briantarctica

Penguinos

2012-01-08T19:03:00.000-03:00

I've taken exactly zero pictures of penguins since I arrived at Palmer this year. As a matter of fact, I've gone out of my way to avoid Torgersen Island altogether. Years ago, I didn't understand a friend's reaction to penguins as "stinky, disgusting, and covered with shit." But they're so cute and goofy I thought to myself. Well, I suppose they're both, but once the novelty has worn off they're mostly stinky and covered with shit. Still, I took a bunch of pictures last year that I meant to post and never quite got there, so here they are...

The birds and the bees:

The birders proffer a little wager each year called "Get Laid on Torgersen". For a dollar, you get a day on the November calendar, and if the first egg appears on your day, you take the pot. In early December they start to hatch. This one had begun, and I hoped to see it finish, but apparently it needed a warm nap under mum's belly first:

A couple weeks later, and their little heads are popping out from beneath their parents' bellies.

Sometimes there are two:

Bet you didn't think a penguin could do this:

While Chris (aka C-Money, aka Coconuts) sat quietly taking pictures of the nesting adelies, his own gang of very curious gentoos waddled right up to have a look at him:

I guess I can't say that I'm completely over penguins. I still have a good chuckle at them now and then; when they scurry up the road in town as the loader rounds the corner; when one finds itself on the pier and can't quite figure its way back to the water; when they misjudge a hop and flop over flapping; and I don't think I'll ever tire of them porpoising. But going to Torgersen isn't what it used to be for me, unless the skuas are providing a good show. And I definitely find myself routing for the predators.

The islands in general are losing that initial luster. Though each unique, they're all just piles of rocks with a smattering of lychen and moss, and a splattering of guano. I've found a few new things to do, but I won't talk about them here... yet.

I'm still excited by whale encounters. Yesterday I went out with Kim on her circuitous sampling grid and saw more krill on the echo sounder than she has seen yet. For five hours we motored back and forth in the boating area and beyond, in a large erratic swell that made it hard to even keep the boat straight (not to mention keep a meager lunch in my belly). Several snow squalls pushed through, forcing us to navigate by GPS when the visibility was limited to only the ocean around us: an eerie feeling. But we saw ten or more small pods of humpbacks feeding all around us. I jumped several times when I heard the distinct sound of their exhale right next to me. And for the first time, I saw them breaching. Only a few times, and in the distance, but it was incredible and nearly unbelievable to see a creature of that size launch itself entirely into the air and come crashing down in a huge spray. So, you know, it's not all bad.

But stepping back to that day last December, on the way home from Torgersen the sky had a bizarrely beautiful ceiling of mottled cloud:

Looking away from the sun, towards the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula:

Kim spied a solitary krill amongst the brash ice, and got so excited after she picked it up with an oar, that she fell over backwards into the boat:

Hard to imagine now, that a single krill would be so exciting, but there just weren't that many of them last year.

Whales for Christmas

2011-12-26T19:26:00.000-03:00

On Friday morning the call went out that there were whales in the harbor. This usually means that everyone stops what they're doing and takes a peek outside for a few minutes. It being the eve of our holiday weekend though, Bob was gracious enough to allow two rec boats to load up and go whale watching for an hour or two. And he even came along, which is quite a rare treat.

We motored out a quarter mile to the end of Bonaparte Point and sat watching as a pod of humpback whales fed. We're required to keep our distance, and do so based on whether or not the animals are reacting to our presence. Humpbacks really don't seem to mind a small floating object on the surface, so we can get reasonably close without influencing their behavior. And sometimes, when we're lucky, they can be in an inquisitive mood. By chance, this pod came closer and closer to our boat, until they were coming up right next to it, at which point curiosity got the better of them. Pectoral fins broke the surface just feet from us as they swam on their sides to get a look at us. Several times they dove directly under the boat and emerged in the middle of a barrel roll as they resurfaced on the other side. A little unsettling, for some, especially when surrounded by multiple surfaced whales, all nearly within reach. It was a truly amazing experience.

I took only pictures, and captured more orange coats than actual whales, but Bob put together a fun fake movie trailer that gives you a good idea of how close we actually were: Humpbacks!

Which reminds me, we had a local film festival this week and I finally got all my timelapse videos looking the way I want them (almost) and entered a short film that you can watch here: Antarctica: A Lapse in Time

Bob also put together a timelapse for the festival from the Palmer Station webcam. It is from the day before dad visited and explains the canceled visit two days before. It shows Arthur Harbor choc-a-block with ice, as a Kiwi would say, and then emptying completely in a northeasterly gale: Gone in 45 Seconds

The ice blew back in again this Saturday night, along with an unseasonal (here) dusting of snow, making for a beautiful white Christmas, and perhaps the last shot at snowboarding for the year.

But I'm getting ahead of myself... Meanwhile, back amongst the whales, Kim and Luke motored about in Mrs. Chippy, the krilling zodiac platform named after the carpenter's cat on Shackleton's Endurance expedition. If you watched Luke's video from my last post (which you should, and check out his other videos too, especially "How to Say Goodbye in Antarctican"), you'll have seen that they caught a lot of krill and saw massive aggregations on the echo-sounder, which is basically a high-tech fish finder. Kim will count and measure the krill she caught in order to verify the echo-sounder data. Then she's hoping to correlate krill abundance with diurnal tide phase and penguin foraging radius. I'm not even going to attempt an explanation, but maybe she will on her blog sometime: kimsantarctica.blogspot.com (but don't get your hopes up, she's as miserable at upkeep as I am).

Anyway, Kim and Luke brought a lot of krill home and put them in a tank in the aquarium. I would have guessed that there were hundreds, but after helping to measure about two hundred krill, which was just a sub-sample of a sub-sample, I'm updating my guess to many thousands. Here's what they look like:

They also caught a wee tiny baby ice fish in the net. He was really cool looking, but unfortunately didn't last very long in the tank. He found himself stuck against the filter at the outflow, and then he found himself in my belly. Kim asked, "How was it?". I responded, "A little fishy". Har har.

So, that was Friday morning... On Friday afternoon we had our Christmas dinner. Holiday meals here are much like they are at home, except that the table is a little bigger, and the conversation a little less polite. We sat down to a huge feast, served home-style. Plates were passed clockwise to avoid confusion, and they were filled with various meats and vegetables, curries, pastas, breads, and even lobster, all provided by our wonderful cooks, Marci and Francis. The community members help too, of course. Dave and Ted even smoked a pig that turned out amazing (I continued to savor it in various forms of leftovers for the next two days, Sunday's breakfast burrito being the best). And as you can see, there was no shortage of wine:

The dessert table also spilleth'd over with truffles and brittles and cookies and fudges and other such delights. Fran's yule log was an incredibly realistic centerpiece:

Kim made a traditional South African sweet again this year. They are a braided, deep fried dough smothered in ginger syrup and they're flipping hectic, as Kim would say.

Not to be outdone (though I clearly was, despite my addition of the Swedish flag), I took my first stab at making pepparkakor, a spice cookie that I haven't had at Christmas time in ages. Actually this was my first stab at making cookies, period, and aside from not rolling them out quite as thin as they should have been, they were quite good.

I'm steeling my nerves for a trial run at kroppkakor...

Krill Abound

2011-12-25T22:03:00.001-03:00

Merry Christmas All!

We've had a wonderful holiday weekend here that I'll tell you all about at some point, but for now I'm tired and full of nog, so I'm just going to send you quickly along to a video that Luke shot while collecting krill with Kim on Friday: Merry Whalemas from Antarctica!

Cheers!

Århundre

2011-12-15T13:30:00.000-03:00

A year and a day ago, Roald Amundsen was the first man to reach the south pole. In celebration, we released a homebrew yesterday:

Thanks to Zee for her artistic talent, and to Travis and PQ, my faithful homebrewing assistants.

The pole had over a hundred visitors yesterday, with more on the way. The Norwegian Prime Minister was there to give a commemorative speech.

And speaking of Scandinavians, dad did make it to station last week, though it was a lucky chance. After cancelling their Friday visit due to ice, the National Geographic Explorer had to cancel their Monday visit as well, because they needed to get a jump on approaching weather in the Drake Passage. With much thanks to Bob, our station manager, we made a special exception and invited the Explorer to swing by on Sunday evening. Not the usual visit, we did not bring any of the passengers ashore, save one. While a small delegation of Palmer folk gave a talk on the ship, dad came to station for a few hours. It was a wonderful visit, and very surreal to see family here. We somehow managed not to take a picture, so memory will have to suffice. But, I did snag this as the crew brought dad ashore:

Iced In / Iced Out

2011-12-02T08:40:00.001-03:00

Yesterday morning we woke again to a harbor full of ice. The scientists are getting antsy, as they're unable to go out and sample. Dad is on the National Geographic Explorer, which was scheduled to visit this afternoon, but the pack ice is too dense, so today's visit has been cancelled. We'll try again on Monday...

Coast to Coast

2011-11-29T16:39:00.000-03:00

I mentioned that it is an icy season here. There is a large band of pack ice extending from just south of Anvers Island (where we are) all the way down to the Bellingshausen Sea, where the peninsula merges with the bulk of the continent. This is a satellite image taken on November 14th:

So, when the wind blows from the south, the ice packs into the Palmer Station area (on the south of Anvers Island), and when it blows from the north, the ice clears out. It's been in and out a dozen times over the past several weeks, which can be a real hassle since the ice is too thick to get through in a zodiac. But, on a rare calm and sunny day in late October, I got a view of this area that I've never seen before.

The ice was packed in from horizon to horizon, filling every nook and cranny.

It being the first reasonable day we saw this season, about half the station was up on the glacier for a hike or a ski.

You could see darker bands that revealed the direction of flow that the ice took on its way around islands and into inlets.

The ice was too thick for the penguins, too. We got our very own "march of the penguins" as a few hundred Adelies trudged across the jumbled surface in a long single-file line. They put at least a couple miles under their belts in this manner. I have no idea why they would subject themselves to such a torture.

Right now the wind is back up again, this time from the north, and clearing the ice out yet again. It seems to be a little less dense each time it returns, but return it will.

The Icy Drake

2011-11-17T14:30:00.000-03:00

The cloud:

The silver lining:

Also, another Palmer Station Update available on the Antarctic Sun.

Fifth Time's a Charm

2011-11-13T16:43:00.000-03:00

It's an icy season. For the first time in ten years, the summer crew had the opportunity to walk to nearby islands over the sea ice. An early season science group was trudging out to their sampling station and collecting sea water through a hole in the ice. Of course, that ice broke up while I was still on the Gould, just days before my arrival on station. But that's OK, as the visiting McMurdo fuelies said, "What's the big deal? We land airplanes on sea ice!!"

In order to travel with Kim, I deployed about a month behind the rest of the summer crew, which meant I missed seeing a frozen Arthur Harbor, but I got to visit the South Shetland Islands on the way down. Part of the Gould's mission during my transit was to open up a field camp on King George Island called Copacabana. We call it "Copa" for short (or perhaps we only add "cabana" as a joke, I'm not sure). It's here:

Of course, it would have been cool to hit Nelson Island, or even better, Deception Island, which is an ancient caldera with hot spring beaches. Still, I'll settle for anything out of the ordinary routine here. In October Copa is still a sheet of snow and ice between a rocky ridge and a rocky shoreline. Later in the season it will melt out to become a grassy, mossy field of tundra.

It's a small camp, housing only four scientists for about five months. They are located in an area containing colonies of all three types of brush-tail penguins (Adelie, Gentoo and Chinstrap), making it an ideal place to observe biological and behavioral differences between species. When we arrived, hundreds of Gentoos had already begun nesting, just feet from the camp.

This is the first Gentoo colony I've seen up close, and they are definitely my favorite of the brush-tails. Unlike the loud, grating and incessant squawking of Adelies, Gentoos have a much more pleasant call, and they use it more sparingly. It sounds exactly like Chewbacca, but with a higher pitch. Imagine a baby wookie, or Chewie after being kicked in the 'nads.

We ferried twenty or more Zodiac loads of equipment, food and fuel to the shore, then pulled it on sleds the extra hundred yards to camp. If I ever have to carry another rusty-enough-to-explode-at-any-moment canister of propane, it will be too soon. A few of the Polish winter crew from nearby station Arctowski (no joke) lent a hand and shared a beer afterwards. Next stop: Duthiers Point...

...where an ailing GPS unit needed repairs. Down the Gerlache Strait and tucked into the mouth of Andvord Bay, we stood on deck and enjoyed an ice-choked sea surrounded by glacial cliffs posing as the toes of snow capped mountains.

The water was inky black, calm and crystal clear, allowing the larger chunks of ice to display their nether-regions below the surface.

And there must have been more than a few penguin colonies around, because there were schools of them swimming all over the place. I have yet to get a good photo of them porpoising; this is the best I've done so far:

As we pulled away, back into the Gerlache and on our way to Palmer Station, we motored lazily past this large chunk of orphaned glacier.

Cape Petrels circle endlessly around the Gould as soon as she leaves port in Chile. They breed along the Antarctic Peninsula, but it is rare for us to see them on station.

In the evening, the wind leapt up and fat snowflakes began to fill the air, obscuring the view ahead, even thwarting the Gould's intense headlamps.

Just a little fun with the camera in the snow and lights:

The Weather Will Continue, Until It Changes...

2011-11-10T11:13:00.001-03:00

I'm walking down the hallway of GWR. I'm more-or-less in the middle of the building. I shouldn't be able to hear the wind. I can hear the wind. I enter my room. It gets louder. I go to the window, but I can't look out because there's a sheet of ice and snow plastered to that side of the building. I go to the stair tower and I can see the walls bowing in. I exit the building. I reconsider. I re-reconsider. I tighten my hood, lower my head and swing an arm over the rail for the walk to Bio.

I love sleet. At least, I keep telling myself that.

Flight of the Penguins?

2011-11-03T09:43:00.000-03:00

I remember this comical video game where you played a motorcycle gang leader. At one point you had to figure out how to cross a mine field to get to the villian's lair. The solution was to steal a box of wind-up bunnies from a vendor and send them hopping off into oblivion, en masse. "The Flight of the Valkyrie" started playing when you opened the box and watched these little yellow bunnies exploding one at a time as they marched across the mines. It's funny how a long-forgotten memory can come popping back up when you least expect it:

Yes, I was imagining explosions, and giggling.

Catastrophic Failure (A Remembrance)

2011-10-17T11:50:00.000-03:00

While floating blissfully down Clear Creek towards the man-made whitewater park in Golden, Colorado, my inner tube had a major blowout, leaving me sitting on the riverbed with a brisk current running down my crack; swift, but not powerful enough to dislodge the geologically-old convexity of river rocks from the newly-formed concavity of my ass.

Though brief, the life of this inner tube was quite fulfilling. It was born in the summer of 2010, in a factory in Taiwan, or China, or Korea, at about the same time that I was seeding an idea for the coming Halloween. I was riding a bicycle around Denver with a largish group of rejects, wearing board shorts, a black and white striped tank top, and an inflatable inner tube. I'm pretty sure I'd been painted with some sort of glitter as well. This was the annual "Monte Carla", a bar-hopping bicycle ride that celebrates Carla's escape from the Antarctic Program some years ago. I didn't know her. Still don't. But, in her honor, I visited several bars, some full of bikers, with my chest hair hanging out, glitter on my face, and wearing a child's pool toy I had borrowed from Phil, my boss. Given the seedy nature of several of those bars, I'm surprised I wasn't also wearing a black eye.

A few months later, during our week of fire training in Golden, Nandi and I ventured down to Clear Creek to cool off after work. A shop there was selling inner tubes for $25. We went to Target and got ours for $2. They had exactly two left, in two colors. While floating down the river in my new pink tube, I surprisingly received several compliments, as well as a few jests: "Does that belong to your daughter?"

But I knew this pink tube and I met serendipitously when I found an inflatable pool toy fish in my lab, next to an inflatable palm tree complete with monkey. This may sound like a strange find, but not where I work. The fish was a perfect match to my costume:

Thus began our year-long courtship. At the season's first plunge:

On Kim's cast:

As part of Alća's costume for another plunge:

It's cool, I don't mind sharing:

This photo came to me via a work mate who was in Denver. It had somehow made its way into a presentation back in the office. Great.

And to bring it around full circle, here we are back in Colorado, this time during Ocean Search and Rescue training in Gunnison, on a tributary to the Gunnison River:

Actually, that's Ryan riding pinky, and this is last year. This year, pinky never made it to Gunnison, she met her demise where she was first inflated, on Clear Creek in Golden, Colorado. I guess you could say with sincerity that she was ridden hard and put away wet. So sad. But, we flayed and diced her, and Carolyn is planning to make a nice purse out of her brilliant pink hide.

Why We Call Them Fur Dogs

2011-03-20T17:24:00.007-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 34F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: Overcast

I've completely given up on chronology, and nearly altogether on this blog, it seems. There's plenty to put in here, but I'm unmotivated lately. I feel like I've been in it for the past month, but the final stretch has really just arrived. There are only two weeks left for me; two of the busiest. After today, I'll have only one day off, right before the port call, which will bring most of the winter crew, including my replacement, as well as three science groups that will be working in my building. My quiet, one-man (albeit large) office will have six people in it for my final week. It's gonna suck. So, I'm taking today nice and easy, before the madness that's nearly here.

On the up side, the ship will also be bringing a dear friend that I've known since college. It will be Bamma's first time to Palmer, which is exciting. It will also be yet another blip on the map where our paths have crossed.

And since I've given up on chronology, I see no reason why I shouldn't also abandon flow.

The weather recently has been variable, but it doesn't matter much because my energy level is low; the norm for this time of the season, toastiness setting in. Last weekend, though, the sun was well-timed for our first two day weekend since New Years. Of course that also means that after hiking, disc golfing, rec boating, and camping, I was ready for a day off when Monday rolled around.

The sun has since left us, but the calm has remained, and I went out briefly today to watch a group of "fur dogs" playing in Hero Inlet. They were visible from the galley, but I wanted a closer look:

They're fur seals, of course, but I'm sure you can guess why we've taken to calling them "fur dogs". Unlike last year, we've been seeing tons of them this season. We've also been seeing tons of crabeater seals, which made only rare appearances last season. Inversely, weddell seals, leopard seals and humpback whales have been scarce. I did catch this leopard yawning between naps recently, though:

We've actually seen so many crabeater seals that the novelty wore off before I really began taking any pictures of them. I did find this photo of a crabby who'd been in a recent fight:

We also had a very unexpected visitor a couple weeks ago. This is the first emperor penguin I've ever seen:

They live much further south, and we're not sure what this one was doing here exactly, but it was quite a treat. It hung around in the back yard for a couple days and then disappeared.

