>The blue door of the orange hut stood propped open as we hauled
the equipment inside. In the center of the floor, the dive hole
stared up, unblinking, like a giant eye. We had returned to
Turtle Rock. We suited up and dropped straight through the iris
of the eye, squeezing through the tunnel and down into an
ethereal concert. Beneath the veil of white is a world of cyan
shadows, and there in the blue light, the seals sing. >The song
seems to start as semiconscious thought, a memory of wind
whistling through a drafty window, sharp and sweet. It has no
direction or source, and it cuts cleanly through the shadows of
the mind until the tone starts to accelerate and deepen,
crossing fully into consciousness. The long, descending note
breaks abruptly into thumping vibration, almost too deep to
hear. Weddells are among the most vocal of seals, with 34
different varieties of trills, chirps, knocks, glugs and growls.
Overlapping calls filled the water as if the sounds themselves
had weight, and we swam suspended in t