Date: 01 Jul 1999
Subject: A special day
Pictures: Fur seal, Emperor penguins, Marriage Ceremony

The day started very early, even though the night before had been a late one, with a CTD at midnight, so I did not get to sleep until around 1am. At 6:45am, I had to get up so I could get dressed and ready for the 7:15 call to all "larvae, embryos and neophytes" to come to the diningroom, in the presence of King Neptune and his queen, there to have breakfast and go through the initiation ceremony which traditionally follows the first passage of the Antarctic circle.

The dress code had been given the previous day in great detail, and included such things as wearing all your clothes backwards and inside-out, with your underwear on the outside, decorating your outfit as well you could (mostly with color tape from the labs and other assorted lab implements), and wearing your special rubber boots. We were also to entertain the king and queen by putting on a skit. So one of the group, who is a writer, had written a very funny Shakespeare/Agatha Christie rhyming epic, with chorus, in which we all eventually got killed in various ways relating to our occupations on the ship. For example, I left on the ice with my penguin, which pecked me to death!!!

At 7:30, we were all in the diningroom, where a breakfast of green eggs and fish, green cereals with jalapeno peppers and some other ugly looking goop was served to us by the "guards" of the king, some of the younger members of the cruise who had already gone through the ceremony on previous trips. Luckily, part of my costume included a prop consisting of a cardboard box with many little partitions (for chlorophyll vials) and I was able to sneak all of the food in there. Boy, was I glad I had grabbed a quick cup of coffee first thing in the morning!

After breakfast, the "sheriff" called us one by one to kneel in front of Neptune, and read the accusations levelled against us, again a very clever list based on our jobs: one of the accusations against me said that I had aided a penguin to escape the ship... We were all in turn declared guilty, and marched into the hold of the ship, where two by two, we were blindfolded and taken on a "trust walk" up and down the vessel, ending in a room where the "royal barbers" were waiting for us with a supply of eggs, honey, flour and other kitchen items with which they proceeded to shampoo our hair (and beard when appropriate). The funny thing is that, in my case, it turned out to be a great treatment for my hair which had been desperately dry and flaky!

The next step was to go back in front of Neptune, impersonated by Tom, the first Mate, who looked wonderful with his costume, trident, crown, and long flowing hair and beard made of two mops! The queen was Tracy, apparently an old hand at the role, since she has been in the Antarctic many times. We had to kneel on the floor and, with no hands, reach inside a cooler and grab with our teeth a squid out of icy water... yuk!

The final test was on the deck: called the "whale" it was a long tube of yellow plastic with some garbage at the bottom, that you had to crawl through while some deck hands shook it! When you got out, you were hosed down (a necessary operation!) and sent to a well earned shower... and some real food!

While this was taking place on board, our bird people had gone in the zodiac to Dion Island, which we were close to. Dion is a small island, but very special, since it holds the northernmost colony of Emperor penguins to exist in the Antarctic. The penguins had not been counted since 1949, at which time there were about 150 breeding pairs. The last reported sighting of these beautiful animals dated back to 1972, when they had been seen but not counted. Nowadays, in order to protect them, Dion is a "SPA" or specially protected area, and you need a special permit to be allowed to land there.

Ray and I were lucky to be among the few people whose names were on the list, so at about 12:30pm, when part of the first group returned, we jumped into the zodiac and went there. It was the first time for me in a zodiac, and I was a bit nervous, not about the ride once in it, but about getting from the ship into it: I had seen some people have kind of a rough landing when coming down the side of the ship on the rope ladder, while the waves move the zodiac away from the hull... but it was fine, and the ride over to the island (about a mile and a half) was beautiful, since we went really close to icebergs, and we had the mountainous coast in the background. Going through fairly dense ice in a rubber raft is also interesting: sometimes you have to push away the ice floes with a metal bar to help the boat go through without stalling, and the sound is like of rocks under a car. There were some interesting pieces of ice in the water, absolutely crystal clear, looking like huge chunks of glass, some others with inclusions of black volcanic rock. The island itself was a black and white landscape of black rocks covered with snow, in perfect harmony with the penguins.