While I'm at it, I might as well include another picture of a critter that I haven't shown much of on the blog. This is a blue-eyed shag. They're usually pretty skittish, but this one let me get close enough to actually see the blue in its eyes:

The yellow patch at the top of its beak is part of its breeding plumage, and isn't always there. It dates this picture back a few months, and successfully exemplifies my chronological impairment.

Island Hopping

2011-02-21T12:34:00.003-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 38F
Wind Speed: 5 knots
Conditions: Overcast

I'm exhausted. Yesterday was our day off, and after seeming weeks of wind or rain, we finally got a beautiful day. GSAR rallied at 10:30AM. By noon, PQ, DeVal and I were lowering the first of a long queue of intrepids into a crevasse. A well-oiled machine by 8PM, we closed up shop, packed and hiked home, arriving at 9:30PM. Whew, I need a day off. I didn't take any pictures, so I'll have to await their appearance on the shared drive.

February has been reasonably uneventful, aside from Kim's return from the LTER cruise, of course. Between ships, we've enjoyed a smallish station population and seeming weeks of wind or rain, as I already mentioned. It's given me a bit of homesickness and cabin fever lately, looking out the window into the drear and thinking about the things I miss, like mountain biking and kite boarding and kayaking and... Yesterday's outdoor excursion helped, though.

I did find a few pictures worth posting (I haven't taken nearly as many as last year). These were all taken on the same day, just a couple months ago, when the weather was still turning nice. A group of us loaded up for some island hopping. First stop, DeLaca, which was swarming with Antarctic Terns. They didn't seem to be breeding, but they occasionally swooped at us anyway, much like the Skuas in the back yard lately. Actually, it's turning into Hitchcock's The Birds back there. Every time I go up the glacier (which is a lot lately, because the VLF antenna is fubar), it seems that two dozen Skuas circle overhead, most of which follow me half way up the hill taking sporadic, half-assed territorial dives at me. It's really weird, because I know none of them claim the back yard (they're almost exclusively non-breeders back there). I can only imagine that they're practicing. Anyway, an incoming Antarctic Tern:

They're beautiful birds, and one of my favorites here. This one took an interest in hovering above, which I didn't realize they could do, to keep an eye on me:

I soon noticed this broken Skua egg nearby and wondered if that's what he was keeping an eye on:

Kim and I found a high ledge to sit on and watched Humpback whales spout in the distance. No, no, of course she didn't climb up there in her cast (which finally came off a couple weeks ago).

On our way to Spume to have lunch, we encountered a small pod of Humpbacks and followed them around for a bit:

And after lunch, exploring Spume, I found this Chinstrap displaying its flexibility:

It did a nice warrior III next, but I missed the photo...

Mark Wall Berg and Dirk Diggler's Demise

2011-01-29T16:55:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 41F
Wind Speed: 17 knots
Conditions: Drizzle

It's a tradition for the youngest person on station to wear a diaper for the New Year's Eve party; Baby New Year and all. Kelsey rocked it. But she wasn't the only one in odd, revealing attire, as can be expected here. Our doctor, Liz, who you'll have seen many posts back dressed as the Starchild from KISS, wanted to sing a song; a KISS song, of course. We agreed, with the stipulation that she reprise the costume (because it was damn sexy, I'll say again). But, it hardly seemed fair not to dress up ourselves; or dress down, as it turned out. We decided to play a set, then all come out in costume after the break. Garz suggested swim trunks, scarf and hat, but whiskey had a better idea...

Rebecca and Phil thought it would be amusing to send Lily some, uh... items... to be screen printed and given to PQ and I. So, in our stockings at Christmas, and barely covering us at New Years... Superhero Underoos with "Get Awesome" screen printed on the butt. Damn you, whiskey. The rest of the band honored solidarity in boxxer briefs and a hat (and a few scarves). And that's the second reason the band was called Dirk Diggler's Demise that evening.

As it turns out, the birders, being the persuasive miscreants they are, had half the rest of station in women's clothing of some sort, so the band wasn't alone. I'll spare you the pictures (and myself the embarrassment), for the most part. But I do want to put this one in, because it perfectly freeze-frames the second turning point:

Within an hour, the floor held a quarter inch of water and everyone in the room was drenched through, head to toe. It made Kelsey's tackles more precarious, and there was definitely a soggy, scantily-clad dogpile or two. Certainly one of the more bizarre parties I've been to, but also one of the most fun. It's a funny thing, being able to drop conventional social barriers simply because you know everyone in the room so intimately, and they all recognize that social barriers are just that: conventional. We're not conventional, that's for sure. A conservative outsider may have looked in and seen an inappropriate near-orgy, but the reality is that it was completely without innuendo. It was very much like being a kid again. Imagine a bunch of innocent children playing in the sprinkler in the back yard... and then add booze, lots of booze.

This is probably more than you want to know, but since this blog has become as much a journal as a chronicle, I'm going to include anything I think I might enjoy revisiting down the road. That said, I did promise to include some more Antarctic things, so I'll also give you the first reason for naming the band Dirk Diggler's Demise. For that, I have to go back in time, again...

... all the way back to June, actually. That's when Mark Wall Berg arrived. This large iceberg lodged itself just beyond DeLaca and Janis Islands early in the winter and remained there through the the rest of the year. Most of it, anyway. The winter-overs named it for the sheer ice face on its right side:

You can see from the coloration of the water that the three sections above water are all connected below. Of course, Mark Wall Berg has been slowly falling apart since its arrival, but to give you an idea of it's size, here's Eddie and Alice gazing from DeLaca:

And now from a little closer; this next photo is taken from a boat on the other side of the iceberg, looking back at DeLaca. The section of the berg showing in the picture below is the farthest right point in the picture above. DeLaca is the taller island on the left, and Mt. Williams is the backdrop.

One day, while admiring Mark Wall Berg from Janis Island, I snapped this photo at the exact moment that a chunk of ice let go from the face of the berg. You'll probably have to load the full size picture to see it well, though.

That's Kim watching. She'll be back from the LTER cruise on the Gould in a week. I can't wait!

Mark Wall Berg almost made it into 2011. On December 30th, the majority of station was out on the Holland America cruise ship Veendam. Four Zodiacs were shuttling thirty people back to station, right past the berg. Just as we reached station, the cry went out; the demise of Mark Wall Berg had begun. About half of the berg seemed to disintegrate and collapse in on itself in slow motion, while the entire station watched. The timing could only have been better if Chris' camera had already been filming. Still, he caught half of it. This video, taken by Chris Schvarcz, starts with the small calving in the picture above and ends with the partial destruction of Mark Wall Berg:

It broke into two more pieces that quickly began drifting apart, leaving a wasteland of brash and growlers that Alice, Kim and I were able to explore immediately after.

This is the time of year that the ice is melting and calving at immense speed. It's common to hear cracks of thunder throughout the day as large slabs of ice drop into the ocean off the Marr Ice Piedmont behind station.

We watched this section of glacier for two days as it dropped bit by bit into Arthur Harbor. This is a combination of footage taken by myself and Chris:

The larger section overhanging the arch finally gave way in the middle of the night, much to our disappointment.

But, Chris continued to watch the glacier face diligently and was rewarded with a couple nice calving videos. Notice all the crabeater seals lazing on ice floes in the harbor:

Garzax & Purple Titty

2011-01-23T16:24:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 38F
Wind Speed: 5 knots
Conditions: Overcast

I've neglected to blog lately because the weather has been amazing. For three weeks it's been perfectly calm and even sunny most of the time. I think that the long foul weather we had in October and November set a tone for the rest of the season; if it's nice out, we're going to take full advantage. So, I've spent the last few weeks boating and hiking and disc golfing and playing kubbs and enjoying homebrew on the porch.

So, stepping back in time once again...

(photo, and caption, by Lily Glass)

Yes, the pirate-speak is still going strong, and food game has had a recent resurgence. Nandi even finds an occasional snowbank to start a fight with. But that's not what I want to write about today. Stepping even further back in time...

The little band that we cobble together here changes it's name at every show. For our first show, we were Garzax. Garz, a charismatic scientist with the glider group, picked up the bass early in the season. Our electric bass was acquired from a military surplus depot of some sort, and was not quite as advertised. We were expecting a standard electric bass, but received this bad-ass ax instead:

Fretted bottom neck, fretless top. We called Garz, the bass, and the band, Garzax.

For the open mic night in December, Kim wanted to play the drums on a couple songs, and since she only had one arm to drum with, DeVal started throwing around Def Leppard references. My favorite was Cripple Kitty, which was somehow mistaken for Purple Titty, which somehow became the band's name that night. So, I present to you, Purple Titty:

Garz was super busy doing a special project, so I sat in on the bass for most of the show. And we didn't get video of anything that Kim played drums on, but I do have her singing a Norah Jones song. We had several false starts on this one, and I left a couple in because DeVal's gestures are pretty funny. Watch him on the right:

Open mic night also gives everyone an opportunity to do their own thing, so I've shamelessly included few songs that I did. This one's my own, called "Smile":

My roommate, Chris (aka C-Money, aka Coconuts) asked me to sing a song while he played the ukulele, Iz style. It wasn't quite like anything I've done before, but really fun. You'll recognize it:

This next one I wrote over the summer. It's a little dirty, but really funny. Some banter from the crowd put the icing on the cake. You Hood River kids might recognize some of it from sitting around a fire in the hills above Mosier. And, no, it's not autobiographical. "Neighborhood Watch":

The next day I heard a call on the radio: "Palmer Station, Palmer Station, this is the Neighborhood Watch, stalking around Station E". The "stretch that rhyme" comment came from Kate, a poet here on an Artists & Writers grant. Little did she know, Chris Neill was about to read a limerick about her, in which he really stretched the rhyme:

At Palmer there once sailed a poet,
In her nifty bright orange float co-et.
On a cold swelly sea,
Out by Station C,
She called penguins right into the bo-et.

Kate was present on two different occasions when a penguin actually jumped into a Zodiac:

(photo by Chris Schwartz)

They say that people come to Antarctica, first for the adventure, then for the money, and then because they no longer fit in anywhere else. I don't think that's exactly right, but this photo has made me realize that my last few posts haven't been very specifically Antarctic. Instead they seem to be highlighting the people here, and the things they do. And I think that's fitting, because it's no longer just the adventure for me, it's very much the people. And the summers off, of course. I mean, the penguins are still fun to watch, and I get excited when I see a big glacier calving, but these things have lost the invigorating appeal they had when they were new experiences. What I find most intriguing now is the diversity and caliber of personalities that call Palmer home, if only temporarily. From plumbers to managers to microbiologists, we cover a broad spectrum of backgrounds within a miniscule population. Such a mix could easily foster tension and discord, but everyone here seems to have an attitude toward others, and toward life in general, that makes it all flow harmoniously. It's truly amazing.

So, with that said, I've definitely got some more Antarctic things to include here, and I promise to include them soon (as long as it's not nice and sunny out).

And, in case you haven't caught on yet, you can read all about December's happenings in the Antarctic Sun at http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/aroundTheContinent/contentHandler.cfm?id=1201. This time, Peter left a couple of my quips in.

Upper Lipps

2011-01-05T17:30:00.004-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 36F
Wind Speed: 1 knot
Conditions: Overcast

I feel like I'm jumping around in time a bit, but I'm so far behind on this blog that I think it will still be more or less chronological. I want to put a day in early December on the record. This day came shortly after the weather turned good. It was beautiful, calm, sunny, warm. It had to be all of these things to do what we did...

Lipps is an island that is exposed to swell. It's one of only a couple here that I never explored last season. Twice, early in this season, I attempted to remedy that situation when the ocean was relatively calm, but landing on Lipps seems to require complete calm. I finally made it on December 5th. Like all the islands here, and any other exposed land for that matter, Lipps is treacherously rocky and vegetated only with lichens and occasional mosses or short grass. But, like all the islands here, Lipps has its own character. On its northern side is a cove that provides an excellent, sheltered landing, as long as the tide isn't too low or the swell too high. On its southern side are ravine after ravine of tide pools, waves crashing in and out with little concern for the speed of your crossing. As I scurried across this rough shoreline, I found a small rock cliff with a frozen waterfall clinging to its face. The temperatures have risen above freezing at this point, and the snow melting from above was running down the rocks, but behind the ice, and making odd shadows through it:

On its eastern end, Lipps has a secret. Where the water has slowly eroded two intersecting cracks, "X" marks the spot. At the heart of the "X": a deep pool, connected to, but protected on all sides from, the open ocean. We chose the highest point on the rocks that wasn't sloped back too far; about 15 feet up. Jeff, Jenn and Nandi jumped in their skivvies, but I was unwilling to have wet underwear the rest of the afternoon...

It's amazing how much warmth can be absorbed from the radiating sun. On December 5th; water temperature: 33F; air temperature: 38F. Yet we sat topless in the sun for thirty minutes to dry off. Only when the breeze picked up did we start to feel chilled. But the breeze wasn't a bad thing, because D.Marie brought a kite!

After we all had a turn flying on Lipps and the wind died back down, we decided to head back to station, with the kite in tow. Here's Carolyn holding the speed steady...

while I flew the kite from the bow of the Zodiac.

Hmmm. It occurs to me that my appearance here may require some explanation. The fuzzy white hat was purchased off the head of Hannele, a member of the British Antarctic Survey visiting from Port Lockroy. The boys here thought it was a bit gay at first, but changed their minds when all the National Geographic Explorer girls wanted to rub my head.

The massive 'stache is another story. Apparently, several years back some Aussies decided it would be a good idea to grow moustaches through November to raise awareness and charity for men's health issues (that's right ladies, we've got issues too). This being the perfect opportunity to be charitable as well as weird, Antarcticans seem to latch right on (though we may have neglected the "charitable" part). Throughout the month of "Movember," disturbing collages of moustached men continued to appear on station, while we grew stubble to be shaped only at the last minute.

The moustache party:

Actually, this is an opportune time to introduce you to everyone (almost everyone, anyway). This is Paul (IT, aka PQ), Lily (boating coordinator, aka LarLar), Travis (phytoplankton group), and Jen (birder), whose moustache is actually made of bird feathers and feet (all left here on the continent in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty, of course). Nice leisure suit, Jen.

Carolyn (instrument technician) cleverly braided her bangs into a 'stache. Jenn (virus group, aka J-Rock), looking scary white trash. Diane (cook, aka D.Marie) doing a convincing Frida Kahlo.

Jeff (IT), looking a clown, Eddie (bacteria group), Chris and Alex (both in the virus group, aka C-Money and A-Train).

Kaycee (phytoplankton group, aka Karsar) made her 'stache out of her own hair clippings. Kelsey (birder, aka [also] Karsar) hasn't tackled anyone yet today (day ain't over yet). Bob (logistics, aka DeVal).

Zenobia (facilities maintenance, aka Zee) with a white russian 'stache. Bob (aka Farrellbob), our Station Manager, bashfully rocking a 'stache that you can still see through his fingers. Alice (bacteria group).

You know me (aka Rarx); neck hair is fair game, right!? Marc (birder, aka The Canadian Pirate). Kim (krill group, aka the gal y'all keep asking about).

Nandi (waste technician), with the most innocent-looking trucker's 'stache ever (but he's probably holding a snowball). Micaela (facilities maintenance) actually darkened her own peach fuzz with eye liner. Bold! I like it. Carolina (krill group).

At one point in the night, Zee asked if I had change for a dollar. Of course not. Money is no good here. I can't remember the last time I carried my wallet. I didn't find out until later what the hell she was talking about. Thanks to Dave for upgrading my status:

Food Game

2010-12-22T16:10:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 38F
Wind Speed: 6 knots
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy

The crew we have here this year is extra special; and I mean "special" in the worst possible way. We all seem particularly fond of the silly. We often act like a gaggle of kids in adult wrappers. Of course, we have plenty of inside jokes that go around and around, but we've also adopted several peculiarly childish games and odd gags. Actually, there are so many that I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe I should begin by warning you that our sense of humor has no bounds, and in general, the dirtier, the better-er. But maybe the warning will be unnecessary. Maybe I should just start at the beginning...

In the beginning, there was Nandi. Nandi is a mild-mannered gentleman with a heart of gold and a "childlike sense of wonder", as Carolyn would say. He seems incapable of wrongdoing, so much so that we often ask ourselves, "What would Nandi do?" Well, I'll tell you what Nandi would do. Nandi would steal your plate while you're not looking, shine a laser pointer in your eye, ambush you with snowballs at every opportunity. He's started a new tradition for the Gould departures: while they're raising the gangplank and spooling up the engines to leave, Nandi starts a snowball fight between the station and the passengers. When the Gould returned last time, Chance radioed in, "I hope you're ready, because it's going to be a bloodbath!" Poor Lily thought he was referring to the amount of work that would need to be done when they arrived. But no, the bloodbath was in the form of a crowd of throwers around a large cardboard box on the oh-one deck. In the box: snowballs collected from a squall the day before. Nandi also started a snowball fight with the Chilean Navy. I'm not even kidding. After a barbecue on the deck of the Chilean Navy vessel Lautaro, we pulled away in our meager Zodiac, and Nandi cleared a swath of snow from the bow and chucked it. The spat with our Chilean friends was short-lived, due to lack of ammunition, but when we returned to station an all-out, every-man-for-himself war was waged for the next hour and a half. Best snowball fight I've ever been in; adults don't cry when they get pegged repeatedly in the face. Fifteen of us, give or take, and no one went home dry, mostly because Kelsey likes to tackle.

I'm sure it's rugby withdrawal. Many of us have had some bruising and rug burn on account of Kelsey, and she's instigated more than one dogpile. These usually occur in the bar, and can be rather sticky. Sticky because the floor is covered in spilled beer from another game you may have played in college. You know the one, where you smack the top of someone's beer bottle with the bottom of your own so their beer froths madly over and they have to quickly get their lips over the damn thing. I hadn't seen it in a while, but many of these scientists are still college students. I specifically told Kelsey that I better not catch her smacking any of our homebrews. An hour later I asked her,
"Is that a homebrew?"
"No."
Smack.
It was a sweet revenge for that steaming hot, saucy pizza I took on the chin and neck.

