Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 14:16:24 +0000 From: "Sirovic, Ana" Subject: Message 05 11 Feb 2002, 9:25 64 degrees 46.48 S lat 64 degrees 03.31 W long (Palmer Station, Anvers Island) Air surface temperature: 3.6 degrees C Sea Surface Temperature (SST): 0.2 degrees C Wind speed: 41 knots, 032 degrees Air pressure: 973.8 mBar Hello again! We have had fairly interesting day and a half and this is my first time that I actually have time to sit down and write it down, so I will tell you all about it. Saturday afternoon we recovered our first mooring. Its location was just on the shelf break off Livingston Island (62 16 S and 62 10 W). The conditions were good, the swell wasn't too high. Once we got the istrument on board we saw that is worked well and had recorded all kinds of great data during the past 11 months, which made me very happy because that means I might get a PhD yet! More on the recovery procedure later on. Today, I want to tell you all about our trip from when we recovered the mooring to this morning. The scenery through which we were sailing yesterday morning was amazing! We went through the Boyd Strait, down Gerlache and finally between Anvers Island and Wienckel Island through Neumayer Channel. Frequently on both sides of the ship we could see beautiful peaks covered in snow and interspersed with glaciers. Colors were intense white, clear blue with an occasional black rock showing through the snow. The weather wasn't the best, but sun peaked through the clouds every once in a while, soon to be replaced by blowing snow. We saw 4 ships in this area, which is extremely busy for Antarctica! The one that I was able to identify (due to my cyrillic reading skills) was Captain Dranitsyn, a Russian vessel that has been converted for tourism use. This has been the fate of many Russian whaling ships, which now serve a very busy Antarctic tourism business. During our passing through the Neumayer we caught up with the Nathaniel B. Palmer, our sister NSF ship, and we raced her towards Palmer Station (both captains like an opportunity to prove to the other that his ship is faster!), where we arrived around 5pm and we both stayed for the night. Palmer Station is fairly small, currently it has only 42 permanent residents (and we will be taking many of those up north on our way out of here). Around the station there are a couple of interesting things to do. One is going over to Bonaparte peninsula and that was my choice for the day. Crossing over to the peninsula is an adventure all in itself because you can't really just walk over. Instead you have to use a trolley: a 'seat' suspended on a wire with pulleys at the end. It it quite difficult to pull onself across (none of this is motorized!) and I decided to go over with Breck (one of the physical oceanographers) and Bec (a whale observer). It was serious workout for all 3 of us, pulling each other across! Once we made it to the peninsula and thought our troubles were over, we got dive bombed by 3 skuas. They were sitting on their nests on the rocks right by the trolley and they must have mistaken us for egg snatchers. We managed to walk our way around them without them pecking our eyes out. I feel that we somehow broke the Antarctic Treaty because we certainly caused distress to the poor birds, but we were quite distressed ourself and did our best to stay out of their way. All this time there was blowing snow and high winds, which made our trip even more interesting. We walked around the peninsula for a while and, to our great disappointment, found no penguins there even though traditionally, there are supposed to be many. The penguins were the main reason for our crossing so in order to prevent the whole walk from being a flop, Bec and I decided this was a perfect spot for us to dip our feet in the Southern Ocean. The temperature of the ocean was around 0.2 degrees C, so you could say it was a bit chilly, but it was definitely worth it! Crossing back was easier because there were 4 people on the other side trying to cross to our side, so we all pulled and helped each other across. Then came the obligatory party at the station's 'bar'. It's not really a bar in a traditional sense of the word but it serves its purpose as the main social gathering place of the station. It was really busy last night because scientists and crew from the NBP came to the bar too. It was good chatting to NBP passangers as well as the Palmer residents, at least if was a change of faces from the same ones we've been seeing on the ship for the last week or so. My choice for the picture today wasn't easy. But between the scenery, seals, and mooring recovery, I decided to go with plants! I was pretty excited to see various kinds of non-animal, bigger than microscopic life forms this far south and in a small area. I have figure-coded the various things on the picture for your easier recognition: the ellipse (which is not that different from the circle, but it's the one further right and on the rock) is lichen; the circle is moss (the green stuff); triangle is grass (!!); and square is fungus (I know, it's not all plants, but I was still excited to see it). We also saw a lot of algal growth on the rocks that were washed by the ocean. So this is my way of making a point that Antarctica is not as barren as one would usually imagine. Granted, what I showed on this picture probably would not be terribly exciting elsewhere, but down here it kind of is! So I will leave you on that note. We're still in Palmer, waiting for the weather to calm down so that they can offload the rest of the things we should leave at the Station and then we will be on our way to our next mooring and more exciting adventures. Ana