Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 22:33:28 -0400

Subject: "We captured a pancake!!!"
Pictures: Seascape/Icescape, Ice Sample

"WE captured a pancake!!!".... That does not sound like a very scientific statement, does it? You might even wonder if there is such a thing as Antarctic madness.... Well, in fact, all it betrayed was the excitement of many people on the ship this morning. But let me backtrack a bit: last night around 4am, we crossed the Antarctic circle: this in itself is pretty exciting. But on top of that, when we woke up this morning (around 6:30am) and looked out the porthole, we were no longer in "liquid" ocean water but surrounded by white everywhere, visible in the powerful beams that the ship turns on as soon as it gets dark. It was the eeriest lanscape (seacape) I have ever seen, stranger than the Yemenite desert in a sand storm (which was pretty eery already!).

Imagine the ocean covered as far as you can see with these "pancakes" of ice, each of them round, with slightly raised edges, shiny with salt crystals in the light, sliding and colliding against each other. It just did not seem right that the ship should be going through them, because of the feeling of solidity they had. But we have been going through them off and on for most of the day, and in fact they have been steadily getting thicker. As the thickness increases, the noise against the hull becomes louder, so even without looking out one can have a sense of the kind of surface we are encountering.

Crossing the Antarctic circle means that the sun now barely makes it over the horizon: today was like going from sunrise to sunset with nothing in between, but lots of pretty, pastel colors, and really interesting reflections in the moving ice and water.

In order to "capture" the said pancakes, there is a metal scooper, which is activated from the deck, like a small crane: therefore the victory cry after the first try! Everyone was intrigued and most of us grabbed our cameras and rushed on the deck to witness the event: the joke going around was: "how many scientists does it take to catch a pancake?" "one, and twenty to photograph him!" The unfortunate pancake was then quickly brought into one of the freezer chambers, where it was weighed, measured, analysed, examined under the microscope, etc...

We're continuing to do the same water samples and analyses as the past few days, and sometimes the "stations" where we do them are close enough that by the time you've finished processing one batch, it's time to go get the next one. But, this afternoon, there was some respite, so I sat down at the computer with Sharon, and she taught me how to transfer the pictures from the digital camera unto the CD-rom, then crop and reduce them to send with the web page: I found out that once I got over the "I can't do this" feeling, I really enjoyed the whole precess, and worked on about fifty pictures taken so far.

We were in the middle of this when we had a fire alarm: we had been warned by Tom, the first mate, when he gave his safety speech the first day of the crossing, that we would have regular drills, but still, when all the bells start to ring, your heart skips a beat! Everyone abandoned what they were doing, rushed to their cabin to grab their gumby suits, extra warm clothes put aside for that emergency, and life jackets: in five minutes, all but one were in the room right next to the life boat, roll had been taken, and steps taken to locate the now identified missing person. She had been working on the heli deck, and could not hear the alarm: therefore a "buddy" system was put in place to ensure that people working there could be warned. Once we had all breathed a sigh of relief (despite Tom's warning that next week, there would be some additional challenge tossed into the drill!) we all watched a short video made last year by a New Zealand film crew for PBS about Antarctica: about five minutes of a longer program were filmed on our ship, so it was quite fun.

By tomorrow, we expect to be in "pack ice", ice which is solid enough for the boat to lower the gangplank and let people out. Beware, penguins!!! Here we come! I can't wait!

By the way, I found out why Hugo Island got its name: the French explorer Charcot named it, his first wife was the granddaughter of Victor Hugo... She divorced him for "desertion" when he continued his explorations after their marriage, and he re-married (stating in the contract that his second wife would not object to his travels!) and he then named Marguerite Bay after her... I just knew there were interesting stories behind those names!

By the time my day ended yesterday, around 11pm, I felt exhausted and realized that everything I had been doing and experiencing was so new and different, it required my total concentration all the time. It was similar to being in a foreign country where you do not understand the language but try to understand and communicate: no wonder, of the thirty some members of the group on the ship, I'm the only non-scientific mind! And it's not very likely to change: I'm interested in names more than numbers... I look at the sky and remember Saint Exupery... and I think (affectionately) of the CTD as of a 24 uddered cow which, pail in hand, I go and milk at regular intervals: hopeless!

Good night for today (time has flown, it is now 10:30pm). Enjoy the picture of an iceberg in Arthur Harbor!