Normally, you would choose to enter the food game by applying it to someone who is already in the game. The rules got a little blurred, though, and I was thrown headlong into the fray without getting that precious first sneak-attack. Though, I'm sure no one had any doubt that I would join. Food game was passed to us by the winter-over crew, who brought it from Pole. The idea is simple, but there are some rules in place to keep it gentlemanly. At the bare bones, it's like this: finger food is to be knocked out of hand whenever possible. The food must be held directly in hand, as flying utensils may be hazardous. The winter-overs insisted that you say "food game" while sending it, but we've decided that it's pretty obvious what's happening without the announcement. Messy foods are preferred, but not required; splashing a ketchup-doused fry into your neighbor's face is much more satisfying than dry toast. You must be careful, though, not to accidentally splatter a non-food-gamer, as they can get quite nasty. Food-gamers, by the rules, are not allowed to get angry (though I'm impressed PQ held it together after having to change shirts twice in one day). An advanced food-gamer can splatter several food-gamers in one shot. A master food-gamer would splatter everyone with a clean shot (a shot is considered "clean" if you don't actually touch the person's hand, only their food) and land the gamed food such that it is still edible (generally, on the plate or table). But don't be discouraged, this gentlemanly side of the game isn't for everyone, and it is pretty satisfying to send a buttered scone into a parabolic arc across the entire galley, or a marinara-sopped slice of bread blasting off into the ceiling. Oh yeah, one last thing, very important: freshies and chocolate eclairs are off limits.

But let's get back to Nandi, and the game that is his namesake. To be "Nandi'd" is to have your dirty plate swiped from you while you're off your guard (perhaps you've just been food gamed). It started as a courteous thing; to do someone's dishes for them. But now there are mad dashes to steal plates, and often the victim immediately becomes the thief to a nearby gaper, or to the same person who just "Nandi'd" them. Utensils have flown in this game. The odd thing is that the winner is the loser, and you don't want to be behind them in the scullery line.

Nandi will also apologize profusely for the most trifling of things. I think when I attempted to break him of this habit, we were playing cards and he apologized for taking a trick. I suggested that the next time he felt the urge to say, "I'm sorry", instead he should say "In your face!" It worked to such brilliant effect that everyone on station adopted it, making us even more irreverent than we already were.

Other popular phrases...
"get awesome": from a dirty joke that I won't tell here.
"the siffness": a South African term for "griminess" that was immediately mistaken for "the syphilis"; surely you can imagine the ensuing hilarity.
"your mom's?": if you find a misplaced item and put it next to the white board, you don't write "lost" or "found", you write "your mom's?"
"in my pants": just a fun thing to say after every sentence while drinking, or sober.
"darn't bar ar parsar!": um...

The birders like to speak pirate. Mark is scary good at it. We're pretty sure he's a Canadian Pirate (another phrase with special meaning here - you might have one in your pants). It's pretty simple, really; you just replace all vowels with "arr". Understanding it is the hard part. So now I'm sometimes "Rarx." But Lily trumps us all with "Larlar!"

I could go on forever about our communal idiosyncrasies, but I have to pee (in my pants). I'll just stop here and leave you with one reminder; the next time you sit down for a meal, you may find yourself allured by a stray dot of red light. This is likely coming from Nandi's laser pointer, but try not to be distracted, because someone else will be, and this is an ideal time to "Nandi" their dishes, or better yet, to food game them.

Good Luck! (in my pants)

Thanksgiving

2010-12-17T12:15:00.002-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 37F
Wind Speed: 4 knots
Conditions: Sunny!

Just so you have an idea of what Thanksgiving looks like around here. We all tidy up a bit, just a bit, and sit around a big table like a family. We eat the usual Thanksgiving fare and drink wine.

And pie. No shortage of pie.

And homebrew. Ok, not really; this picture actually has zero to do with Thanksgiving, but I had it handy. Our second batch is a Japanese Wheat. It's nice and light and suits the sunny weather we've finally been having. No krill surprise... this time.

Other November news from me can be read in the Antarctic Sun at http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/aroundTheContinent/contentHandler.cfm?id=1201

Good Day Sunshine

2010-12-10T12:00:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 30F
Wind Speed: 3 knots
Conditions: Beautiful!

You'll all be happy to hear that the blog post subjects are piling up quickly, and disappointed to hear that I'm unmotivated to actually write them now that the weather has finally made a solid turn in a good direction. We've been getting much more sun lately, and even a few sunsets. Which, at this point in the season, start at around 8PM with the glacier turning to unrealistic shades of orange and green. The sunset continues until the glowing orb actually reaches the horizon at 11:45PM, and the clouds and mountaintops reflect brilliant golds and pinks. Then, at around 1AM, the line between sunset and sunrise blurs, though I have yet to stay up for the rise at 2:30AM. Maybe the solstice will be a good night for that. It still boggles my mind that it simply refuses to get dark in this part of the world. Here's one of the recent good ones:

And since the weather has been better, I've finally gotten out to play a bit more. Last week I visited the penguin colony on Torgersen Island for the first time this year, amazingly. I had probably been there twenty times by this time last year. But, last year I had a penguin dry spell while the chicks were new and tiny, so I hope to make up for that in the coming weeks as they begin hatching. For now, the Adelies are still sitting on eggs, and bursting into raucous song for no apparent reason:

The other side of Torgersen is quieter and has a great view of station. I snagged this picture of a contented, sun-soaked Kim:

Oh yeah, I know its been rough these past few weeks without the full use of your hands, but you can all uncross your fingers now because Kim is back! Proof of her sweet powers of persuasion, the Raytheon and NSF doctors turned her around in Punta Arenas in record time. Her wrist is healing nicely, and she doesn't need surgery!

Ugh, my radio is squawking static something fierce right now. It's very distracting. Turning up the music now. Nope, it's my fault, the damn thing is scanning. Why is it scanning?!? It was on 27 just a minute ago! Why is the keylock off?!? Every time Lily asks me to be the temporary OSAR leader, my radio goes berzerk! Aaargh! Ok, maybe not every time, maybe just this time...

...

... and a terrible time for it; we just had an OSAR call out. What are the odds that I'd be writing about it just minutes before? Lily and Tracey started having engine trouble at Point Eight and were being pushed onto the rocks. So this was my first call out as the acting OSAR leader. My role was to beat feet down to the boathouse and prep the OSAR boat while the rest of the team dressed out. When they arrived, I got to frantically bark orders. Ok, that's not true; the leader's role is really just to overview/supervise the operation, consider the situation and its requirements, and decide who goes where. With this experienced crew, it's an easy role. I started up the OSAR boat, replaced an empty fuel tank, threw in a tow harness, and sent the first three responders out. Then it's just a waiting game.

Turns out their motor had just stalled and was stubborn about restarting. But it did eventually restart, before OSAR even got there. So they were able to return unscathed and under their own power. Which I guess isn't very exciting, but I definitely still learned a few things.

Hmm, I guess I can bring this post round full circle by adding another blog subject to the pile: OSAR.

Nothing to Report

2010-11-16T15:00:00.004-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 41F
Wind Speed: 6 knots
Conditions: Overcast

I've been pretty awful about updating this blog. But I have reason: there's nothing happening. Nothing all that bloggable, anyway. Up until yesterday, the weather continued to be absolute shit: wind and rain and sleet and slush and cold. We had exactly two days of sun in the past month. Here's one:

Several of the new folks this year had no idea there were mountains over there. This is as close as we've gotten to sun otherwise:

I've been out rec boating once this season. A handful of us went over to an island called Old Palmer and hiked around for a few hours during an extremely rare time when the weather cooperated with a day off (when I say "cooperated", I mean the wind dropped below 20 knots so we were allowed to go boating; I don't mean warm; I don't mean sun; I don't even mean a lack of precipitation. Do you sense a pattern here? We're all getting pretty sick of the weather.) On our outing, Nandi and I climbed a peak and slid down a super steep slope of snow. The orange float coats we use for boating make for a great full-body sled. You can just make out Nandi in the right of this photo (taken by Kim Bernard):

Still an ugly day, really. But we were ecstatic to get away for a while. So that's about the extent of outdoor excitement lately, unless you count bobbing around in a Zodiac at Station E, which I don't.

Actually, it probably negates the little outdoor fun I've had. On a foggy, swelly, choppy day, PQ and I helped Kim haul krill nets up and down at Station E (if you read my Antarctic Sun blurb, you'll know the notorious persona of Station E. I only wish Peter, the Sun editor, had left in the line: "In addition to their first collections there, the LTER group has also made their first deposits."). It was awful. The fog was thick enough that we had to navigate by GPS because we couldn't see anything but water. Fun in a way, guessing where we were by the occasional dim outline of an island, but it also meant no horizon at Station E to help settle stomachs. Kim and I spent a lot of time staring into the distant haze, holding down breakfast. Thanks to PQ for his sea legs (and to Kim for her great attitude).

Later that day, we hauled the "towfish" around, again navigating by GPS through the fog. You can sort of see how thick it was here:

The "towfish" is a high-tech depth finder used to look for schools of krill. We didn't find any, which leaves Kim's krill tally at a meager 20 juveniles. Kim is a zooplankton biologist with an engaging permanent smile (and a sexy South African accent); everyone on station has a bit of a crush on her. Poor girl broke her wrist a few weeks ago and had to go back to Punta Arenas on the last northbound. Hopefully she'll be able to return, but the NSF is generally not too accommodating with these things. Everyone cross your fingers. Otherwise, she'll be greatly missed.

Let's see, what else? Halloween happened. DeVal and Jen always have a fantastic getup (photo by Kris Perry):

And our doctor, Liz, was the sexiest Starchild any of us have ever seen (photo by Kelsey Ducklow, or at least by her camera):

And me? Maybe next time...

1/55 KPA

2010-11-09T08:00:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 28F
Wind Speed: 1 knot
Conditions: a brief reprieve

Our first batch of homebrew was a wild success. PQ and I impressed even ourselves. Not that we can really take credit, as all our recipes are from Dr. Beer, a scientist from last year who has a degree in brewing. This batch was a pale ale, with the over-citrus Cascade hops replaced with Amarillo, one of my new favorites. It was such a hit that it all disappeared on the night it was released (except for the twelve I stashed for late season). I don't even know why we bothered to bottle it; we could have just casked, at the rate it went. Oh, wait, I remember: the odds of getting a juvenile krill in your beer would have been 1/1 instead of 1/55.

I've foolishly volunteered to be the voice of Palmer Station in The Antarctic Sun, the USAP's newspaper. I'll just be writing monthly overviews of the antics occurring here at Palmer. I was amazed and appalled at how much I sound like a journalist in October's blurb. You can judge for yourself here: http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/aroundTheContinent/contentHandler.cfm?id=1201

Fire

2010-10-20T15:30:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 36F
Wind Speed: 28 knots
Conditions: Still farging windy

I think I've mentioned that in addition to my normal job, I'm also on several emergency response teams. Every Thursday one of them has a training session. This past Thursday was fire team. So, on Thursday afternoon we played darts... in full bunker gear and SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus). The idea of the exercise was to get comfortable in the outfit and realize how much air we actually have in that tank. My cricket score was atrocious with those gloves on, but my air tank outlasted everyone else's; it took me an hour to breathe a little more than half of it. Of course, when we're in a drill, crouching and carrying and dragging and sucking in huge mouthfuls of air, the tank will only last 20 minutes or so before going into alarm, which means about five minutes left. Once a week we don and doff (yup, those are words) our bunker gear to check it all out and maintain our speedy response time. The standard is to be bunker'd up and on air in under two minutes. It looks like this (sped up to 4x for your viewing convenience):

So, right now I hope you're concerned. I mean, they're not really going to send me rushing into a burning building with axe and extinguisher are they? Oh yes they are...

if...

If the fire is reasonably small, manageable, we'll probably go in to save a building. If someone is unaccounted for, we're definitely going in there to save a soul. But we are not unprepared. We had a week of professional training before coming here, and we continue to train and drill through the season.

The Arvada Fire Academy, near Denver, takes us from completely green rookies, to amateur smokeys. We learn the bunker and SCBA gear, extinguishers and hoses, and all the basic tactics for entry, search and recovery. Then we play with fire. We start small and outside with extinguishers. Last year, Brack took a great shot of me hitting a nice diesel blaze:

The Academy has a burn house that is basically a two story brick shell with nothing in it but coal-black smoke-stained walls. We practice methods for searching and clearing areas, crouching as if there were smoke. Then we do it again, blindfolded. It's amazing how a familiar building can turn into a totally claustrophobic labyrinth. Then, to add to the phobia, we go through "the maze". This is a building the size of a shed, with three levels to crawl through. There is rarely room to sit up, let alone stand. There are spongy floors, ramps, hanging wires, ladders, holes in the floor, stairs, miniature doors, two-by-fours blocking the path so you have to crawl through on your side with your air tank practically underneath you. It's a total nightmare. We do it blindfolded. This is to simulate an absolute worst-case scenario. People have torn off their masks in freak-out mode. Some of us think it's fun; like a grown-up jungle gym. No pictures, sorry.

Next, we light the burn house up and let it fill with smoke. We drill some more, getting comfortable with the fire, but not too comfortable. Black smoke pours out of the doors and windows. We go in:

Inside, there are about three feet of visible space near the floor. The upper half of the room is black and hot, forcing us to crawl on our knees. The fire is surprisingly small for the amount of heat and smoke it produces; it is a shopping cart full of wood and straw. We practice moving hoses around and using extinguishers. We sweat bullets.

Next is the propane tank. Don't worry, it's not a real propane tank, but it's been plumbed with gas to look and act like one.

We line up with two hoses and slowly approach the blaze. When it gets hot enough, a spout of whistling fire spews from the top with the noise of a freight train. It's a little unnerving.

Ok, a lot unnerving. But, we continue to approach, our hose nozzles switched to fan, providing a barrier between us and the fire.

Oh yeah, that's me. I'm a fireman.

We take a few short steps closer from where we are in this picture. With the flames at bay, some brave fool can get in there and turn the valve. Not it. I'll keep the nozzle, a-thank-you-very-much.

It's an interesting exercise, but the reality is, if we had anything like this occur on station, as long as no one was in danger, we'd let it burn and focus on protecting any adjacent structures with water.

This Thursday is GSAR training. I think. Or is it OSAR. I don't know. I am seeming toasty, RaJa. Weird.

Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit

2010-10-13T12:50:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 36F
Wind Speed: 45 knots, gusting 60
Conditions: Howling Maelstrom

Actually, that's not true; the Current Weather, I mean. Now we're back down to Annoying Gale. It was true a week ago when I started this post, though. I remember that. What I don't remember is what I was going to write about. Maybe it will come to me, but until then...

The past week has been ridiculously stormy. We had sustained 50 mph wind for six straight hours one night. We had gusts over 80 mph. I'm not kidding; I have proof:

On rare sunny moments, you could see the glacier being stripped of it's winter coat:

Needless to say, not much has gone on in the past week. A lot of card playing (Australian 500 is our favorite), movie watching (anything'll do), and Mario Kart!!

This is our lounge. It's essentially a home theater, complete with surround sound, projector and kettle popcorn machine. So when the weather is foul and the station is quiet, things aren't so bad.

Which is good, because the Gould is back and it's loaded with the rest of the summer crew and the first wave of scientists. So, our quiet lead-in period is over; it's time for the main course. I'm much more excited to be here now, after having a chance to settle back in and accept this undersized, ought-to-be-forsaken pile of windswept-but-still-hopelessly-jagged rocks as my home. I wonder why? Perhaps the recent influx of cute twenty-somethings has raised my spirits. In the words of the great philosopher, Wooderson: "I get older, and they stay the same age." But I digress...

I suppose that's not true either, since to become sidetracked would suggest that I had an intended track to begin with. I don't. Speaking of which, today I learned two new ways to rochambeau (that's just rock-paper-scissors to those of you who don't play Ultimate [and that's just fancy frisbee to the rest of you]). The first is full body rochambeau: standing back to back and turning to pose as either cowboy, ninja, or bear. Though I disagree that anything could beat a ninja, cartoon roadrunners excluded. Beep Beep. My favorite new rochambeau, for it's straightforward cruelty, is cat-tin foil-microwave. I'd like to modify it subtly, though, to kitten-laser pointer-microwave. Sorry Steve.

Don't give a ...

2010-10-03T10:42:00.003-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 32F
Wind Speed: 0 knots
Conditions: overcast, calm

A few days ago Beaver asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner. The food has already been so good this year that I really didn't mind what he cooked. So I said something like, "Don't worry about me, anything will be fine. I don't give a shit." And this is what I got:

The cake was awesome, but the turd left something to be desired. More corn, maybe.

It's Alive!

2010-09-30T11:43:00.010-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 33F
Wind Speed: 26 knots
Conditions: blowing snow

Our passage across the Drake this year was uneventful to the point of boredom. Last year there were seals and petrels and pancake ice and water sampling and the Gerlache Strait. This year there was open water. Last year when we arrived at station there were significant rafts of sea ice filling Arthur Harbor and Hero Inlet. This year there was open water. Last year there were multiple feet of post-holing snow in the backyard and on the glacier. This year there was crust and ice. Wind and rain had already scoured any ski-able snow into sheets of fall-on-your-ass-and-break-your-tailbone something-between-snow-and-ice (ad-jec-tive no-un). Very disappointing.

Over the past week, below freezing temperatures have returned, and several storm systems have pushed through full of snow, but the wind has remained, so the glacier is still a sheet of ice. But the station, with its buildings to create turbulent eddies and lees, has become an obstacle course of drifts and cornices:

The wind also blew in a band of ice with a curiously distinctive brown color:

Which slowly began mixing with the more blue-white local ice. Some suspected algae or phytoplankton growing in the brown ice. Others wrote it off to sediment-infused ice from the bottom of a calving glacier or from wind swept dust.

