Cesealia

Current Weather
Temperature: 32F
Wind Speed: 9 knots
Conditions: Snow

One morning during breakfast, while ganging up on the New York Times crossword (a daily routine for some), we watched a young seal worm its way up the boat ramp and onto the boat house deck. As you know, we get regular visits from wildlife: elephant seals behind Bio, penguins on the pier, Sheathbills on the roofs. But it's a little unusual for a seal to crawl right up onto the wooden deck of the boat house. Of course, everyone runs outside with a camera at this point. Little did we know, we'd be seeing quite a bit of this young seal over the next week.

We determined that it was a young elephant seal, and decided it must be a girl, probably because of those adorable big baby seal eyes. She soon became known as Cesealia, or Sealia for short. She stayed on the deck, napping and scratching, for about three days. We became used to her, and she became comfortable with us. The Antarctic Conservation Act states that you cannot disturb the wildlife, and the rule of thumb is that if they change their behavior at all, you're too close. But the nice thing is that the wildlife here is so accustomed to people that we are often able to get very close indeed. And sometimes the critters come curiously right up to your feet. In Sealia's case, we would just work around her, and she didn't seem to mind at all:

She finally got hungry and left, only to return the next day to the exact same spot. She performed regular human-like gestures before falling promptly back to sleep:

This went on for about a week, but we knew we'd need the boat house ramp eventually. Under the special circumstances of impeding work, we are allowed to interfere. So Bob, the station manager, tried to head her off at the pass the next time we caught her on her way back in from fishing. They did an odd jig with each other for a while, Bob trying to stay in the way and Sealia trying to go around. He even tried whispering sweet nothings:

Sealia was not impressed. But Bob has a secret weapon: a blue tarp. Someone, sometime, discovered that seals really dislike the sound? color? usefulness? of a blue tarp. We still see Sealia on occasion, usually around Gamage Point by the pump house, but she doesn't call the boat house deck her home anymore.

We've begun to have other visitors as well. Most exciting are the whales. This is an Antarctic Minke:

They're not terribly big, as whales go; they tend to shy away from nearby Zodiacs; and they rarely breach (jump out of the water), generally just showing their dorsal fin. So the Minkes are usually distant and not terribly exciting. But Humpbacks are a more curious species. They've been known to approach and circle boats, spy-hop and breach. And in addition to their dorsal, they typically show their tail (often called fluking) as they swim along:

We've started to see Humpbacks regularly, and they've come in as close as the tip of Gamage Point, which is the thin peninsula of rock extending about 100 yards from the buildings on station.

On a side note, we have three journalists on station for the next few weeks. One of them is a former National Geographic photo/video journalist and now works for National Public Radio. For some fantastic photos, check out his blog:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/freeze_frame/

The Monochrome Spectrum Gallery Tribute

Current Weather
Temperature: 30F
Wind Speed: 7 knots
Conditions: Overcast

At a glance, our world here consists only of white snow and black rock; a greyscale wonder. I've noticed that many of my photographs, when converted to black and white, don't seem to change much. Often, only the light blue of sky or subtle cyan of glacial ice is lost. Even the wildlife is distinctly lacking in color. Seals wear dingy mottled grey suits and look underdressed next to penguins in their traditional tuxedos. Sea birds are primarily white with black markings. Thin yellow beaks and subtle blue eyeliner can not be gleaned from afar.

But, the sun is capable of painting this simple canvas into a complex and beautifully layered masterpiece.

Early in the season I took a hike up the glacier on a cloudy day. Sunbeams started visibly poking through the clouds and spotlighting the islands and station below me. The clouds began to take on an eerie sepia, in stark contrast to the bluish hue of the snow:

On the same hike, I saw a nice sundog, which occurs when sunlight passes through a thin layer of cloud consisting of fine ice particles. The light is refracted into a rainbow ring around the sun. Neil took this picture of me gazing into it:

A really good sundog will not only make a circle around the sun, but will extend into multiple interconnected rainbow rings, like a giant fractal in the sky. These are more common at the pole. I've never seen it.

This post is going to primarily be a gallery of sunset shots taken over the past several weeks. We had two straight weeks of uncommonly sunny and calm weather in early November. So sunny, in fact, that I burnt the crap out of my forehead and cheeks by being out under the ozone hole for just over an hour:

Soon the rest of the station joined me with panda faces of their own. On one particularly nice afternoon, several of us bathed shirtless in glorious sunlight on the deck of GWR. The air temperature was 36F, the deck was in the calm lee of a light breeze, but with the sun shining on our skin and the beer warming in our bellies, we were perfectly comfortable. Of course, this didn't help my burn any, but it was worth it. Maybe the best lazy afternoon I've ever had. Certainly one of the most bizarre. I know a few pictures were taken. Hopefully I can get my hands on one.

