Journal Entries

2004-05

 

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January 26, 2005:

Today it snows like crazy — big, fluffy, beautiful flakes that don't stick much and melt pretty quickly, but are fun anyway. We get about half an inch. Joe builds a snowman right in front of the "Hazardous Waste" sign, which makes for a nice picture. There is a snowball fight or two.

Also the cruise ship Endeavour visits today for the second time this summer, bearing Bob the station manager's parents — they've booked themselves on this cruise so they can see him, and his birthday was a couple of days ago — that works out well, and we are allowed to take a Zodiac out to visit the ship, which is fun.

- Luke Sandro

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January 27, 2005:

The soil from Torgie I put in the backyard to dehydrate is still not even close to dry enough, and the larvae are still very plump looking. This is not very much soil at all, and it's shielded from precipitation, and it has been in relatively dry air for ten days. Torgie's soil sure does hold on to its water effectively.

We go out in the morning towards the south islands, and about halfway to them we start seeing whales. Humpbacks, two of them, surfacing and blowing air out their blowholes incredibly close to us, making a whooshing sound when they blow that I wish I could record. We follow, hoping for that classic humpback view of the whole tail sticking up as they dive, which we eventually get.

Finally we land at Limitrophe Island, which has little to offer us Belgica-wise, and then to Hermit, which is better, and also has a lot of other wildlife. Our landing site is pretty close to a bunch of Antarctic terns, which are beautiful little fork-tailed, orange-beaked, black-capped, incredibly graceful fliers. They are almost indistinguishable from the Arctic tern, which migrates from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. Ixodes uriae may have been carried between hemispheres by parasitizing these terns.

Hermit is a big, craggy, beautiful island, and really brings home the fact that each island here is really its own little world, with a unique combination of geology and biology. We see a Weddell seal (sleeping, of course), which apparently is quite rare around here — it has very cool coloration, and wakes up a little to essentially thumb its nose at us and heave itself into a position about 10 meters further away.

Here there is another fur seal, which by the way is a very different animal from leopard, elephant, crabeater and Weddell seals. Taxonomists (biologists who classify organisms into groups) classify fur seals as eared seals – all other Antarctic seals are true seals. The fur seal is also the only seal that can really move well on land, and some are fairly aggressive and can hurt you if they catch up with you. This one notices us, but merely gets up on its flippers (which really are pretty close to legs — it’s basically standing on all fours) and growls and stares us down. Still, we are somewhat startled by a seal that actually does stuff, and we make sure to bother it as little as we can.

After we get back, it is announced that it's Josh's birthday, and that it might be a good time to jump into the harbor. Six of us take the plunge, right off the big rubber bumper that docking ships butt up against. It’s a long way down, and the water is about 33°F, and lots of involuntary, unintelligible noises come out of your mouth when you surface. But it’s fun, and we then head straight for the hot tub to bring our body temperatures back up. When I get back inside, Joe points out the water temperature in the weather room (which has lots of weather displays and information about the local conditions, gathered from a weather station that is right here). We have just immersed ourselves in water that is 32.9°F.

 

- Luke Sandro

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January 29, 2005:

Today we are visited by yet another cruise ship, the Crystal Symphony. I am part of a group from the station that goes aboard in a Zodiac to talk to the passengers about what goes on at Palmer Station. The ship is as big as the Amsterdam, just absolutely enormous.

There is a little door in the side of the boat, just above the waterline that we pull our Zodiac right up to and get out. The place is like the biggest, fanciest floating hotel I've ever seen. The crew welcomes us, and we go to an auditorium, where lots of passengers have gathered to hear three of the Palmer Station staff give a slide show presentation about the Antarctic. The passengers are very interested and attentive, and afterwards we answer lots of questions, pose for pictures with passengers — a few people actually want our autographs! We decide that this is our chance to be celebrities, and enjoy it while it lasts.

We are treated to a very nice buffet lunch afterwards, and then say our goodbyes — as we pull away from the ship, lots of passengers are waving from the decks that seem hundreds of feet above us. The whole thing is a very strange experience.

When we return, we go to our last Sunday station meeting (we leave Palmer on Wednesday), at which folks are very nice and say they’re going to miss us, and we are given cool red baseball caps that say "Palmer Station" on them. I'm going to miss them, too.

- Luke Sandro

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January 30, 2005:

I'm running out of time to write — today we went to some beautiful islands, saw an old shipwreck sticking out of the water, and sledded down a hill on our butts. We also witnessed a glacier calving, which was very exciting and sent out a huge wave.

We are beginning to pack up our lab, in preparation for leaving the day after tomorrow.

- Luke Sandro

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January 31, 2005:

Today we finish packing up our lab — all of us are definitely sad to go — we will miss the people and the place very much. The Laurence M. Gould arrives tomorrow morning at 8 am.

- Luke Sandro

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February 1, 2005:

The LMG has arrived, bringing with it many people moving on to the station as soon as we move out — it’s a big personnel change here, and there is much rushing around and activity. We are preparing to say our goodbyes — we sleep on the ship tonight, and it leaves at 8 am tomorrow.

- Luke Sandro

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