So, not to be dampened by a lack of snowboarding, Lily and I decided to take on science. One sample of each, carefully collected from opposite sides of Gamage point:

Lily handed me two slides. In the first slide I saw microscopic fuzzballs that looked to me like belly button lint, perhaps from the largest land dwelling animal on the continent: belgica antarctica (more later... perhaps). Having never seen a belgica's belly button under magnification, but thinking that surely this lint must be a sign of life, and considering the possibility that it may be the most important discovery of our lifetime, i exclaimed with great fervor, "I have no idea what I'm looking for!"

As it turns out, what I was looking for was in the second slide:

IT'S ALIVE!
(In your face!)

The Salad Weeks

2010-09-26T18:00:00.002-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 31F
Wind Speed: 35 knots
Conditions: Overcast

It's an interesting thing, having multiple names. I guess most people have three by first-middle-last, but I seem to collect them by region. In the east, my family calls me by my first name. In the west, my friends call me by my last, mostly to disambiguate from another Brian. At McMurdo I became B-Nelson, a name Bamma gave me because of my email address, and sometimes just B. These are all just subtle twists on the name I grew up with, but returning here to Palmer I've spent the past week reconnecting the synapses to associate with "Rex".

Though short and sweet, "Rex" is no simple nickname. It's the Latin king, the tyrannic thunder lizard; "Rex" is the kind of name that pops up when you build your porn star pseudonym by combining your first pet's name and the street you grew up on. This is not a name to be taken lightly. You must crawl into it like your skin and wear it as an alter ego. Yes, that's right, in Antarctica I am no longer mild-mannered Clark Kent, I'm...

Well, I'm Rex. My costume: a Carhartt jacket and a knit hat. My superpowers: the ability to brazenly face a 30 mile-an-hour sleet, to deftly walk on ice in sneakers, to drunkenly dance like a white boy last night, and to cleverly avoid jumping in the water this morning.

As you may have guessed, after a week at the pier, my ride into town, the wobbly Laurence. M. Gould, slipped back out to sea this morning, and a long sigh of relief continues slowly exhaling across the station. Over the past week we've experienced the escalated mayhem of a port call combined with personnel turnover. And personally, I have also experienced a brief twinge of "Oh God, what have I done?" upon the stark realization that I've returned to a two-mile bubble that will be my entire world for another seven months. But, I have some new guitar toys and fifty pounds of beer brewing ingredients on the way, so I think everything will be OK.

We seem to have a really good crew again this year, with a lot of repeat offenders from last year. Such is the norm at Palmer; once you have a position in your mitts, it's tough to let go knowing someone else may swipe it up for a few years. So, now we have 27 people on station to hold down the fort for a few weeks before we are inundated with scientists. These are the salad weeks, the first course, when everything is fresh and less filling...

Home Stretch

2010-04-13T15:15:00.000-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 35F
Wind Speed: 33 knots
Conditions: Overcast and windy

It's been pretty quiet around station for the past few weeks. Everyone is tired and anxious to leave. And we're out of good liquor. Dr. Beer's homebrew is all dried up, too. What I wouldn't give for a thick, hoppy IPA! So I haven't done any blogging because there hasn't really been anything to blog about. The weather has been miserable for the past month. I saw the sun once for about five minutes. It's been overcast, cold, and extremely windy, and the air has been full of snow or rain or some icky combination of the two. The only excitement we've had was the news that the Gould broke a winch and the time it would take to replace the parts and repair it might delay our departure yet again. Fortunately, that didn't turn out to be the case. So, for the moment we're in a kind of holding pattern, just trying to tie up all the loose ends while awaiting the arrival of the winter crew. When they arrive, station will be overflowing, and I'll be moving onto the Gould and going wherever it goes over the next ten days on scientific fishing expeditions, which could be either amazing or horrendous, depending on the locations and the seas. Either way, this will likely be my last post during the season here.

I've had some time to start planning my summer, which will be as short as ever since I'll be returning here again in September, which means training starts again in August. So, here's the plan:

I'll be spending about a week hiking in Torres del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region of Chile. Nandi will be joining me for this trek, and it should be beautiful, fun, cold and wet. Then it's straight to Pittsburgh for the rest of May, where I'll see many of you dedicated readers at Ethan's wedding. I plan to buy a car, something I haven't had in nearly three years, and drive back to Oregon, taking my good old time to visit friends in Michigan, Colorado, and Arizona, and ride my bike in Utah and California. I figure I'll hit Hood River in early July. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess, but I'm planning to visit a friend in BC at some point, and maybe make a road trip to Banff and Whitefish out of it. And there may be a weekend flight back to Michigan for a wedding, or possibly a trip to San Diego to do some sailing. I'm very much looking forward to seeing everyone, and in every case I'm sure it will be much too short.

Just so you have some entertainment from this post, since I've neglected to take any pictures of the dreary grey this month, I'm attaching a few of Stacie's videos from the open mic night.

I just realized that there are ten people on the stage here. That's one quarter of the station. I keep saying that this place is a statistical oddity, due to the high percentage of talented people here. This proves it.

What you miss on this next one is Jen's stumbling entrance into the room before she does a shot of whiskey and smashes the glass on the floor, albeit accidentally. After a brief natural reaction, she brushes it off and proceeds to knock things over while pushing up her breasts, fondling the band members and constantly rubbing her nose like a coke-snorting Amy Winehouse. A far cry from the Jen we know, it took a long time to start the song because we were laughing so hard.

The following has a handful of dirty words and some other language that only the street savvy will understand, if you can understand what I'm saying at all. You've been warned. Many of you will fondly recognize it as the Gourd's bluegrass version of Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice", complete with mandolin and banjo!

Unfortunately, I'm not providing a well rounded representation of the evening at all. There was amazing diversity in both musical and spoken performances. This one is a funny reading done by Phil (my boss). It's mostly harmless, but comes with it's own warning.

I don't have video of Phil's second David Sedaris reading, in which he masterfully spews a fast, accented string of crafted vulgarity without breaking stride or cracking a smile, even with me on the floor in front of him, rolling around and gasping for breath between belly laughs.

Oh, and it appears that the "Stadium Pal" is a real product, but I can't be sure because the NSF, like a loving, caring, suppressing, controlling parent, has blocked the website.

Birder for a Day

2010-03-22T17:15:00.007-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 28 F
Wind Speed: 9 knots
Conditions: Dumping truckloads of big fat puffy white stuff

The fluffy little fuzzballs grow up so quickly. In just a few weeks time they're nearly the size of their parents. Many adult penguins take this opportunity to have an annual molt and then take off, leaving bewildered groups of now-tuxedo-wearing youngsters to mill about at the water's edge, occasionally testing their new aquatic home, much like testing the dance floor at their first high school dance. Many of them still have mottled patches of dirty grey down that afflict them like a crackling voice change. Not to be outdone, month-old globs of guano cling to these newly fledged coats in glorious krill-red layers. It's not quite equivalent to spilling the punch on your cummerbund. Still, amazingly, these awkward adolescents scream "Disney movie":

Several adults remain for a while longer, but eventually all will say their goodbyes, leaving the fledglings to learn how to fish on their own.

During this time, the birders get busy counting, weighing and measuring, and for that they need help. Our primary job as volunteers is to corral the fledglings with bamboo flags so the birders can catch them with big dog-napping nets. Then we take turns holding each penguin while their beaks and wings are measured. I wanted to have this one's mohawk measured as well:

Then it's head first into a bag for weighing:

The little buggers are stronger than I would have expected. This one was a rather talkative squirmer, and if I was holding him any higher I'm sure he would've gotten a good nibble on my nose:

Instead I got away with an intact nose and shit on my shoes. The best part by far is releasing them. Most would perform a waddling scramble over guano-slick rocks, flapping, squawking and falling over themselves to make an escape. My ornery little friend, however, turned at my feet to face me and literally chewed me out before strutting away. I think he'll survive. I'm so proud.

When we finished with the penguins on Humble Island, we began with the giant petrels. I've mentioned before that these birds are huge. They typically have a seven-foot wingspan. They also have a mean looking bill:

The "nostril" is actually part of a salt gland used for desalination since feeding forces these birds to imbibe so much salt water. This one has a really cool looking iris, too, but you'll have to download the full picture to see it.

The chicks, like their parents, are fargin' massive. And they have an interesting defense mechanism that allows them to be left alone on the nest while the parents are out on week long forages. They gack. Scary, eh? If you were a skua it would be. Giant petrels produce a nasty stomach oil that causes predators' feathers to become matted and gooey. This "gack" destroys the insulating properties of down, makes it difficult to fly, and has been known to cause birds to drown. Oh, and it smells bad. Really bad. So, many of the petrel chicks are unguarded by adults, and therefore very easy to approach and measure. Here's Jen handling a totally calm "geep" chick:

Actually, the petrels on Humble Island have become so accustomed to the birders that even the adults don't put up much of a fuss. They usually make some noise and swing their heads around as the birders approach, but that's about it. I love this picture; it looks like the geep is listening attentively to Jen's motherly advice (which was probably just "hush, you"):

And of course, we get our little Kodak moment as well. I've already gotten plenty of flak for this, so go ahead and bring it:

Now, on to the skuas, who couldn't be more dissimilar. Firstly, the chicks are not sitting happily in the same location day after day; they're camouflaged and fast, so just finding them can be a trick. Secondly, and this is a big "secondly", the adults are downright mean. At McMurdo, skuas are hated and feared for their stealth ferocity while dive-bombing your lunch tray when all you want is a quiet meal at home. I always liked them for providing entertainment, but the few times I brought food home to my room I probably looked mildly paranoid and wildly sketchy, eyes shifting every which way. Here the skuas pay us no mind, usually. If you happen to be running off with their chicks, that's a different story:

Skuas are extremely territorial, and if you enter their stomping grounds be prepared to be buzzed, repeatedly. They are masterful at the art of "chicken", pulling up and away at the last moment, whipping by close enough to hear the wind in their wings if you don't feel the feathers on the side of your head. They will occasionally pop you a quick beak shot to the ol' noggin. But if you've just swiped up their chick to take some measurements, you better be ready for a whuppin.

So now our job as volunteers is to shoo off mum and dad when they get too bitey. I was pretty impressed by their boldness when this one perched right on Jen's shoulder, apparently finding it easier than hovering. He paused for a moment before continuing the tirade.

Jen just brushes it off, "It's nice to know exactly where they are."

As we left the island, we got a parting shot from this elephant seal:

In recent news, the season is changing; the temperature is down and snow is not melting away as it falls anymore. We had a final musical evening this weekend, which was a wild success with bluegrass, yodeling, accordion, and a horn section. The Gould left station yesterday with a lot of young scientists that are, more importantly, dear friends, with whom we've spent the whole season. Population is down to 27, and it feels immediately like the home stretch. As we stood on the pier in our float coats, waving and watching the ship pull away, I decided that I wanted to do some sort of special plunge for this crew.

This photo (thanks Stacie) appeared on the white board today with a caption that says, "This is what 'No bonus for you' looks like", and a circle around the radio that was still in my pocket. Which reminds me, my shoes are still drying in the sauna...

Stepping on the Continent

2010-03-11T16:10:00.003-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 38F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: Soggy

At one point in time I envisioned that this blog would contain a chronology of penguin antics as the season passed along and the breeding Adelies on Torgersen went through their phases of colonization. Needless to say, that didn't happen. But in a meager attempt to reconcile the situation I'll step back a mere two months to January 6, when "Taking out the Garbage" landed on Torgy.

I've mentioned that we don't see Chinstraps very often, but I should say that it's really just relative. We see a fair amount of Chinstraps, but we see a lot more Adelies and Gentoos. On this day there was a brave Chinstrap hanging about right by the landing, and he wasn't afraid to pose for the camera:

I wasn't aware of their orange eyes until this moment. The Adelies seem to have a white-ringed black hole for an eye, but the Chinstraps have a very human iris. Still, it isn't as cool as the Giant Petrel iris, which you'll see soon, hopefully. Up in the colony, the Adelies were performing their usual stretches, flapping their "wings" and barking into the air:

Notice anything different here?:

Those aren't rocks at his feet. I believe the last entry in the penguin log had them sliding around on snow and sitting on eggs. Well, both the snow and the eggs are gone. Sometime in December those eggs that survived the skua attacks hatched into little grey puffballs. By the time I got out there to see them, they were big grey puffballs, with little beaks and flappers and over-sized feet:

Mum and dad, who took turns sitting on the eggs, continued their shift work. But now upon returning to the nest they would find these cute little warm fuzzies with soft down, clumsy miniature wings and an adorable whistling chirp that would make any proud parent want to regurgitate its dinner and have its throat pecked raw and its feet soiled with projectile guano.

Many of the adults were still lying on the chicks as if they were eggs, which resulted in an amusing image not unlike a tuxedoed mime dealing with a lumpy couch.

The skuas seem to have a mental map of where all the chicks are, and they swoop in unexpectedly whenever they get a chance. This causes an uproar among nearby penguins, who cackle and beat their wings. I never saw an actual catch, but I definitely saw evidence; it's not uncommon to come across penguin skeletons. Usually there are adult carcasses near the shoreline, which I assume means a seal got them. One skua stood and taunted this pair of Adelies, who were sitting on their chick. The Adelie squawked and snapped at him, but the skua held its ground nonchalantly, completely unfazed by threats.

In other news...

This past weekend was a two-day, since the rest of the Antarctic program is now into the winter months. With our extra long summer season, I'd say it's totally reasonable for us to observe the two day weekends also. I can definitely say that the dark is not the only contributor to "toastiness", because we are all getting worn out and a little edgy and snippy, though nowhere near true toast, yet. On Saturday, rather than rest like I should have, I somehow got talked into running a half marathon on glacier and glacial moraine, which is all we have here. All I can say is: won't be doing that again.

Saturday evening a group of us boarded the Gould for a Sunday boondoggle. There is a diving group here now studying the chemical defenses of our marine species. They wanted to get out and do some diving away from station, and since the Gould is around and available this month, we steamed out to the Lemaire Channel. This time, instead of soaking in an outdoor cruise ship pool, we were able to take a Zodiac out and explore, an extremely rare opportunity for Palmerites, though perhaps not so rare for the folks in marine (the research vessel faction of USAP is often referred to as "marine").

Here we are motoring across the Lemaire, with Booth Island's sheer 4000 foot cliffs towering over the Gould in the background:

The weather wasn't perfect, but the clouds and fog layers framed stunning scenery:

Large groups of Gentoos porpoised all around us, going this way and that from a colony on the peninsula side of the channel:

In case you aren't sure, those are not penguin noises, they're people noises that sound nothing remotely like a penguin. We also roused the curiosity of two leopard seals, one of which followed us for quite a while:

I didn't realize initially that the eastern side of the channel was not another island, but the mainland of the Antarctic Peninsula. I've spent a fair amount of time hopping from island to island near this continent, but have never stepped on the mainland, so I immediately said, "pull over! pull over!" Here's Phil's reaction to the whole trip as we set foot on the shore:

The rocky beach was strewn with blocks of ice from the nearby calving glaciers:

We returned reluctantly to the Gould and steamed through the channel southward, passing "iceberg alley" and Petermann Island to the south, and nearly reaching Vernadsky Station (Ukrainian) before time ran out and we had to head back to Palmer. Have to save something for next time, I suppose.

Immediately upon our return to station, the weather made a turn for the worst. We were in the process of ferrying diving equipment, samples and personnel back to station via Zodiac when the wind jumped to 35 knots, gusting 45. The swell came up, making loading off the back of the Gould a challenge, and blew against us as we pushed slowly toward station in a heavily loaded boat. Waves crashed against the bow and blew up over us like whitewater. Fortunately, the breeze came in the form of near-record temperatures. We reached 52.9 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a mere 0.7 degrees from the record high at Palmer Station. Several of us were overdressed for such balmy temps, so the ice cold sea water was actually refreshing. Our boating coordinator, Ryan, blindly steered the boat into the fray, being repeatedly doused with buckets of sea water. Buckets, right in the face. Like a true seaman, he began to sing in a thick accent and swing his free arm:

Got a whale of a tale to tell ya, lads
A whale of a tale or two
'Bout the flappin' fish and the girls I've loved
On nights like this with the moon above
A whale of a tale and it's all true
I swear by my tattoo

There was Mermaid Minnie,
Met her down in Madagascar
She would kiss me
Anytime that I would ask her
Then one day her light of love blew out
Blow me down and pick me up
She traded me for a trout!

Amazing as the day had been, that was the icing on the cake. I nearly fell out of the boat laughing. Since then, it has blown a steady 30 knots, gusting to 50, day and night until yesterday, when it finally calmed down.

The Black Screen, Version 8.8

2010-03-01T15:09:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 35F
Wind Speed: 5 knots
Conditions: Sunny!

A few days after Valentine's Day I received a package. In it were cards and dice and lots of odd toys and sweets. But the very best part was a note that stated simply, "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentine's Day, and any other holidays that may have passed while this package was in the mail." Thanks Brett and Andrea! You'll be happy to know that Rory Gates happily played with some of the gizmos while his grandparents and father, Bill Gates, sat in our lounge for a presentation.

We've had several interesting visitors lately. A Chilean Naval Tug stopped by while doing bathymetry in the area. After touring the station, they invited ten of us to tour their ship. We were ushered straight to the bridge and poured glasses of jote, a mixed drink of half Chilean wine and half Coca-cola, also known as licor de ave; "liquor of the bird". I was told the name refers to a bird in the desert that must scavenge for whatever it can find; I think. My impression is that it's a poor man's drink that allows them to drink more. It was, um, interesting. We had a blast with these very friendly and excited Chileans. They were a great change from the usual ship visit. They were much more real to me than the strange world of tourists. A few of them knew a little English and a few of us knew a little Spanish, so the conversations were truly Spanglish, constantly switching between languages. They hope to come back and invite more people over for a barbecue on the deck. I hope it happens.

A film crew for the London-based television show Globe Trekker arrived a few days ago on the yacht Spirit of Sydney. So, on Saturday I did another somewhat standard Terra Lab tour, this time on film. They ran around all day yesterday with the divers and birders and other scientists, and last night they came to station to film the band. They're hoping to make a kind of "day in the life" segment for the Antarctica episode that they're filming. Ironically, this was no typical "day in the life" here, with the earthquake in Chile Saturday morning and the station's tsunami plan going into effect, and of course, a television crew running around camera in hand.

