dan Linehan switched careers from scientific researcher and engineer to fulltime writer and editor. Focusing on creativity, education, and outreach using multiplatform storytelling, he is widely published—in many forms of writing that include poetry and fiction—and has won awards for his work. Video, photography, and other visualizations often play important roles.He has authored two highly illustrated nonfiction books that cover historical and technological aspects of aerospace and space tourism, Burt Rutan's Race to Space: The Magician of Mojave and His Flying Innovations (Zenith Press, 2011) and SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History (Zenith Press, 2008), which has a foreword by science fiction legend Sir Arthur C. Clarke.Dan has worked for a film studio, a literary journal, a national laboratory, and leading educational publishers. As a writer, he explored Antarctica and the surrounding regions from 2006 to 2007 and lived in Argentina from 2013 to 2014.

Book preview

Praise for The Princess of the Bottom of the World

I loved going on the journey with Scott and the group. I was brought so close to the land and the wildlife by Scott’s descriptions, which can only be accomplished by someone with a heart invested in them. This beautiful travelogue swept me away.

—Mary Ackerman (nurse practitioner and book club member)

I especially like Melina and Cassandra, who were both hard working, smart, personable, independent, risk takers, passionate, uninhibited, playful, and lived in the moment.

—Connie Clark (dean of health sciences and book club member)

This is a great story! It was an adventure from the start! I like Scott, young and old, for his gumption and romanticism and resourcefulness and adventuresomeness, his humor and playfulness, his combination of regard for safety and protocols with his occasional interest in ignoring those very things. I like his sensuality and brains.

—Mary Rakow (author and editor)

"The Princess of the Bottom of the World reads like a collaboration between Paul Theroux, Rachel Carson, and Robert James Waller."

—Dan Bergmann (scientist and educator)

Scott’s narrative voice is compelling, and imparts so much personality that I felt like I had gone on the expedition with him. And I was definitely craving Malbec (one of my favorite wines, too) the entire time!

—Deborah Steinberg (writer and editor)

"In my preschool classroom, nature plays a big part of the curriculum. I was pleased to see that you included some stories that reflected Scott’s childhood interest in nature. We need to work hard to cultivate young children’s interest in nature so they will become better caretakers of our planet. So after reading The Princess of the Bottom of the World, I’ll be working on how to appropriately include climate change in the curriculum."

—Pat Padilla (teacher and book club member)

It’s really wonderful how strongly you express Scott’s emotions and excitement over every glacier. And all his descriptions are so vivid, right down to the feathers of the black-browed albatross. Whew, it’s a powerful ending and I am still crying!

—Gail Cheeseman (cofounder of Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris)

The Princess of the Bottom of the World

Episode 3: Glaciers, Bones, and Ghost Towns

by Dan Linehan

Over the years working on The Princess of the Bottom of the World, I've had help in many ways from many people. Thank you all! I wish to dedicate this work to poet and writing instructor David Gitin. His teaching and guidance allowed me to emerge as a writer. I miss my good friend.

List of Episodes

Episode 1: Journey to the Bottom of the World

Episode 2: Islands of Penguins

Episode 3: Glaciers, Bones, and Ghost Towns

Episode 4: Antarctica, Ho!

Episode 5: Patagonia and the World of Waterfalls

Episode 6: Course Corrections

Episode 7: When the Journey Never Ended

Book Video Trailer

The Princess of the Bottom of the World

Though a work of fiction, The Princess of the Bottom of the World is a seven-episode multimedia serial novel based on the author’s true adventures to Antarctica and the surrounding regions, time living abroad in Argentina, work with science and engineering, and nearly two decades of professional writing about the only world that we can call home.

This episode is best read with an image capable reader. Photos in high resolution are available online by visiting the Multimedia Traveling Companion, which also includes additional photos, historical video footage, and more behind-the-scenes materials. It is also linked to tags in the text: [p] for photos, [s] for songs, and [v] for videos.

The series is not intended for all ages. Episodes can contain strong language, mature situations and themes, and/or sexual content.

Cover photo by Dan Linehan

Cover and logo designs by James Linehan

Spanish translation assistance by Gisela Zunino (Buenos Aires)

Publication Acknowledgments

Excerpts: Beagle Channel, Buenos Aires, The Other Side of the Comet, and Hit Play (Homestead Review, 2015); Grytviken (Porter Gulch Review, 2015); Surfing on Rocks of Ice (Catamaran Literary Reader, 2015); An International Scene (Ping-Pong, 2015); and Fish, Frogs, and Alluvial Fans (Caustic Frolic, 2019).