I'm sidetracked as usual, but before I start with the sunset gallery I need to take another aside and mention the massive berg that's been sitting on the horizon since I arrived here. I need to mention it because it's a prominent figure in many of these photos. We've watched dozens of lesser bergs come and go, but this behemoth has been grounded to the horizon for the duration. From watching the sun set behind it, my best guess is that it's 50 to 60 meters high, 150 long. And as they say, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Like all bergs, 90% is underwater. But, it finally spun around two days ago, and then promptly blew away to the south, so guess I'll have to consider this post a tribute.


And, without further ado...

October 22

My arrival on station was almost right on the equinox, September 22nd. Day and night were even, but for the long dusk of a low-angle sun. The sunset crept slowly to the southwest, getting closer to the berg every day, eventually setting right on top of it.

October 24

Two Sheathbills with their down fluffed up against the Antarctic evening. These are the chickens of Antarctica. They are curious and odd. They regularly hop around on one leg, presumably warming the other. They peck at the bolts on a sheet metal roof. I even saw one play tug of war with the doctor (Jo, we call her DoJo) and a bit of rope.

The brash ice often collects in bands while it's herded about haphazardly by the wind.

The clouds reflect down onto the surface of the snow, blending pinks and oranges with blues. The azure ice of the glacier often turns green with the addition of golden rays.

Even the surface of the water becomes chromatically confused.

October 30

This one really shows how far off and massive that berg is.

November 12

On really clear days we see the green flash, which I'm sorry to say, doesn't flash at all. As a matter of fact, I think Ted's theory may be right on this one: the only reason the sun turns green just as it sets is that you've been staring at it for the past five minutes.

An amazingly crisp day to be able to see some definition in the berg, even at dusk.

Sometimes the color is just unnatural.

November 14

Have you ever seen orange water?

November 21

Most of these pictures were taken right from the deck of Bio (the second of our two primary buildings, named for the laboratories that fill the first floor). The galley is a popular place to sit for sunset because the south-facing wall is basically all glass, and for cleaner shots, the deck is just a glass door away.

November 30

Water in and around brash ice is protected from wind and wave, making it much smoother and more reflective.

The sunsets are getting later and later as we approach the solstice. Right now the sun rises at about 3am and sets at 11:30pm. It's getting harder and harder to stay up for, especially when they last for hours. These final two pictures were taken near midnight. It's hard to go to bed when you know there's another hour of this to come.

Luna Addendum

Current Weather
Temperature: 36F
Wind Speed: 3 knots
Conditions: Overcast

I left a couple things from the last post unexplained, mostly because I came to the end of it unexpectedly. It just felt resolved and I thought that adding more would take away. So I'll add it now.

For one, I'm Rex here. It started as a random name scribbled on a Macaroni Grill table, and it just stuck, as nicknames tend to do. There is another Brian here, so it does help cut the ambiguity.

Otherwise, I really wanted to explain the title of the last post. Indirectly, of course...

After touring the cruise passengers around station, we were invited again to the National Geographic Explorer for Q & A and, more importantly, a lecture by Neil Armstrong. I suspect the Explorer crew scheduled this lecture with Palmer in mind, and we are grateful. Neil is clearly an accomplished speaker, and his talk was especially catered to our surroundings. He went into detail about James Cook's attempts to discover the Unknown Southern Land; Terra Australis Incognita.

The idea of this mysterious continent was suggested by Aristotle, even before the time of Christ. For centuries it was thought that land in the northern hemisphere must be balanced by land in the south. Two thousand years later, Aristotle's notion remained, and so did the unknown nature of the southern land, with the additional fancy that it must be fertile and populous. Enter Captain James Cook in the late 1700s, who was ordered to make its discovery. A tall order, discovery. An order who's result was the charting of Australia's east coast, the circumnavigation of New Zealand, and one of the first crossings into the Antarctic Circle; but not the discovery of Terra Australis Incognita. In fact, Cook's expedition quashed the idea of a fertile and populated southern land and Britain's focus shifted to the Northwest Passage. Antarctica would eventually be discovered in 1820, after an English merchant ship was driven south in bad weather from Cape Horn to the yet undiscovered South Shetland Islands, thus rekindling the notion of land further south.

Neil Armstrong glorified these early adventurers in comparison to his expedition to Luna. "We knew where we were going," he said, "Luna did not require discovery. It was there and we knew how to achieve it." Though the overall mission was complex, each system was manageable when considered on a smaller, individual scale.