My jaw dropped Saturday morning when I pulled up the data for our seismometer and instead of the typical rows of normal activity...
... I saw this:
I immediately contacted the station manager and both research vessels. The Palmer was in the Drake at the time. Little did I know, we had already been contacted by Rothera, the British research station to the south, and our worker bees had been busy for the past hour, pulling the Zodiacs out of the water and moving any volatiles away from the low ground. We weren't terribly concerned though; our tsunami operating procedure (yes, we have one) predicts that the worst case scenario would be a 2 meter runup, and the tide was on its way out. So we got a chuckle when DoJo suggested she take the first watch, which would mean sitting in the galley with a cup of tea and whale watching. We did notice a small surge, which had the effect of moving a bergy bit in and out of Hero Inlet a few times, but that was it. After dragging its anchor through a blustery night, the Gould was happily steaming through the Neumayer Channel, blissfully unaware that anything was happening until they returned to station that afternoon. The Palmer experienced no tsunami, and wouldn't notice anyway in the middle of the currently rambunctious Drake Passage. We will feel the effects logistically though, as the Santiago airport is our primary hub for cargo and personnel, and it took quite a hit.

Bubble Netting

2010-02-18T17:30:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 35F
Wind Speed: 10 knots
Conditions: Overcast

The Humpbacks stayed with us for over a week. At every meal we could look out over Arthur Harbor and watch them spouting and feeding. The krill were everywhere. People were literally catching them with their bare hands out at the pier, which is unfortunate for our lone krill scientist, who left just days before the bloom. While he was here he had a heck of a time collecting enough krill for his experiments. He was studying the light sensitivity of Antarctic Krill's eyes. In serious alien-abduction fashion, he super-glued the krill to a post and then stuck it in the eye with a needle-shaped electrode that would tell him when the krill's photoreceptors fired. Then he subjected the poor little thing to pulses of light across the visible spectrum to determine what colors the krill could see. When our bulletin board announced a lecture on the topic, it quickly gathered a few key witticisms; "A Krillwork Orange," "Psycho Kriller," "License to Krill." And those spawned into a full-blown whiteboard takeover:

Thursday

OSAR had an exercise on Thursday, with two boats alternating hide-and-seek using GPS coordinates. While waiting for the other boat to "hide", the seekers conveniently went whale watching. This day the Humpbacks were even easier to find; a swarm of Kelp Gulls followed them to snatch up any stray krill.

Humpbacks use a technique called "bubble netting" to optimize their krill catches. Usually in a pod of three (around here, anyway) they dive deep below the krill and swoop in a circle while exhaling through their blowhole. This creates a ring of bubbles that rise to the surface. The krill within the circle don't swim through the bubble net and the Humpbacks come up through the middle and scoop them all up. It's real obvious when they're doing it because a large ring of bubbles suddenly appears on the surface, followed shortly by a whale:

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of the whale inhaling, like wind flowing through a pipe. The krill must get pushed to the surface as the whales come up the middle, because the gulls go into a frenzy of diving after the bubble net appears. Then they scatter frantically as the massive whale mouths break the surface:

Often two or three whales come up together, practically on top of one another:

They have huge throats that stretch out like an accordion to hold as much krill-filled seawater as possible. Then they push the water back out through a sieve of baleen (specially-evolved whale teeth), leaving masses of good edible bits behind. Check out the barnacles all over this one's bulging throat:

When "Jealousy" was out, Peter took some great video of a close encounter. We were paralleling the whales' path and following the bubble trail when we noticed it was converging on our trajectory. It was too late to change course when the bubble ring appeared directly in front of us and we drifted right into it. Hoppe got a little over-excited, providing a good laugh for everyone on station that night as Peter's video played on a seemingly endless loop: http://www.youtube.com/user/poliepete1#p/a/u/0/Zf--GN-_raE

Friday

Friday was finally a nice sunny day, so I jumped at the opportunity to go whale watching in better light. Of course, they were all tucked up in Arthur Harbor right under the glacier, so there was a lot of white glare and we couldn't approach. But, we still got some great views that weren't afforded to us previously. This group of two was keen on having their gaping mouths open above the surface:

They regularly pointed their snouts to the sky and then clamped down on a big gulp:

I got a few fantastic shots of the roof of the mouth. In this one you can clearly see the water dripping off the baleen, as well as the hairy, sieve-like qualities of these strange teeth:

It seems that everyone was out feeding with so much krill around; when the whales were down, we watched penguins porpoising all around us. I've been trying to capture this all season. It's so fun to watch them hopping out of the water, but so difficult to click the shutter at the exact same moment. Here's the best I've done so far:

Later in the evening, I hiked out in the backyard on the Arthur Harbor side and found a flock of Antarctic Terns diving into the water for krill.

Or maybe they were Arctic Terns. I haven't learned how to tell them apart yet. The Arctic Terns have the longest known migration of any animal, traveling 44,000 miles round trip, chasing summer from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back each year.

Jealousy

2010-02-11T15:20:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 37F
Wind Speed: 3 knots
Conditions: Overcast

Saturday

The Amsterdam came to Palmer last weekend . It's too big for station tours, so a large group of us Zodiac'd out for yet another surreal cruise liner experience. Broken into two groups to give two lectures, we were able to explore the ship, have lunch, shop, get haircuts, etc., while the other group was lecturing. And because the cruise ships prefer to be underway for stabilization and scenery, we also got a free ride east toward the Neumayer Channel and Wiencke Island:

And then south to the Lemaire Channel, a stunningly narrow strait with sheer rock walls on either side:

The Lemaire was still choked with bergy bits and growlers, so the Amsterdam steamed a slow weaving course into the channel. Precipices to the port were shaded by their own weather system, and ice and water flowed down the rock faces:

Brack, Hoppe and I took the rare opportunity to enjoy this breathtaking scenery while taking the equally rare opportunity to swim in warm water in the aft deck pool:

Aghast by our daring, many passengers took our picture while some gathered dry towels in a grandmotherly fashion. It was no hot tub, but the water was nice enough to steam in the freezing air, which was more than warm enough for us. After a quick dry, I headed to the bow to get a closer look into the depths of the Lemaire. We didn't pull all the way into the narrowest sections, but the peaks still towered over us. Here's Amanda and Alice, aka: the A-team, enjoying the view:

The captain announced a Minke whale sighting off the port and I turned to watch everyone from the starboard side scurry across the deck. Then he corrected himself, stating the starboard side, and the whole of the port rail emptied for the starboard. I had to check my balance, because from my perspective at the tip of the bow it looked like the ship had done a Titanic lurch and people were falling across the deck. It was hilarious. I laughed my way to the galley, where I filled a plate to overflow with sushi. A man next to me noted my hoodie and said, "You've got a pocket there, too!" I was tempted.

Sunday morning

Each Raytheon employee must sign up for station watch on one Sunday of the season. This just means manning the radio and keeping track of who is off station and where. Last Sunday was my turn. So my normal day off started at the regular 7:30 when the A-team woke me up by radio. They were going out water sampling. I acknowledged sleepily and went downstairs for breakfast, not expecting that this would quickly turn into the busiest station watch of the season.

Within a couple hours, the usual crowd of coffee drinkers and keyboard typers and crossword fillers occupied the galley. And then it began. Spouts in the distance. Then closer. Soon we were all staring out the window at multiple groups of Humpback whales feeding within the boating limits. The rec boat went out. I watched through the glass while minding the radio for the science groups that were now also in the water. I answered the rec boat's elated calls with a growing jealous disdain. The divers offered up their dedicated Zodiac as a second recreation boat. Dianne was gracious enough to take watch from me for a few hours so I could go out. I named the boat "Jealousy".

We reached the first pod at about half a mile from station and quickly learned that these whales could care less about nearby Zodiacs. They swept an area for krill, regularly throwing up their flukes before diving:

showing their pectoral fins as they neared the surface:

and poking their mouths into the air, straining the sea water back out between their massive lips while holding the krill inside:

We followed a pod of three whales around for over an hour. It was amazing to see water pouring off the flukes of these creatures in front of such an incredible backdrop:

This is my favorite photo of the lot:

Several times they surfaced close enough to us that the fishy spray of their spent breath washed over the boat.

I caught this shot of the other rec boat, with their own pod of whales a few hundred yards from us. It gives a good idea of their size and proximity:

After a while we got good at guessing where they might surface next. Based on the general direction they were traveling, we simply looked for bubbles. BIG bubbles. And sometimes, we'd nail it and they'd come up right next to us. And those were the times we saw how huge these guys are. Their tails are nearly as wide as our boats are long.

Our jealousy quashed, we wanted to change our boat name to "Holy Shit", but had to settle for "Satisfied".

Our pod finally got full of krill and left the boating area, leaving us with this parting shot:

Sunday afternoon

I took the radio back and watched out the galley window as Zodiacs continued to follow whales around the vicinity. Faces were glowing after the experience. But the fun wasn't over yet. Fonseca came into the galley and let us know that a section of the glacier overhanging Arthur Harbor was carving out quickly. Several of us went out onto the back deck to watch as puny schoolbus-sized blocks of ice dropped from the lip of an ice alcove. I put my camera on the railing and recorded. Before you watch the movie, though, this picture will give you a sense of scale. That's a 16-foot Zodiac in the bottom right. They look like they're right next to the ice, but we're not allowed within three hundred meters of the face, so they're actually three football field lengths away.

Enjoy:

Animal Noises / Gorman's Down Jacket

2010-02-05T11:55:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 37F
Wind Speed: 10 knots
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy

Going back in time again on this one, but I swear the next post will be current.

11/29/09 - Animal Noises

For this boating venture, each radio call back into station was accompanied by a new animal noise: moo, squawk, meow, ribbit, etc. Yes, we're easily amused.

We wrangled our way against a strong current of dense brash to reach the landing at Breaker Island. This ice is about as thick as we can push through in the Zodiacs:

The landing is a steep wall with a rock staircase, sort of. At the top, the steep wall continued as snow. And beyond the lip of snow, perched on a nest of sharp igneous, was a Giant Petrel. We fondly refer to these monstrous birds as GPs, or Geeps. They're huge. A small adult has a six foot wingspan; a large one, seven. They're cumbersome and unsophisticated when they take off from the water, slapping their wide webbed feet down a long wet runway like Howard Hughes' Hercules. But once aloft, they're size gives them majesty.

We carefully skirted the area around this guy, because underneath him was one of these:

We explored the island for a bit, and looked out from its summit over an expanse of quickly flowing brash:

But the wind came up unexpectedly, which can be expected here, and we had to bail before it got worse. We were afraid we wouldn't be able to fight both the wind and the brash, which turned out to be true. So we lost ground for a quarter mile while ferrying laterally out of the brash, then got soaked with spray as we fought the wind in open water. But it was not without its perks; the critters like to get out of the water and drift:

It's common to see seals hauled out on the chunks of ice that fall from the glacial wall around Arthur Harbor and float past the station. We saw this Leopard floating along in the sun. His fur, which we usually view as a wet sheen of sleek torpedo skin chasing a row of long yellowed canines, was dried out and fuzzy and it made this large dangerous predator appear so cute and cuddly that I just wanted to reach out and...

lose a hand.

A quick stop on Torgersen for an Adelie check up and some Skua love, and we were headed home.

12/05/09 - Gorman's Down Jacket

Shortly after our Open Mic night, Kristen went out on a boat that she named "Rex's Greasy Jeans" after a song that I played. I like to pick on Kristen for always having her down jacket on, especially when I'm overheating in a tee. So, "Gorman's Down Jacket" got in the pool to see some big ice cubes. We started at a berg nearby that our fine feathered but flightless friends were congregating on. Soon a group that was approaching the berg passed and took an interest in us. Or maybe it was more an interest in krill below us, but they were curious about us at the least. They swam playfully, popping up randomly around the boat, often seeming to wonder what we were, and why we sat staring while they dipped, dove and dined. We couldn't help but notice that one of these things was not like the others.

That's a Chinstrap, aptly named. They're the third of the brushtail family of penguins that we regularly have here. They're less common though, and look more interesting, so I'm always excited to see them. Further out, on a really massive berg, we found another group of penguins, mostly Adelies this time. They were on a berg that seemed to have no entry point for them, so we had no idea how they got up there. Until one came rocketing out of the water about eight feet and rapidly scaled an icy cliff with flippers and toenails:

We watched several penguins do this and laughed when it took them several attempts because they kept bouncing off the vertical face and plopping comically back into the drink. Hilarious. We passed a few more cool bergs on our way out to the eastern boating limits. Waves were washing over the low section of this one:

Another berg had a tide pool in its center that was a boiling cauldron when a big swell washed in, splashing up into the air over the ice. It emptied through an ice canyon over an ice waterfall:

We soon reached Cormorant Island, home to a colony of Blue-eyed Shag and off limits for that reason. But we are still able to boat around it and view the cormorants sitting atop mounded nests of seaweed, grasses and mud:

If you're lucky enough to get close, they have brilliant blue eyes and a fluff of yellow feathers at the base of their beak, but usually they're just zipping by overhead:

Stay tuned for a wild weekend of sushi, calvings, and flukes...

Topless Boaters

2010-01-22T16:20:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 37F
Wind Speed: 6 knots
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy

My radio has become a permanent attachment to my hip. It's a necessary evil here. Nearly everyone carries one, and during the day there is constant traffic. Much of the work here is done away from the desk, so the radio is great for quick questions, instructions, bits of information, etc. Plus, this is how we talk to visiting ships. But, most of the radio traffic is between field parties and 'Palmer Station', which is usually Ken, but could be just about anyone, depending on what's going on. Anytime a Zodiac leaves, its passengers will be signed out and the boat will have a name. They will radio in all their movements so if there is an incident, the OSAR team already knows where to go. This gets fun because we get to make up humorous boat names anytime we go out. And, of course, the joke names are often based on recent goings-on at station.

So, Topless Boaters went out on a brilliantly sunny day in mid-November. It was the day after our shirtless sunbath on the GWR deck. It's funny (to us) because of the stringent requirement while boating to wear a floatcoat, a full PFD jacket complete with a "beaver tail" that wraps under your crotch and clips to the front of the coat.

At this time in the season, there were a multitude of icebergs around station, having blown in from the south. They took on all shapes and sizes, and the strong sun of the previous days shaped many of them into crazy sculptures:

Some appeared to be two bergs above water, but were actually connected beneath the surface. Like this one, which reminded me of the precarious rock formations in Arches National Park:

This fin of ice is on the back side of the "Arches" stack in the previous picture:

And speaking of arches, check this crazy berg out:

We could have driven our Zodiac through it, if we didn't mind losing our jobs, that is. A view of station in the distance, through the arch:

The bright sun and crystal clear water allowed us to see the teal underside of most of the larger bergs:

Proving that 90% of these huge cocktail rocks are indeed underwater:

This one had really cool patterns chiseled in by the sun and tides:

This is a small section of a large berg; an alcove tunnel that opened up as a pool in the middle of the berg:

Now that we're in the heart of the summer, the surrounding islands are almost totally free of snow. The winter ice build-up has dwindled away this far north. We still get regular bergs in the area, but there are not nearly as many and they seem to be smaller as well. The glaciers in the area are calving regularly, though, leaving bands of brash ice and growlers. It's not uncommon to see a leopard or crabeater seal floating lazily by on an open floe.

As station life goes, this is our last day at full capacity. Things have slowed down a bit for me this past week, allowing me to catch up on rest and rejuvenate a bit. Hopefully things will continue to calm as this peak in the season begins to wane back toward a lower population. Like I discovered at McMurdo, the long work weeks and constant goings-on slowly but steadily wear away at my motivation and energy levels. Still, I'm enjoying myself and continuing to have fun here, and certainly not counting the days yet, which is a good thing because the new LMG schedule just pushed back my redeployment by a week to April 29. Fine by me; a little extra time to explore the islands that are restricted until April 15th, and still time to get back for Ethan's wedding, though explorations in South America will probably have to wait till next year.

Addendum to the Luna Addendum

2010-01-15T15:30:00.003-03:00

The National Geographic Explorer made another unscheduled visit yesterday, due to another distinguished guest. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but this time they brought with them the second man to step foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin. So here we are again:

Tub with a View

2010-01-12T21:59:00.002-03:00

I just wanted to jot this day down quickly because it has been incredible. The sun is out in full force and the temperature has been a balmy 4o degrees. I spent the afternoon on the glacier with PQ, drilling new post holes for the VLF antenna cable, because the glacier is melting fast enough that the poles are toppling over as their holes disappear. We paused for a break and surveyed the walls of glacier hovering over Arthur Harbor, peering at a spot that looked like it might calve at any time; a serendipitous thought, as it turns out. A massive face of the glacier let go and dropped before our very eyes. I'd guess it was over a hundred feet in both width and height. It made a colossal thunder and an immense spray of water, followed by a great wave that broke across the length of our peninsula and continued outward to break over Elephant Rocks and Torgersen Island. It was amazing! We were practically jumping up and down in elation. So often we hear the crash and look quickly to see the ice already disappearing into the water, and it usually falls in mediocre chunks, followed by small slides. But this was a complete wall of ice that was the full height of the glacial face. Incredible!

After a glorious afternoon on the glacier, a rejuvenating half hour of yoga, and a spicy green curry and naan bread dinner, I joined a group of recreational boaters headed out to explore DeLaca Island. We saw Giant Petrel, Antarctic Tern, and Skua nests, laid out in the sun at the top of a rocky plateau, and watched a yacht sail in with the sunny mountains as its backdrop. It was so nice, I didn't even wear a jacket. When we returned to station, I did a bee-line to the hot tub, to further relax some soreness. I did not pass "go", or even the bar to grab a beer, but Zee was already in the tub with nearly a liter of gin and tonic. We shared this while enjoying what I'm convinced must be the best hot tub view in the world. We watched small calvings fall from the glacier, a leopard seal perusing the shoreline for dinner, and Minke whales spouting sunlit clouds of sea spray against a backdrop of glistening icebergs and golden-lined clouds. What a day. I wish you could have all been here to enjoy it with me.

