The Crystal Ocean

Television (Full Length) – 1999

Charting the freeze and thaw which transforms Antarctica each year, this NHNZ documentary follows an icebreaker as it manoeuvres towards the permanent polar ice cap — the furthest south any ship has yet ventured in winter. The cold has trapped icebergs in frozen seas, as well as 25,000 male emperor penguins, waiting out the three month polar night. Veteran Antarctic filmmaker Mike Single captures eerie undersea environments, icebergs in beautiful decay, the towering Ross Ice Shelf, seals and a massive summer explosion of krill. Single won an Emmy Award.

Eventually the sea will freeze solid, and until summer's return the south of the planet will be isolated within a vast white shell ... for eight months the Southern Ocean will become a twilight zone, neither sea nor land. From late February the ice front advances north to claim an extra two and a half miles of ocean every day.
– Narrator Jeffrey Thomas