Terra Australis Incognita et Luna

Current Weather
Temperature: 33F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: Overcast

The Antarctic Peninsula is the most easily reachable part of the southernmost continent, and tourism takes advantage of this fact. There are many cruise ships laden with high paying customers (anywhere from $10,000 up to the sky) that sail these waters, as well as many smaller yachts, public and private. In an effort to provide some outreach to the world, the National Science Foundation has opened Palmer Station for scheduled visitors. We will welcome about 20 shiploads of tourists throughout the summer season, providing a tour of the station, a stop in the store (we call it Pal-Mart), and a meet and greet in our galley, which includes warm drinks and our world famous brownies (according to Lonely Planet. Oh yes, there is actually a tour book for Antarctica, and it touts our brownies, which have always been made from a box, except this year, due to a logistics blip they're actually homemade and fantastically gooey.)

I'm not sure yet what the full range of visitors will be like, but I'm very curious after our first two boats. So far we've been visited by the Spirit of Sydney, a small yacht holding nine passengers and two crew, and twice by the National Geographic Explorer, which is just a bit larger, at 130 tourists and enough crew to fill our bar and lounge to overflow:

Because the Spirit is so small, we are able to give them an extensive tour of the station and invite them to lunch. This group was established, but still young and adventurous, so they fit right in with us here, and I very much enjoyed their company. They have a nice personal group that gets to do some amazing things. Things that our stuffed-shirt employers would never condone, like climbing local peaks, and, what I'd really love to do, kayak:

On the other end of the spectrum, the passengers on the Explorer are the standard expensive-American-cruise-ship-tourist type. They're old or overweight, unintelligent or uninterested, out of touch or out of place. I guess I shouldn't say these things (and for the sake of my job, I'm obligated to say that my views do not represent those of the National Science Foundation, paranoid followers of the fear-mongering machine). I shouldn't say this because some of these folks are genuine and interesting, but they're the select few. Our favorite question so far is, "What's the elevation here?" Lower than your cruise ship cabin, you idiot. Maybe I'm jaded after a few too many gimme's in the store yesterday. Honestly, what grown adults start a sentence with "Gimme"? Snobs, that's who. Ok, I'll stop.

Anyway, when a ship comes in they Zodiac everyone to station in groups of ten or so, and we break up into tour guides or store help or meet and greet. We walk them through a brief tour, herd them like cattle to feed into the store and like cats to water back out. Then we mingle, being careful not to mix, in the galley. The Explorer's crew takes their clientele home and invites us over for a Q & A session in their bar. This is when it gets surreal. We're plucked from our small, utilitarian but cozy home and dropped onto a luxury ship three times the size of our station, where we become the unintelligible gapers, if only for the initial shock. But once we hit the bar, it's Guinness time:

The bar is full of passengers listening to the naturalist talk about the area and other crew members filling them in on itinerary. When they're done we are each given the microphone to introduce ourselves and give a brief synopsis of our position. The passengers ask questions about the station, the science, the weather, and life in general. Then we are finally able to hang out at leisure with the guests or the crew. Palmer Station has a historical rapport with the Explorer crew, and for good reason: they're a ton of fun. We get to see them at their best (or worst, depending on your perspective) because we are a welcome opportunity for them to let loose in an otherwise rigorous work schedule (no days off for months at a time). Their first visit was last Friday, during which a much-liked member of their crew swiped an Elvis bust out of our boathouse. There's a history here that I'm unsure of, but when they returned yesterday, they quickly found dancing Elvis stickers on all their Zodiacs, and even conspicuously on the stern of their vessel:

In the past, it has not been uncommon to receive distinguished figures as guests. Last year the granddaughter of Ernest Shackleton came on one of the cruises. A few years back Dan Aykroyd showed up on a private yacht. These are the only ones I can remember off hand. So, this second visit by the Explorer wasn't originally on the itinerary, and Bob, our station manager, really pushed for it to happen because of the well-known passenger standing at the center of our crew here, with his wife:

Neil Armstrong. NEIL ARMSTRONG! We gave tours to 130 guests, all the while waiting anxiously to meet the first man to step foot on the moon, making bad jokes like "Watch that small step, Neil." John Evans was ecstatic to have the chance to meet his childhood hero. Zee was worried she'd be unable to speak. The anticipation was great!

"Rex, Rex, Bob"
"Go for Rex"
"Brian, can you meet us at TerraLab?"
"I sure can, I'm on my way"

Our tour doesn't normally include my building on the hill, which is full of half the scientific equipment on station, so this radio call could only mean one thing...

Would you believe that I gave a personal tour of our science facility to Neil Armstrong? I said words like magnetosphere and ionosphere to a man who's been through and beyond these Earthly regions. I'm still reeling. Eat your heart out Oprah.