The Crystal Symphony

2010-01-11T21:00:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 37F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy

The past few weeks have been insanely busy. After Christmas the station population did what seemed like a skyrocket climb to full capacity, even though we only jumped from 29 to 45. There are more science groups on station now than there have been in several years. The buggers came in on the cruise ship Veendam. They are studying the "largest land animal on the continent," as they like to proclaim; it's a wingless midge that's smaller than a gnat. The Gould returned from Punta Arenas with more birders, more microbers, a group of divers on an artist & writer grant, another group of divers working on our crumbling pier, and a solitary kriller. This will be the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) cruise of the Gould, which is a big and busy cruise to the south, looking at plankton, krill and bird populations, which makes it a big and busy port call with nearly a hundred people running around station and ship getting things prepared. And while all that was going on, the National Geographic Explorer came by again, with another birder and the return of Stacie, our cook, who ironically chipped off half the tooth she just had worked on. We still get to keep her, though. We also had a visit from the Crystal Symphony, so a group of us went out for a Q&A session at which we were treated like royalty and rock stars. I'm amazed to look back on it now and realize that all this happened between December 29th and January 3rd, which means our "two day" "weekend" and New Years party fell right in the middle of it all. I put "two day" and "weekend" both in air-quotes, because both are a serious stretching of the imagination. After that we had an eight day work week that finally ended in a day off yesterday. No wonder I'm so tired.

So, once again I'm faced with the question: where do I begin? Things happen too quickly here to keep up. I suppose at this point it would be foolish to think that I could ever include everything. The backlog continues to grow and I'll never catch up, so I'll just keep it simple and whittle down all the topics at hand to the one that I think will be the most interesting and readable. Sorry if you were dieing to hear about the port call.

The Crystal Symphony is a huge ship at 780 feet, with 940 guests, 545 crew and 12 decks. The public spaces alone add up to more than twice the square footage of our entire station. They include: a pool and hot tub (covered or uncovered, depending on the climate), tennis courts, sun deck (or cloud deck around here),

spa, sushi bar (which wasn't open, damn it, no matter how much I begged or bribed), music room, art room (with a beautiful view for painting), casino,

amphitheater, library, cigar bar, as well as multiple bars, clubs, lounges, stores and restaurants, and a mall-like reception area.

Maybe this comes as no surprise to cruise-goers, but I was taken aback by the immensity of this thing, I mean, it's footprint is the size of two football fields! So we motored out to the edges of our boating limits in tiny Zodiacs to meet it. It must have seemed to the passengers that we appeared out of nowhere, because you could hardly see the station from the ship, even though the ship was easy to see from station. We were ushered from the coat room up to their finest dining area, all the while crowds of people on either side of us taking pictures like paparazzi and waving and shouting hellos like fans. It was surreal. We were seated at a central table, under the chandelier, each of us with our own waiter to pull back our chair. It was a crystal, china and silver affair. The sommelier kept our glasses topped with some of the best wine I've ever had.

Underdressed and underprepared, and with choice being a nearly forgotten concept when it comes to meals, we perused a menu of amazing treats, unable to decide. The food was delicate and artistic. Three delicious courses and several glasses later we took pictures with all the waitstaff individually, as if we were celebrities. PQ went to the auditorium to give the standard lecture while many of us explored the ship, being accosted by cameras and handshakes everywhere we went. There was even a group of Japanese women who were collecting our autographs. After the lecture we all took the stage to answer questions. It is amazing to me that simply because we live here, we are immediately regarded as climate change experts. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, nor should the fact that as a collective we did a damn good job of answering some very loaded questions. Begin rant:

It perplexes and saddens me that so many people are still skeptical about these extremely significant changes to our environment; changes that are no longer even debated in the scientific world, only in the political and capital worlds, which are sadly one and the same. One of the audience members asked if we've ever seen the data being massaged or altered to be sure it would support climate change. I just don't understand what these people think the motive would be for scientists to do such a thing. Every scientist I've ever met has been driven by the pure pursuit of knowledge, and making very little money doing it. They simply want to know, and they get very excited about advances in their subject matter, whether they be good news or bad. The motives that I see are not on the science side; rather, they stem from the conflict that climate change implications have with our gluttonous lifestyles. Nobody would question if our marine biologists found an Antarctic nudibrank with a chemical composition that might help cure cancer. Hey, there's money in a cure for cancer. But they do question anything that might suggest we need to seriously curb industrial emissions, because that hits us everywhere from our muscle cars and our motorboats and our convenient but unnecessary appliances right down to all our mass-produced trinkets. But more importantly, that hits the fat cats right at their pocket books, and they're going to lie, cheat and steal to spread skepticism. So I implore you to recognize the difference between fact and opinion, a line which has become far too blurry in the media (cough-FoxNews-cough). End rant.

Amusing as it was to be a celebrity for a few hours, and ride an elevator, it was nice to get back home to the real world, or at least a world that was more real to me than that ridiculous ship.

Since I've neglected to show you anything antarctic in several weeks, I'll throw in a few bits here. I saw these two gentoos resting on the ice just a short distance from where the glacier forms the beginnings of an arched cave over the headwater of Hero Inlet:

For a couple days in mid-December, a row of bergy bits and growlers (names for large chunks of ice broken from a berg or glacier) strolled in and completely blocked up Hero Inlet and our parking lot of Zodiacs:

The birders came home on the first day of growlers with just enough room to squeak between and get into station:

I'll also direct you to Stacie's youtube channel. There's a timelapse video there of the berg-entombed Zodiacs that PQ put together from the boating coordinator's web cam. If you watch closely, you'll see a crabeater seal searching for the best spot to nap on one of the bergy bits:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Palmyraatoll#p/a/u/1/nC83DwwcHRs

And there's a video of the band playing at open mic:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Palmyraatoll#p/u/3/QaQqpIPnXTc

And another good one from early in the season when a group of us, led by Papa Cheech, cooked made-to-order personal pizzas for everyone on station, Papa Cheech's Pizzaria:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Palmyraatoll#p/u/6/AFk348uk40s

Enjoy!

Merry Mayhem

2009-12-28T16:20:00.004-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 35F
Wind Speed: 5 knots
Conditions: Overcast, calm

It's been an extremely busy holiday season here, full of preparations and decorations, gift making and exchanging, Christmas cheer and Christmas beer. But all the fun stuff is in addition to a busy work schedule; a late December port call of the LMG and several cruise ship visits leading up to our long weekend, which is of course a regular two day weekend where we all come from.

Stacie had a tooth issue and was evacuated to Punta Arenas, leaving Diane as the sole cook for the past few weeks. Hot breakfast is temporarily cut and we've been helping Diane as much as we can. The Minerva and the Prince Albert II arrived back-to-back, making two days worthless. I took my first stab at being a tour guide for the season, shuffling four different groups of a dozen around station for thirty minutes each. One group was mostly Malaysian, and a Hong Kong girl translated my English into Cantonese. Dan made yet another amazing homebrew, a pale ale that we enjoyed in cask style, our cask being a three-gallon Nalgene. This may be the last pale ale until May for some of us, as we're nearly out of Sierra Nevada. PQ and I played some holiday music for an art festival in the bar and lounge. We changed the words to represent some of the station personnels' "favorite things." Stockings were hung in the galley, everyone encouraged to hang their own creative version. DoJo, the doc, hung an inflatable leg cast; Bob, in shipping and logistics, made a blocky stocking out of boxes; PQ, in IT, made an equally blocky stocking out of old keyboards; there were napkin stockings and duct tape stockings and bubble wrap stockings; I hung an issue thermal sock.

Our cozy galley with stockings and tree

The LMG brought a group of sea-weary young researchers to station for the night. They were an obnoxious invasion of our peaceful world, binging after a month of sobriety on board. Several of us felt it necessary to reclaim our bar, and later our hot tub, with purposeful and calculated infiltration into their sanctity of cliquishness. This resulted in moderate satisfaction and excessively hungover Santa:

Photo courtesy of Kyle Hoppe

Even the invigoration of plunging first thing in the morning didn't help. Oh yes, we've also found several excuses to plunge in the past few weeks. Our journalists left on this LMG cruise, and shortly before they asked what they really needed to see or do before going. Plunge! So we did. And then again two days later when the ship departed, wishing the journalists and crew goodbye and calm passage, and secretly hoping for that delicate balance of seas that would be comfortable for our friends but too much for the hungover researchers. In another few days it was the solstice. I should have anticipated the fire drill, it being the first opportunity of the month to have one. As usual after a drill, the hot tub water was pumped out through the fire hoses, serving the dual purpose of cleaning the sea water from the hose and refreshing the hot tub water on a regular basis. So the fire drill was not a problem in itself, but the implication was felt later when we plunged for the solstice and ran the fifty paces in thirty knot winds to a luke warm tub.

Photo(s) courtesy of George Ryan

We had a big family dinner, 29 of us at one long table, on Christmas Eve eve. Everyone looked great, having changed from the same pants they'd been wearing for the last month into dress attire. I even put on a tie, and couldn't remember the last time that happened, or how to tie it.

Then,
finally,
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,
OFF.

The 24th was amazing. The sun came out all day, for the first time in weeks. The temperature rose and the wind died. Some went out boating; some lazed on the deck; some hiked on the glacier. For me it was a day of games. I went out with a small group and played disc golf in the backyard, what we call the 1500 feet of jagged, rocky terrain between the station and the glacier. There are no baskets or tee pads, but carefully chosen boulders serve these purposes. After dinner, the kubbs (pronounced "koobs") came out. This game was new to me, but I'm happy to discover that it originates in Sweden, just a puddle jump away from the family farm on Öland. In the early 20th century, someone in Götland (probably a pig farmer) decided to throw sticks at blocks. This is a very sophisticated game, and we played it with all the sophistication of a gaggle of rodeo monkeys. If you care to read the rules, they will tell you that the goal of kubbs is to knock over the opponent's kubbs and then the king kubb by throwing sticks underhand. This is a ruse. The true winner of this game is such because he has berated and belittled the opponent to the point of tears, or at least disgrace. And underhand is for sissies. So grab some sticks and start throwing. If you miss the kubbs, that's ok, as long as you catch some shins.

Christmas Day brought back the usual weather, and I just relaxed through most of it. In the evening we had a gift exchange and I was once again amazed by the talent and creativity here; two great pieces of framed artwork, knit hats, hand crafted jewelry, a homemade knife, coasters made of scrap wood (with a homebrew accompaniment), hot pads woven intricately from old SAR rope, and a hand made dulcimer with an Antarctica-shaped sound hole. Amazing. This place is truly a statistical oddity. In a fit of whimsy I made a pop up book with some of my better photographs this season. I was surprised when it came out looking pretty cool.

So I hope you all have had an enjoyable Christmas season and that it wasn't as busy as mine. Best wishes for the new year. Viva 10!

Running with Rocks

2009-12-15T18:53:00.006-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 43F
Wind Speed: 27 knots
Conditions: Overcast, windy

I'm falling miserably behind with this blog. Things happen so often and time passes so quickly. I still want to chronicle some of the training I had before I even got here, but it seems hopelessly bygone. But, I like it here so much that I'm already talking like I'll be back next year, so maybe there will be time. For now, I definitely need to get up to speed with our fine featherless friends on Torgersen.

In between blindings by Brack's neon-orange Helly Hansens,

the Adelies have been diligently running with rocks:

They run back and forth from uninhabitable molars of jagged igneous to uninhabitable slurries of rancid guano, which they inhabit, carrying marble-sized pebbles and collecting them in a haphazard pile. The pebbles are the subject of much contention, and a penguin living in the middle of the colony must get a running start to charge into the pack, bouncing like a pinball through the squawking pecking hoards in the hopes of making it to his or her mate with the pebble still in tow.

"Is that a pebble?" "Did someone drop a pebble?" "Where? Where's the pebble?"

As the snow melts away, leaving only rock and penguin poo, these pebbles will form a nest for mommy and daddy to take turns laying on.

The Adelies have very specific requirements for successful survival. They need bare rock in their breeding areas to lay and incubate their eggs, but they also require considerable sea ice in the winter for feeding. The sea ice is important because the algae that is the base of the food chain grows beneath the ice. Some of the researchers here are also trying to determine if deep sub-marine channels are also a necessity. They think that chasms in the sea floor help to channel nutrient-rich biomass up from the deep and into areas where the algae has the proper balance of ice, nutrient and sunlight.

In recent years, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed considerably, causing there to be less and less ice, which is affecting the Adelie colonies negatively. They are in a serious decline in this area. Gentoo penguins, whose requirements match a slightly less cold climate, are starting to have more and more presence here as they too move south to escape the warming world. In fact, a brand new Gentoo colony was discovered on a nearby island just this year. Gentoos are distinguishable from the Adelies by an orange beak, a white band across their head, and a white trailing edge on their flippers:

On Torgersen Island, the Adelie population has dropped to a third of what it was thirty years ago. There are no nesting Gentoos there yet, but they are often seen hopping about on the edges of the island:

Typically, an Adelie lays two eggs.

Of course, the Skuas are always on the prowl, and many Adelies end up with only one egg.

And some are unfortunate enough to end up with no eggs. These poor parents may even become distraught and confused enough to attempt to commandeer the eggs of another breeding pair. This behavior puzzled me. I watched this group fight to lay on an exposed egg for fifteen minutes:

Mom and dad alternate between feeding themselves and keeping the eggs warm, so there is a constant flow of penguins to and from the island. They waddle when necessary, and when the terrain is amenable, they slide on thier bellies:

Coincidentally, if you have any burning questions about penguins, now's your chance to have them answered. Tomorrow (December 15th) at 1PM EST (10AM PST) our very own NPR journalist, Jason Orfanon, will be hosting a live chat session with the birders, Jen Blum and Kristen Gorman, on NPR's website. You can type in your questions and with any luck they'll make it into the chat. Of course, the rest of the Palmer crew will be competing from the galley with lots of local jokes and unpublishable nonsense to try and throw poor Jen and Kristen off. And with any luck, we'll get a couple inside jobs into the chat. There are likely to be some amazing pictures from Jason. It'll be here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/all_things_penguin_antarcticcl.html

[added Dec 17: You can tell which questions belong to our boating coordinator, Fonseca, because Kristen Gorman moved the keys around on his keyboard! And "White Chocolate Ginger" is the handle used by our cooks, Stacey and Diane. It may also be an alter ego for Stacey.]

I think I'll leave you now with just another beautiful evening in Adelie land:

Cesealia

2009-12-10T08:15:00.002-03:00

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

2009-12-03T22:10:00.001-03:00

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

2009-11-29T16:05:00.001-03:00

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

2009-11-21T19:47:00.000-03:00

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.

The Plunge

2009-11-13T08:26:00.005-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 33F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: partly cloudy

The Gould comes down from Chile about once a month, bringing supplies and personnel when she comes, and taking waste and personnel when she leaves. The personnel changes are generally small: a few people come, a few go. But on such a small station, even these subtle changes give the community a slightly different dynamic each time. At least, that is my impression from the first two departures.

For nearly two weeks after my arrival, the station was shared between the winter crew and much of the new summer crew. The following month consisted of summer crew and just a few left over from the winter. The winter-overs were cheery, personable, and fun. They were as ready to leave as I remember being after my winter at McMurdo, but that was the extent of their "toastiness". They were truly a joy to be around. A very special winter crew, I'm sure that they had a good season.

When the Gould arrived again in late October, we lost the five remaining winter crew and two short-timers, and gained five summer crew folks as well as seven scientists, the first to arrive. The station population rose from 25 to 30. The numbers are all small, but nearly a third of the population changed. And because the station is small and isolated, overlapping even a week with someone allows you to get to know them reasonably well. After all, we eat every meal with each other. So for now, while I'm still getting used to Palmer, even the small changes seem big. But, I feel that we've settled into the groove now. This current group will be the backbone of the season through January, though others will come and go. Before coming down, I heard from several people that this season's crew would be a good one, and they weren't wrong. We have a great group of fun and energetic people, and not a single outlier.

But, I'm getting off topic. What I really want to put into this post is the icy plunge, once again. As a goodbye, and a wish for good luck crossing the Drake, many of the people remaining on station will plunge in the wake of the Gould as departing friends leave for Chile. As the Gould pulls away from the pier, we take turns waving to the departees and then jumping from the big Yokohamas that the ship moors against. Stacie, one of our fantastic cooks, snapped this shot of Neal, my predecessor, giving his winter-over buds a grand send off:

The water is currently the same frigid temperature that it is at McMurdo, about 29F, but it will rise a few degrees as the summer waxes, from frigid to still frigid. Because there's no chance of ending up under the ice, we don't need to be roped up to jump here. But it is a good idea to time your jump to be sure there's not a line at the ladder to get out. Brrrrr.

My plunge in McMurdo left me with little recollection of being in the water as my body and brain seemed to freeze simultaneously. Here it is necessary to take a few strokes to get back to the pier and the ladder, which is just enough time to come to your senses and realize that you should come to your senses and never do this again. Here's my second jump off the pier:

The rungs of the ladder are covered in inches of ice, which doesn't matter to your nerves because they're already shot, but it does matter to the dexterity of your fingers and toes which have already begun a downward spiral towards dysfunction. After my first plunge I wasted precious moments getting a pair of flip flops on, only to run through the snow and have the space between flop and foot fill thick with snow anyway. In preparation for my second plunge, I placed a pair of insulated boots on the pier, having taken the laces out entirely in order to make them as easy as possible to put on. I couldn't get them on. "$%#* it!", I ran off barefoot through the snow.

The hot tub is about 50 paces away, at a run. The first sensation is a mixture of relief and pain. Mostly pain. But warmth comes quickly and vivification remains.

An Island Tour

2009-11-05T18:55:00.001-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 23F
Wind Speed: 9 knots
Conditions: Overcast

One of the major perks here at Palmer station is the ability to take a Zodiac out on recreational jaunts after work. The boats are used primarily by scientists who are going to nearby islands to study penguins or petrels or terns, or going to designated grid stations to sample sea nutrients or phytoplankton. But, on our off hours, anyone with current "Boating II" training can take a Zodiac out for an island tour. We are limited to a specific area, about two miles radius from the station, and many of the islands are off limits during the summer due to breeding colonies of various wildlife. This is our boating map:

My first opportunity to go out was actually during the work day. We had what we call a DV, a designated visitor, in town for a few days. DV's are usually upper management types, but sometimes are of even more importance; Edmund Hillary has visited McMurdo and Pole on several occasions, and during my year at McMurdo we had a handful of senators come down. Our DV here was a very personable Logistics Director for Raytheon Polar Services, and his Zodiac tour of the area fell into my work day because we need at least two Boating II personnel in order to take a Zodiac out.