Poems: Cats and Dogs (Monterey Poetry Review, 2007); Constellations (installation at Residencia Corazón, La Plata, Argentina, 2013); and Beagle Channel and Trece Fuegos (Homestead Review, 2007).

Photographs: Sunset in Beagle Channel and Street Art in Buenos Aires (Homestead Review, 2015); Dog in Ushuaia (Monterey Poetry Review, 2007); Elephant Seals and Zodiacs (Hilltromper, 2015); and Whale Tail (Otter 501: A webStory, 2012).

Version E3.12

Copyright 2019–2020 by Dan Linehan. All rights reserved.

Smile with Your _______™, USPTO trademark registration pending

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, given away to other people, or shared in any other electronic manner. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

At the end of Drygalski Fjord on South Georgia Island, highlighted by sediment and rock, the Risting Glacier [p] calves massive ice chunks (sometimes taller than ships) to reveal the underlying pure, blue ice. (Photo by Dan Linehan)

Praise

Title Page

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Again, Nothing but Ocean

Chapter 2: Talk Like an Irishman

Chapter 3: Where Ocean Wanderers Land

Chapter 4: Ghost Town of Whales

Chapter 5: She Don’t Eat Fruit

Chapter 6: Purging with Glacial Flour and Calafate

Chapter 7: Surfing on Rocks of Ice

Chapter 8: Smile with Your Tits

Chapter 9: Sooties and Oakum Boys

Chapter 10: End of the Fjord

Map: The Voyage

Map: South Georgia

Map: South Orkneys

Index and Multimedia Traveling Companion

About the Series and Episodes

Author Bio and More Info

1 / Again, Nothing but Ocean

Measuring the amount of side-to-side roll, the ship’s clinometer [p] has two curved, liquid-filled tubes with a bubble trapped inside each. As the ship tips one way or the other, the bubbles remain at the highest points, so the amount of roll can be read from the scales. This clinometer shows a roll to the right of between 1º and 2º while en route to South Georgia. In rough seas it was not uncommon for the top tube to be maxed out. However, if a roll to the left or right maxed out the bottom tube, the ship would not roll back. It would sink. (Photo by Dan Linehan)

DAY 8: SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN

I slept in late the next day. Missed breakfast and almost lunch. Didn’t go to any of the lectures. Tomorrow’s schedule interested me most. However, I wouldn’t miss tonight’s film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. I knew it well because it was one of the many resources that I’d carefully studied while preparing for the expedition. I spent the remaining day in the ship’s lounge or holed up in my cabin organizing my rapidly growing stockpile of writing, photos, videos, voice recordings, and other materials. For me, there was no such thing as downtime. Throughout the day people spotted all kinds of birds, and some also saw a small pod of pilot whales. But I couldn’t go chasing after each and every thing. In just a few short days, I had already observed so much more than I ever could have imagined. I needed time to digest things, collect my thoughts, process all the experiences, and catch up on my writing before details had the chance to escape.

* * *

I have something for you to try, Cassandra said. She teetered all around because of the ocean’s roughness outside but still managed to keep the small plate in her hand perfectly level. During lunch earlier today, she had asked why I’d missed breakfast and reminded me that she would not have let me in if I had showed up late. I’d replied that I was afraid of her cooking. Now during dinner, she gave me something to really be scared about. Three tan-colored, slightly tapered, tubular shapes about half the size of my thumb slid side to side. Their movements made them look alive. From the edge, I could see that each piece had three or four layers of concentric rings. To me, they looked like the disgusting parts of some animal.

"Corazones de palma. Hearts of palma, she said. Have you had this before?"

Nooo, I replied, prodding them with my fork.

You’ll like it. I promise.

"First off, what is a palma? I asked, unsure whether I wanted to know. Second of all, I don’t eat hearts."

"What is a palma? repeated Cassandra, shaking her head. You know, it is palma."

"I have no idea what palma is. I looked over to my pals. Do you know what palma is?"

If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, said Evan.

I know, I know, I know, said Tina. But I’m not saying.

Come on. I’m not going to eat this unless I know what it is.

"It is palma. It has these, Cassandra said, putting her hands together and wiggling her fingers like a ten-legged spider. Then she pulled her hands apart as if a ray gun had shot the spider and it exploded. That was my impression, anyway. It looks like this. It’s green."

I’m definitely not eating slimy, green spider hearts. You’ve got to be kidding, I said, but I was serious. These aren’t even green.