We made it to the island, where we met Peter and Eric, the bird people, who had stayed there since the morning, observing and counting the animals. They helped us disembark, not always easy when the raft moves due to the waves and the last thing you want to do is step into icy water! In the water around the island, we could see a great number of Adelies swimming and feeding: these little penguins are incredible swimmers: they zoom around like little bullets, with great speed and agility, curving as gracefully as dolphins just above the water. But the funniest thing to watch is when they decide to get out: they manage to get from the water to the ice or snow where they land on their feet...well, most of the time!... sometimes they slip and fall back and try again. You feel like you're watching a Charlie Chaplin movie! If it were not for the cold, I could just sit by the water's edge and observe them for hours. There were many more on the snow, going about their business, walking, toboganning (that's another really funny sight), squawking, coming to check us out...They are not afraid at all.

There were also several fur seals, which can look from a distance like an innocent log on the snow (though how a log would have arrived there, I don't know!) but are not very friendly: it's better to stay at a respectful distance from them. They let you know their presence by "barking" a warning signal if they feel you are too close, and it does not sound welcoming!

But the creatures we had mostly hoped to see were the Emperors... Bill and Eric's weekly report states the following: "The Dion Is SPA (Specially Protected Area) was visited on 1 & 2 July. A landing was made on 1 July on Emperorl, and the breeding Emperor Penguins counted. All seabirds and mammals present were surveyed. The survey was completed on 2 July from zodiac (no landing). Based on our observations, it is clear that a greater number of seabirds, and in greater diversity, are using Emperior I than previously recorded." Males incubate eggs by balancing the egg on their feet, while a fold of abdominal skin drapes around the egg to keep it warm. Needless to say, it is not easy or safe for them to move while doing this, so they huddle in one place and stay there, until the females, who have all left to go feed far away in the water, come back to take over, weeks later. In the meantime, the males don't feed, and they lose up to 40% of their body weight. That is also why it is so important not to disturb them, and vital to their survival to have these specially protected areas. We stayed at a minimal distance of about a hundred feet, thankful for our cameras and zooms so we could photograph them. They are graceful and beautiful, with their long shape and soft orange color on their necks. However, the little Adelies remain my favorites, because of their impishness and funny personalities.

We stayed on the island for a couple of hours, after which the zodiac came back to get us, and we made our way back to the ship, lit in the distance since daylight was fast fading. The ice moves amazingly fast from one area to another, and we had to change out route back to avoid some large patches which had formed where we had come through open water a couple of hours earlier.

It was a perfect day, going from the ridiculous (am I glad nobody handled the digital camera during the morning exercises!) to the sublime, in the presence of so much beauty in both landscape and wild life. I feel really priviledged that I was able to participate in this expedition on Dion.

Apart from the captain, the mates and a small group of people (mostly the PI's with whom Ray works closely), nobody else knew why they had been invited to a special ceremony [the marriage of Ray and Domi!] in the dining room at 4pm, and most thought it was only for the distribution of certificates after the morning ritual. But they understood as soon as they saw the decoration of hearts and flowers (silk!) and the food laid out on the table, including a two-tier wedding cake complete with bride and groom (made from a computer image!)...we could not believe our eyes, and all the hard work that Marta, our wonderful cook, and her crew had done for us. There were also penguins made out of lab bolltles covered in plastic, and I was given a lei made out of...lab gloves, as well as a bouquet of paper flowers, all made by one of the PI's group.

Today, we are back at work! The bird people wanted to do some more Adelie stomach pumping, but could not do it on Dion, because of the special status of the island, so we tried to go to another island, but it took longer than planned, and the fog and ice were too thick for them to go in a zodiac. We then proceeded to another area where we're going to spend the night, hoping that the weather tomorrow will allow them to go ashore and look for Adelies, while other experiments are made in the water. The fog lifted after night fell, we are really close to the island, and it was spectacular. As we were moving today, we saw more fur seals than ever before, resting on ice floes in the middle of the water. They did not seem to be worried by a big ship passing fairly close to them, so we were able to have a good look at them. We also came close to several enormous icebergs. Their shapes always amaze me, and make me wish I could follow one from its birth, as it separates from the glacier on the continent, through its many transformations, mostly due to the wind and waves, to its final and slow disappearence. The color which both the ice and the water around them acquire is a renewed source of wonder each time I observe it: nothing else I know has that subtle yet so intense blue.

Two more weeks before we get back to Punta Arenas: on one hand, it seems like we have been here on the ship for a very long time, and on the other, time has gone so fast! But I know for sure that it has given me a taste of something I had no concept of, both the scientific work and the Antartic. I really want to come back here some time in the summer, to see and explore more of this amazing part of the world, when days are 20 hours long instead of two!

PS: because of yesterday's full schedule, I haven't been able to crop the pictures of Dion island yet, so I will send this message without them and add them later. Hope you can all share my admiration of the place and the Emperors!