It was a reasonable day: half sun, half cloud, low wind. Our first stop was Torgersen Island, which is popular for a number of reasons. One, it is the closest to station; two, part of it is accessible to walk around on; and three, it is teeming with Adelie penguins.

These entertaining critters have been slowly congregating here as the weather has improved. They are collected in numerous groups across the island. Some groups have ten or twenty, some must have hundreds. And some of them just hang around by themselves:

Most are part of a raucous chorus that is almost as entertainingly describable as the elephant seal's. They make a bizarre quacking bark that resembles a cross between a laughing Donald Duck and an ensemble of kazoos. They prance around with an unbalanced gait, not unlike Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. They peck and tussle with their neighbors to determine their eligibility and the boundaries of their space. This is mating season, after all.

Our guidelines allow us to approach the penguins as long as they do not show any signs of changed behavior due to our presence. In the case of these Adelies, that line is about ten feet. But they are curious animals and it is not uncommon for them to approach us and walk around in their curious manner at an arms length. It is absolutely thrilling to witness them in their environment while literally stand among them. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of penguin colony updates throughout this season's blog posts.

But the Island Tour must go on. We visited the hull of the Bahia Paraiso, an Argentine tourist and resupply ship that ran aground in 1989, spilling 170,000 gallons of oil just weeks before the Exxon Valdez tanker trumped it at 10.8 million gallons. At low tide, the hull protrudes several feet above the surface, but on this particular day it remained six feet under.

We continued to navigate through mostly open water and occasional bands of brash ice, which is like junk ice from various origins that gets blown about by the wind. It is navigable, if not too thick. We got as close as allowable to the massive walls of ice that define the shoreline of Anvers Island:

We saw elephant seals resting on sunny ledges beneath the escarpment. For a sense of scale, think of this black blob as a squat VW Beetle:

We surprised a blue-eyed shag, who ran alongside us until he was skimming the surface in flight:

The blue sky disappeared behind us, while ahead the grey clouds cast an eerie light on the mountains, without disturbing the blue of distant grounded icebergs...

and nearby floating growlers:

We reached the eastern limit of the boating area at Dead Seal Island, on which the remains of glacier span a gap between small rocky islands. There are a couple of kelp gulls relaxing in the lower right of this shot:

While admiring the ice bridge, we acquired a curious and slightly intimidating guest. The leopard seal is the king of these waters. They can be defined simply as vicious penguin eating machines. They also seem quite fond of prop wash and have been known to swim around under and behind Zodiacs, occasionally helping themselves to an exploratory gnaw on the rear cones of the inflatable boat. Our friend followed us for twenty minutes while we ran around the boat trying to take pictures of his long graceful turns beneath us. He swam with his distinctively shaped head in the prop wash and performed underwater acrobatics a foot away from the boat.

We left him behind though, when we cranked up the throttle to head back home. Shortly we were rounding Bonaparte Point to view Palmer and the LMG at its pier. A final push through a bit more brash and we were home:

Déjà Vu

2009-10-30T09:59:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 25.5F
Wind Speed: 7.4 knots
Conditions: SNOW!

As a kid, I remember looking out the classroom window in anticipation on those days when the snow was falling in superball-sized clumps of puffy white.

The Elephant Massif

2009-10-29T17:00:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 29F
Wind Speed: 7 knots
Conditions: Overcast

For the past three nights I have been elegantly lulled to sleep by the arousing mating calls of a bull elephant seal who has taken up residence beneath my window. The symphony can best be described as a combination of sounds: the richness of a good belch, the assurance of a hearty snore, the persistence of repeatedly pulling the starter on a lawnmower that refuses to tolerate combustion, insisting only on a dismal blubbering of cylinder compression and, when inclined, a sigh. Apparently, in the elephant seal world, my bedtime is an appropriate time to entice females with this cacophony:

He appeared on Monday, having defied gravity during the voyage from his buoyant home in the water to arrive at a well-compressed bed of snow just beyond the walkway outside my building. Since then he has spent his rare productive time carving a racetrack into the snow, on an endless search for a more perfectly comfortable place to rest. And bleeding. He must have had a recent struggle for dominance with another bull, because he's covered in gashes and slices through the thick insulation around his upper body, neck and head. The snow in his path is stained and the wounds remain open.

But what's striking about this creature is not its blathering sweet nothings, nor its festering wounds. What's striking is the sheer size of the thing. I wish I had a picture of a Sheathbill next to him to give you some perspective. Instead, numbers will have to do. A full grown bull elephant seal can reach 16 feet long; that's a Volkswagon Beetle plus three feet. They can weigh up to 6000 pounds! At three and a half Beetles, that's right out of Volkwagon's range; now we're into the Hummer zone, somewhere between an H1 and an H3... say, an H2. This thing lays on a patch of snow like an ingot would on a down pillow. It's amazing that he can even move around on shore, which he does, albeit slowly, by inch-worming about while his massive weight jiggles and squats all around him. This movement also seems to occur at night, as he spends most of his day in one spot, napping and occasionally, yawning:

In our daily work routines, we walk past close enough to see whiskers jingling in exhalation, to see pools of blood collecting in open gouges, to see the blubbery shockwaves of a massive beating heart. With eyes the size of cue balls, the elephant seal looks up at us briefly, with curious indifference, then continues to laze and recoop. It's difficult to say if he's invaded our space, or if we've invaded his:

Glacier Search and Rescue

2009-10-22T23:57:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 26F
Wind Speed: 3 knots
Conditions: calm, sunny, beautiful

Fell into a crevasse today. It was a few feet wide at the surface, narrowing below me to about a foot wide. Beyond that it was black. I was in up to about my hip, my butt against one side and my feet spanning the gap and planted against the other. It was completely unexpected, and just a little alarming. My primal reaction was to scootch back, flapping my arms uselessly into the snow above and behind me. I whimpered ineffectively. The slope was steep and I couldn't just go back up, especially without the use of my legs, which were straight and taut and keeping me from dropping in. I paused, calmed, and after my heart started beating again, I yelled up the rope line, "Found one!" Two hundred feet up the hill, an ATC belay, a length of webbing, and three ice anchors were holding a part of my weight. As I look at the picture I took immediately before my slip, the signs seem obvious. These large slabs of blue ice are clearly pulling away from the glacier as it plunges down into Arthur Harbor:

Flash back to Sunday, another beautiful calm sunny day. Excited to begin our training for GSAR, four of us took the opportunity to do an extended out-of-bounds hike and learn the tactics for glacier travel. We practiced our double figure eight and alpine butterfly knots, roped up and started walking.

We worked on self arresting with an ice axe and what to do should a member of our rope team unwittingly find a crack and fall in. We hiked up the glacier, following the dreaded black flags that signify danger just beyond. And then we crossed the line:

The snow on the glacier is still deep and hard, and the crevasses in this area are narrow, so the danger of punching through was minimal. However, these conditions will change through the summer, and even minimal danger is still craft worthy. We hiked an eight mile loop, with amazing views of Biscoe Bay and Mount William to the east:

This was the nicest day we've had yet. It was sunny and warm, with almost no wind. Majestic scenery completely surrounded us: the sheer, snow capped mountains, the bands of bright sea ice in the dark sea, the surreal blue of the glaciers under a clear sky.

Where the glacier meets the ocean, there is usually a cliff of magnificent blue ice, often several hundred feet tall. In some places, usually where there is land beneath in the form of a small peninsula, the glacier rolls gently down to sea level. We reached a small tongue that allowed us access to one of these peninsulas. The final descent was slightly steep, providing the terrain for more training. The boot-axe belay puts friction on the line by wrapping it tightly around a buried ice axe and a closely-placed ankle:

I got a couple good pictures of Paul, or PQ, our fearless GSAR leader, taking us places we wouldn't dare go otherwise. On the "tongue":

Starting the climb back up:

We completed the hike with hunger, but without incident. We had gotten a head start toward our official monthly GSAR training.

Today.

I'm looking down between my legs at two walls of ice fading from light to dark blue and down into black oblivion. My panic having passed, I still felt unaided, despite the lifeline. I was beyond the shallow grade and the rope disappeared beyond the steep snow above me. My belayers were out of sight. But this is all a part of learning to be a member of GSAR. I was prepared for this scenario. In fact, we had just spent an hour dangling from the deck of GWR (the garage, warehouse and recreation building), learning to remove our cumbersome packs and hang them beneath us, and then haul ourselves up a rope using prusik knots.

Flapping my arms and whimpering like a bewildered child didn't do any good, and removing my legs would do me even worse; I had to come up with something. I was comfortably seated and not in immediate danger of slipping further in, but it was a bit of a puzzle to get myself out of that position. I realized I had to use my legs while continuing to span the gap. I rolled to one side and replanted my feet, one at a time. I leaned up the hill and shifted more weight onto my hips. I plunged my ice axe into the snow...

First Impressions

2009-10-12T21:04:00.000-03:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 36 F
Wind Speed: 2 knots
Conditions: overcast, but warm and calm

Palmer is indeed a different monster than McMurdo. The most obvious difference is the location. So, first of all, where the heck are we? The Palmer peninsula is about 600 miles south of the southern tip of South America. It's the northernmost section of continental Antarctica, in the square on this map:

And if we blow that up, you can find Anvers Island in red on this map:

So, we're considerably further north than McMurdo, and outside the Antarctic Circle, which means the sun rises and sets every day here. Actually, we're only as far south as Fairbanks or Reykjavik are north. Palmer Station is nestled on a tiny peninsula on the south side of Anvers Island. I found this aerial photograph of station:

Behind the station to the northeast, a glacier marches up the peninsula to become part of the Marr Ice Piedmont, whose sheer ice wall wraps around Arthur Harbor to the north:

My bedroom window faces northwest and frames the transition from land to sea:

From west to southeast is open water mottled with small rocky islands blanketed in snow. To the east, in the distance, is a jagged wall of mountainous rock:

The addition of open water to the Antarctic setting is fantastic. The water is a deep, clear blue when the sun is out, which is rare, and grey or inky black under the usually overcast skies. But it brings us an abundance of wildlife and the opportunity to go boating. Here I am learning the tiller of a snowy Zodiac:

So, the second thing that is immediately different than McMurdo is the size. When the ship left station with most of the winter crew, the population became a whopping 25. As summer goes on, it will rise to its capacity: 45 people. So, naturally, we already know each other rather well, and it gives station a wonderful feeling of community that I'm sure will settle into family. Of course, the small population means there is no dedicated fire team, search and rescue team, or medical staff (don't worry, we do have a doctor, but her staff is a volunteer trauma team). We have to wear all those hats. So I've been trained for firefighting, OSAR (ocean search and rescue), and line-handling (for docking the ship), and I've joined the GSAR team (glacier search and rescue). These duties are in addition to my normal job, as are weekly GASH (galley and scullery help) and house-mouse (general cleaning), and monthly station watch shifts, mini-GASH and mini-house-mousing. My position as the Research Associate here is very similar to the same job at McMurdo, with some equipment being nearly identical, but the workload here has to be a little lighter to allow me time for all these other duties.

There is still time for play, though. I've been getting a lot of hiking in, and a little bit of snowboarding as well. The glacier isn't exactly ideal for carving turns, but it still beats walking back down. We have had some nice snow in the past couple weeks, and I should have had snowshoes for this walk out to Bonaparte Point:

The weather has been mostly bad, blowing a gale for several days in a row, with a dead calm pause for a day between storms. Almost all the ice that was here when I arrived has been blown out to sea, and back in again, and back out again. There have been moments of sun and a couple of amazing sunsets:

And, we've even had a few visitors. There was a pair of elephant seals that birthed a pup near station during the first week. And, the reason everyone wants to go to Palmer, a few of these have shown up already:

I'll leave it at that for now, and let you know that I've placed a link to the Palmer webcam, over there somewhere ---->

Passage

2009-10-06T01:44:00.000-04:00

Current Weather
Temperature: 23 F
Wind Speed: 30 knots
Conditions: blowing snow

At 230 feet, the Laurence M. Gould is the smaller of two research vessels in the US Antarctic Program.

She travels between Punta Arenas, Chile and the Palmer Peninsula about once a month. This trip would normally take four days, two of which would be in the Drake Passage, a section of the Southern Ocean that is known for having insufferable seas. There is a circumpolar current that flows around Antarctica more or less unobstructed, and the Drake Strait is the pinch point between Antarctica and South America, making it the "rapid" of the Southern Ocean, if you will. Our cruise was scheduled to be eleven days, with nine in the Drake. The Gould's crew personally guaranteed we'd have at least a couple bad days.

But, for the first day of the trip we had the pleasant experience of passing through the calm Strait of Magellan. We watched dolphins porpoising off the bow, and I was lucky enough to see a Magellanic penguin surface briefly. No one believed me, of course. When we rounded the east side of Tierra del Fuego on day two, the seas came up and the passage began. I stayed pretty well-medicated for the first few days, which had a lot of rolling and pitching by my land-lubber standards, but were not terribly rough by any seafarer's measure. I still stuffed a comforter under one side of my mattress to give it a good curve and protect me from rolling out of my bunk as the Drake rocked me cruelly to sleep. Because the cabins were full up, my berthing was in a milvan in the cargo hold with three other guys. It was cramped, to say the least:

Most of our time was spent in the lounge, furnished with a large TV and a decent selection of movies, which played back to back for days on end. To me, that got old really fast, and boredom set in pretty heavily after four or five days. At least I got a lot of backlogged blogging done. The sea settled down considerably, and for a couple days we were referring to it as "Drake Lake." This made it easy to think I had earned my sea legs and stop medicating. But, as promised, the seas came back up and set us lurching about again. It's quite interesting how you just get used to walking in curvy paths and keeping one hand free at all times. My favorite was waiting a few moments for the port side to drop so you can fall up the stairs instead of fighting twice as hard against a starboard lean. In the galley, we used friction mats to place our dining wares on.

I let a spoon go zipping off one day and the two people in its path just raised their arms to let it pass, stop against the wall momentarily, and then slide right back to me. On our worst day, I imagined it to be 6 out of 10, but the crew only considered it mildly annoying, even though things were falling down or rolling off all over the place.

The reason we were to spend so much time in the Drake is the same reason for our icy existence here in Antarctica: science. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is vigorously researching the currently crucial carbon cycle. The short version is this: All the hydrocarbons we burn are a source of carbon in the atmosphere. As you probably know, vegetation is a sink for carbon, pulling it out of the atmosphere and storing it in biomass. The ocean is also a sink for carbon in the atmosphere, due to the laws of partial gas pressures, or in layman's terms, a magical feat of chemistry. The ocean absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and eventually passes it along to the rocks in the ocean floor, usually in the form of calcium carbonate, or shells. Of course, this process is slow and complex, involving the entire biodiversity of the underwater food chain as well as the temperature, mineral makeup and currents of the ocean itself. This is what NOAA is interested in along the Drake Passage, so they have a large gizmo that they lower to the sea floor and take samples of the water along the way. We stopped at 20 sampling locations along the passage and spent several hours at each one raising and lowering the sampling apparatus:

Since the Palmer crew had hours on end to kill, everyone on board signed up for a shift to help the science group. This included draining the ice cold sample water into multiple beakers and bottles to be analyzed later. We also took turns on the bazooka:

In the barrel is a torpedo-shaped projectile that slides undramatically out of this "bazooka" and drops into the water, pulling a very fine wire behind it that conveys temperature and salinity data back to the ship. Veterans like to tell newbies to hold their ears before firing.

NOAA is finding that the dramatic increase in atmospheric carbon is causing the ocean currents to change, and in the Drake Strait specifically, it is allowing the ocean to act as a source of carbon, instead of a sink, due to unusual mixing of warm and cold water. That's bad. I'll try to get into a little more detail on the carbon cycle later in the season, as a couple of the science groups I support here are studying it.

The weather got colder as we chugged slowly south, and eventually we got into sea ice. First, grease ice, which is basically a fine layer of slush on the surface. It is matte and congealed together and looks very strange in the way it conforms to the shape of the waves without separating. It was like sailing the seas of slurpy:

The spongy white lumps are called shuga. Oh, and that's not all, not by a longshot; also in this slushy ice category are frazil and nilas ice. We've got as many names for ice as Inuits do for snow. Soon we started to see small, aptly named, pancake ice:

The pancakes are formed because these cells of young ice are constantly bumping into neighbors and smoothing out their edges. We stopped seeing dolphins and started to see fur seals instead, usually one at a time, napping on a pancake:

I watched a seal that woke up when we had nearly passed him, and I wouldn't believe that you could read expression in a fur seal's face, but he was definitely surprised. And like any ship, we were constantly surrounded by birds. I believe this is an Antarctic petrel:

And early one morning I found two snow petrels roosting on the bridge deck:

The pancakes got bigger and thicker until they stretched to the horizon in all directions. Then we finally saw land:

This is Smith Island, a part of the Palmer Archipelago, only a long day's sail from Anvers Island and Palmer Station. On the morning of the final day, we rose before the sun to be on deck and see the views while passing between the islands of the archipelago. The sea ice had become much bigger, and the captain had to slowly navigate by spotlight through young pack ice, carefully avoiding any blue ice in the form of bergs or bergy bits:

The blue ice here is of land origin, and was once part of a glacier. Because glaciers are thick and tall, the ice becomes compressed and dense, giving it a pure blue color and a much harder demeanor than sea ice, which is saline and grey in comparison. Blue ice comes in three sizes: icebergs, bergy bits and growlers. Icebergs, on the big end, have at least three meters of ice protruding above the surface of the water, growlers are anything under one meter, and bergy bits fill in the gap from one to three.

As the sun came up, we began to see land to either side. Sheer mountain walls dipping their glacial toes into the inky water:

Glaciers crumbling into straight rows of crooked teeth:

We passed into the narrow Neumayer Channel and watched Anvers Island, where we would spend the next seven months, pass to starboard. To port was an island with more jagged mountains:

I saw a Minke whale breach a half mile away. We passed multiple icebergs as our eyeballs froze to our camera viewfinders:

And finally, Palmer station came to view through a haze of snow and pack ice:

My new home:

Morocco

2009-09-28T19:01:00.001-04:00

March 22, 2009

Marrakesh. Pink. Every building is pink. Pink plastered adobe walls and bricks. Streets are lined with outdoor seating, every chair is filled and faces outward, tabletops a mass of tiny espresso mugs and miniature silver pitchers of hot sweet tea. The roads buzz again with unyielding drivers, this time on mopeds. Robes and headdresses mingle equally with modern clothing. Recorded calls to prayer sound from nearby mosques several times a day.

I liked it immediately, and realized I prefer to travel amid distinct culture.

Jemaa el Fna is the pulsing, beating heart of Marrakesh. An open area the size of five or six football fields, its entire girth is wholly alive. The air is thick with the sounds of drums and recorders and strange instruments, as well as cheering and calling and other humanly din. Costumed men play small cymbals, cloaked women offer henna tattoos, leashed monkeys pose for pictures, horses pull tourists in carriages, snake charmers coax cobras:

Circles of listeners form around storytellers, acrobats, medicine men, fortune tellers, vaudeville troupes, troubadours and buskers. Gambling gamers fish for 2 liter bottles with rubber donuts or roll soccer balls at plastic bowling pins. Stands sell amazingly sweet fresh squeezed orange juice, or are piled high with colorful bins of spices and dried fruits:

Restaurants and markets line the square selling rugs, dresses and sandals or sarongs alongside awning-shaded, espresso drinking onlookers. In the evening, open air barbecues fill the air with smoke and aromas. This place was an overwhelming barrage of input, a pleasurable assault on the sensory.

Beyond the plaza are the souks, nestled into a labyrinth of narrow walking streets, where thick crowds of people ignore any sense of personal space while being pushed aside by moped riders and donkeys pulling carts. This covered Moroccan "mall" is vibrant. Goods of all kinds are sold randomly, each shop specializing, but there are sections of concentration; an outdoor rug area:

A blacksmiths area of shining vases, lamps and sinks; crafted wood items; rows of Moroccan slipper shops:

And brilliantly dyed sarongs and shawls of silk, wool and cotton. A touter showed me the raw powders used for dying. Can you guess which one is indigo?

The green powder, which had an iridescent yellow sheen, turns a deep purple when mixed with water. The red and grey one turns blue. He also showed me how to tie a turban:

From Marrakesh I took a bus over the beautiful High Atlas mountain range. I was glued to the window, wishing I had the freedom of a bicycle to stop at will and camp or take pictures. The valleys were green and the ridges a dry, rocky red-orange. Earthen-walled villages stuck to the rocks in perfect pink camouflage. East of the pass, the vegetation fell away and a vast expanse of yellow rock and dirt was all that remained. I reached Boumalne du Dades and the Dades gorge on the border of mountains and desert. A long road winds up the river gorge, and I was on a mission to do it my way, instead of a taxi or tour bus, but no one in town rented scooters. I nearly managed an informal moped rental, but it wouldn't start. I'm glad though, because I found a bicycle. Glad until I reached this, that is...

The ride back down was ripping fun. Along it were amazing rock formations with old kasbahs nestled in so neatly you could easily overlook them:

These kasbahs are old fortress trading posts left over from the desert caravan days. Most of them are ruins now.

While in Boumalne, I met a fascinating Berber man who helped me to order dinner and then joined me. Descended of the desert nomads, he now runs a cooperative for them that helps them to sell goods at the market and acts as an organized intermediary with the more modern world. He also works with associations around the world to help rehabilitate young people with drug and alcohol problems. They spend two months in the desert, working with the nomadic people and hopefully finding something inside themselves that forces a change. He took me to the co-op and we had an agreeable and enlightening conversation over sweet tea. He showed me Berber nomad rugs and went into great detail about how the colors and designs had meaning and represented emotions, desires and personal histories. Many Moroccans are pushy sellers and the touters there are importunate, so I thought for sure that he was going to start selling, but was surprised that I had to ask if the items were for sale. I mentioned this surprise to him and he said that everyone will have their own opinion and people will do what they want to, and we're better off accepting these things and earning friends rather than fighting them and making enemies. We parted as friends, and if I make it back there, I'll try to find him, and probably buy a rug. Oh, the irony.

I met another Berber man while returning my bicycle who spoke Berber, Arabic and French, all common here, but also Dutch and Spanish, with bits of German and English. It made me feel like a putz.

I continued to Tinerhir and the Todra gorge, where I met a Canuck and a Norwegian traveling together, Lior and Lisa. The taxis were on strike that day, so we paid a man to take us up the gorge illegally. We stood in the back of his pick up truck with the wind in our hair, laughing at tour buses and reveling in our windowless panorama. The Todra palmeraie curved away back towards Tinerhir, rich with fields of crops, thick with palms, and in sharp discord with the desert around it:
These lush strips of green in the middle of the desert are created by a river and an extensive irrigation system. We entered the palmeraie next to a ruined kasbah:

From here we had a great walk through the fields and palms, waving hello to the local farmers and playing children as we passed. No tourists here!

The food in Morocco is fantastic. A tagine is the usual dish. It is a pile of potatoes, veggies and meat cooked all day in a clay pot (called a tagine) with a bit of stew:

Everything is served with flat bread, which serves as silverware and is very difficult to learn to use. It sounds simple, but the curried spices make it amazing. And don't forget to have some couscous on couscous day, Friday. This is typically a special family meal day, as it is time consuming to make properly. The tiny pasta is repeatedly steamed over a spicy base, which it absorbs, and then placed as a bed for more veggies and meat. Scrumptious. I also had some great omelets with heavy curry spices and caramelized onions. Mmmm.

Lior and Lisa had already booked a trip to Erg Chebbi, and I tagged along for the ease of prearranged travel. Erg Chebbi is a long strip of sand dunes near the border of Algeria. It represents the outskirts of the Sahara desert. So, we arrived at the Sahara desert and what was it doing in the Sahara desert? Pissing down rain. That's right, read it again: rain. We waited at our auberge accommodation, swapping touter stories with a couple there from Holland. Lior won with this beauty:

Five taxi drivers waiting by the curb, the first says, "Taxi?"
"No, I'm just going over..."
The second, "Taxi?"
"No, my hotel is right..."
The third, "Taxi?"
"No taxi! Didn't you just hear me..."
"Taxi?"
"...telling the last driver that..."
"Taxi?"
"NO TAXI!!"

All the touters have the same routine here, and we started performing their part for them, in hopes it would put them off; it didn't. The routine goes like this:

"Bonjour, ça va"
"ça va"
bob-loblaw-law-blog-something-in-French
"I don't speak French"
"Where are you from?"
"USA" or "Canada"
"Oh! New York?" or "Oh! Quebec?"
"No" and "No"
"Premier?" (This actually means, First time in Morocco?)
"Yes"
From here it depends on the touter, "You have hotel?" or "You go to desert?" or "You look in my shop?" It's often a string of all three and more until you start ignoring them.

So, uh, oh yes, Erg Chebbi is about 6km wide by 22km long, and its dunes reach about 500ft tall. It was still raining the next day, but we hiked out into the dunes anyway, chasing camels for pictures:

The locals were having a blast riding bicycles and quads on the uncommonly packed sand. It was a deep orange when wet, and eventually began to lighten as it dried out, giving the dunes an abnormally mottled look:

By evening, the squalls had subsided enough to go for a camel ride. Our guide tied our three camels together and walked us out into the rolling dunes for an hour or two. The ride was loping, clunky and uncomfortable, but we still had fun naming and poking fun at our poor laboring beasts. We bedded down in the sand under a small hut. From the top of a nearby dune, we couldn't even make out the edges of the sands anymore. Here's Lior climbing behind me:

In the morning we loaded up and rode back. I took this in the long light of dawn:

Another very friendly Moroccan helped me through the grand taxi system on my way back west, and even passed me along to the care of a friend who was continuing along my route, and who invited me to dinner. Very hospitable, we had fried chicken and french fries; funny.

On my way back over the Middle Atlas mountains, I tried to stop and do some hiking, but it was snowing and sleeting up there. I saw a wood fire burning under a truck to keep the engine warm. I continued on with two Italians I met in the taxi. They also spoke some French, and it was nice to have interpreters for a couple days in Meknes, though they often got amusingly confused having to switch between three languages. Again, I felt dumb.

I reached the beach at Oualidia (wah-LID-ee-ah) and had many peaceful, reflective hours to count the days till I got back home. I also spent a few hours watching fishermen on the rocks amongst giant breakers:

And into another sunset:

Further down the coast was Essaouira (ESS-oh-WEER-ah), which was a little bigger than I expected, but very interesting and beautiful. It is a port town with lots of fishing boats and hungry seagulls. Right behind the marina rise the castle-like walls of the medina, which I believe means "new city," but these days refers to the walled-in central walking area that is the oldest part of town. I guess it was once the new city. Most of the larger cities have medinas, and none of them are navigable; the tiny streets are placed often and at random, all at odd angles. Anyway, in the marina, this boat amused me, as it has been dry-docked long enough that it's now part of a fence:

The seafront medina walls are adorned with cannons:

Looking at the medina from the ramparts:

Shops were built right into the inside walls of the medina:

I arrived back in Marrakesh with 33 durhams left, about three dollars, and found out that my cards wouldn't work in Morocco's ATMs. I was scheduled to fly home the next day. A cab to the airport was going to cost more than I had. The banks were closed for the next two days. I was starting to really worry. I went to hotels that took credit, hoping they'd give me cash. No luck. I finally found a restaurant that took credit. No cash back, but at least I could eat. Eventually, someone told me that the ATMs in Morocco only take cards with a chip, which none of mine had. I was down to 20 durhams now. I was beginning to feel a panic coming on for the first time during my whole trip. Why now? I was done, so near the finish line. I could hitch to the airport, but I didn't know which way to go. Had my luck really run out this close to the end? It wasn't possible. Now I just wanted to go home. I cursed the useless half million dong I failed to exchange in Vietnam. I saw a bus go by. The bus! Could there be a local bus to the airport? There was. The fare...

20 durhams

Spain

2009-09-28T18:48:00.000-04:00

March 16, 2009

I flew into Madrid and found it to be more or less like all other European cities. Of course, show some city folk a mountain and a paddock and both will be equally "the country". I'm just not a city person. I found some gardens that were nice, and in them was a cool glass building with art in it. I'm generally not much for art either, but this was shiny:

I spent a very short time in Madrid before leaving for Granada, in the Sierra Nevada mountains. My plan was to hike and mountain bike there, and I did both, sort of. I rented a bike and thought I got directions to a trail head, but all I found was a sign saying the Sierra Nevada was another 25km away. Maybe he thought I had a car? It ended up being a pretty miserable ride through the outskirts of town. This ruin was the only redeemable part of the whole day:

Then, I couldn't return the bike until the shop's siesta was over at 6 or 7, so I hiked up to the Alhambra, having no idea what it was, aside from a cool looking castle on a hill:

There was an interesting outdoor photography exhibit and I even walked around the back side of the structure:

But, I foolishly didn't enter the Alhambra, which I now know is an amazing display of gardens and historical architecture that is world-renowned. Oops, another "next time..."

I did get in a nice hike in the Sierra Nevada, so that's something.

Italy

2009-09-28T17:13:00.001-04:00

March 6, 2009

Brett and Andrea joined me for ten days in Italy. I was ecstatic to have family to share some time with; it had been well over a year. We flew into Venice, a charming city, and a veritable labyrinth of narrow walking streets and canals.

We took the obligatory gondola ride with a charismatic Italian guide:

Venice was full of shops and restaurants and squares and tourists, even in the off season. Flower boxes adorned windows. Local laundry hung from clotheslines overhead. Little bridges spanned canals:

Old stucco peeled from older brick walls:

Shops were filled with paninis, pastries, decorative masks and trinkets. We spent a few days walking around the town and drinking wine from the tap at local bars. That's right, wine from the tap, nothing but style for us. Eventually we boarded a train to Milan, which was bigger, busier, and crowdeder. There were large and seriously ornate buildings:

as well as not-so-seriously adorned statues:

We tried to eat cheaply, as Italy is expensive, and found ourselves at one point buying bottles of wine from a pizza parlour in an alley, and drinking it out of plastic cups. We laughed at our cleverness and lack of style as swanky Italians passed in tall boots, leather jackets, and silk scarves.

Brett and Andrea got a true taste of the way I travel when we showed up at the station in Milan and decided where to go based on the train schedule. We would have liked to see the lake district to the north, but that meant several hours waiting, so we went straight to Cinque Terre instead.

We chose to stay in Vernazza, which turned out to be my favorite of the five small coastal towns that make up the Cinque Terre. Each town has its own feel, but all contain rows of pastel box buildings stacked on top of one another and clinging helplessly to the rocky walls. A single main street runs through each town:

The main road usually winds its way down to a rocky boat launch:

and sometimes to a very small beach:

Vernazza has a small square with a couple restaurants, groceries and shops. Very simple and quaint, relaxing and lovely:

We spent several days in the area, exploring each town, shopping and hiking. I noticed that most of the tourists were Americans, quite the opposite from what I'd seen in other places around the world. We met a couple in Vernazza to drink wine and limoncello with, and be the last to leave the restaurant with, and later, the bar. Good times. Here's my favorite view, of Riomaggiore, I think:

And soon we were on a train to Florence, with a very brief stopover in Pisa, and the obligatory photo of the leaning tower:

In Florence we visited an art museum and had a fantastic four course meal that we afforded by getting a sampler of each course and sharing it. Otherwise, I have to admit that the food in Italy was fairly disappointing. Apparently, southern Italy is where true Italian food can be found. Next time...

We rented bicycles, hoping to have a nice ride through the Tuscany country vinyards, only to learn that there is no country here, only busy roads and narrow roads. We did manage to get somewhat off the beaten path for a while and then to Pizza Le Michelangelo for a great view of the city:

Afterward, we paid admission to what we thought was a castle, but which turned out to be an Italian interior design exposition, with no refunds. I'm not sure the woman understood the phrase "crock of shit", so we unscrupulously ate as many free Tuscan food samples as we could get our hands on. A tasty, but ultimately expensive dinner.

Another train back to Venice and our 10 days of Italy were sadly at an end...

London

2009-09-27T22:34:00.000-04:00

March 4, 2009

Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament...

Vietnam

2009-09-26T20:47:00.000-04:00

I made it to Palmer! More on that later, but first...

February 19, 2009

At a small, seldom-used border town, I met a young Canuck who had been stuck for two days waiting for his Vietnam visa to activate. He was anxious to have English conversation. From the dry highlands of Laos, we descended steeply into the rich wetness of Vietnam. Steep, misty, jungle-blanketed mountains quickly dropped to miles of flat and vibrant rice paddies. We shared the bus ride with stacks of boxed rice makers, pineapples, and a man with a chicken and were offered a strange treat by a local woman who laughed as we attempted to unveil an extremely sticky-gooey black substance from a dried banana-leaf wrapping. Strangest food I've ever had; no idea what it was.

In disgustingly concrete, communist-influenced, and non-tourist-friendly Vinh, the Canuck and I were both happy to have a companion. We found no English speakers or English menus. At dinner, with a hand to mouth gesture we got rice, cabbage soup, fried tofu, fish sauce, an omelet and a beer for a whopping 15,000 dong...
one dollar.

The next day, he went south and I went north to Ninh Binh, known as "Halong Bay on the rice paddies." A colorful little town full of bicycles and youngsters in school uniforms wanting to practice their English; I was barraged with hellos. Jutting up from the slow rivers and marshy green fields around Ninh Binh are a multitude of vertical karsts:

The thing to do here is take a pole boat ride on a river through the rice fields and among the randomly placed karsts. I picked up what I thought was a hitch-hiker and accidentally found a small family racket doing a sub-par tour. Grandma took her post at the stern with a pole while I sat in the front of the boat with Mom, who tried to sell me trinkets, artwork, and "Madame," referring to her daughter, who rowed along with her feet:

We pushed through thick sections of pond scum and lily pads and visited a small temple built into the side of a karst. Here's Mom:

On the way home, mom and daughter switched and I found myself being suitored unwillingly. They got a good laugh when I pantomimed to them that my girlfriend back home in Denmark (they thought I was Danish for some reason) would be mad. But they saw through the rouse and continued to build the romantic atmosphere. Mom even threw a jacket around the two of us at the first drop of rain, while giggling deviously. Awkward.

I zipped out of there on my rented scooter, giving the daughter a ride back up the road to claim her next victim. She wanted another tip after pointing the way to a nearby pagoda, and I wished I knew how to say "Don't pet a burning dog" in Vietnamese.

The pagoda sat atop a steep stair and provided great views of the area, and of the river boat ride that I had originally intended to take:

So, I went back and tried again, this time a little further down the river. The second boat ride was more scenic than the first boat ride:

...but still not the main attraction I saw from the pagoda. I gave up and went north to Hanoi, where the Vietnamese traffic got even crazier than I'd seen in Bali. Cars, buses, bicycles, scooters and rickshaws failed to yield to traffic signals so that every intersection was a chaotic mess of vehicles traveling in every direction and sharing the road with pedestrians, because the sidewalks were a parking lot of scooters, vendors, barbers and families eating. Horns blazed constantly, it was madness. Check out this brave woman:

From Hanoi, I booked an overnight ride on a junk in Halong Bay:

The bay is clogged with junks full of tourists despite the cold, cloudy weather, and the scenery is mystic and mysterious in the mist of near rain. Karsts rise constantly on all sides, fading into the distance in watercolor layers:

The junk has berthing below, a large family style dining area on the main deck, and rooftop lounging and viewing, where we spent most of our time as we motored slowly past floating fishing villages:

We visited an enormous limestone cave, lit by colorful lights and full of molten-looking rock formations:

After the cruise, I flew to Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, and caught a bus to the coast town of Mui Ne. Welcome to Hood River, Vietnam:

For the first time during my trip, I spent nearly a full week in one location. I needed to relax a bit, vacation is hard work. Plus, I got beaten down again by food poisoning. This time with less violence, but with more staying power. The beach was windy, but beautiful. And nearby was the actual village of Mui Ne, where millions of sardine-sized fish lay drying in the sun, awaiting their turn to become fish sauce, the ketchup of Vietnam. The bay is completely full of fishing vessels, and many locals fish out of bowl-shaped boats. How they paddle in a straight line, I have no idea:

I stayed to watch an amazing sunset:

And had another a few days later in an area of large sand dunes near town:

After my week in Mui Ne, I rode back to Ho Chi Minh City to fly back to Bangkok, to fly to London...