Dec 27, 2009

Killer whales!! There seems to be a single big pod of about 18
individuals that roam the vicinity around Ross Island. We haven’t seen
them for a week or so, but yesterday they were back and putting on a
good show. They were nearly a mile offshore, so binoculars were needed
to see what was going on. The females and calves seemed to be quite
frisky; much splashing and whitewater was seen, and occasionally a
tail would flop through the air. One of them even jumped all the way
out of the water! Others were seen laying on their sides, with big
round side flippers sticking into the air and white undersides
showing. The 2 males in the group were less playful, and seemed to be
just swimming around. It was quite a show, especially seeing the jump
in a setting other then SeaWorld.
What the fauna here lacks in diversity it makes up for in drama. With
no vegetation to hide behind, the daily lives and interactions of the
animals here is out in the open to watch. The relationship between the
Adelies and Skuas is particularly interesting. The Skua chicks have
begun hatching and parents are on constant patrol to find a penguin
egg or chick that isn’t being guarded closely enough. When one is
located, a gruesome spectacle takes place, which I will not detail
here.
It is no safer for the Adelies in the water. The resident Leopard seal
has been making regular appearances along the shore, and many bloodied
but live penguins are seen laying around the colony. The most
interesting thing about Leopard seals is that most of them feed on
krill; relatively few individuals have developed the specialized
behavior of penguin-hunting. It is only at the colony, with its heavy
confused traffic around floating ice blocks and beach, that the seals
are able to catch penguins. In open ocean the birds are far more fast
and agile.
Weddell Seals are seen lounging on the ice as if it is a warm sunny
beach. They specialize in living where the sea ice is thickest, I
suppose in order to rear their pups away from most predators. Their
front teeth project forward for chewing holes in the ice for
breathing.
We have seen one live and one deal crabeater seal on the beach here.
Despite their name, they too feed primarily on krill, and their teeth
are comprised of three squiggly projections which form a strainer when
the jaw is closed. These are the most amazing teeth I have ever seen.
Small groups of Minke Whales are regularly seen foraging along the
edge of the Ross Ice Shelf a little to the east of the colony.
In the non-animal world there is mainly lichen. The most common is an
orange variety which covers the rocky ground where snow drifts then
melts away. There are also patches of green, yellow, green, and black
lichens, and all of these add a special treat to those willing to get
down on hands and knees and have a close look. Like lichens
everywhere, the structure of these is fascinating to look at closely.
If you haven’t done so recently, you should go get personal with some
lichen, as I will never be able to describe its structure well enough
here.
Finally there is a slimy green growth that I believe is moss, which
grows in the smelly melted runoff from the colony.
Thus concludes a tour of the life we see here.
Have a good day.
Scott

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!
Well, we celebrated last night with a big Christmas Eve dinner, in the
French tradition. Rest assured that the American tradition of eating
more then you can handle then complaining about it for the next
several hours, all while snacking on left-overs, did not fall by the
wayside. Our pile of leftovers is bigger than our normal meals here,
and takes up half a bunk in the hut.
We started with savory pies, then moved on to pork tenderloin, mashed
potatoes, and two kinds of gravy. Desert was a raspberry and a
chocolate tart.
The day itself was fairly normal. I woke around 8 and had the first of
two main meals of the day, pancakes then some cereal (lunch is
generally a bit of jerky, granola bars, and some chocolate eaten on
the go). While eating I re-read some of the NSF grant for the
continuation of the project, then began getting ready to head out into
the field. It takes some time to gather all the things I need (food
and water, a thermos of coffee or tea, extra clothes, GPS, notebook,
nest markers, hammer, crampons, and a variety of other smallish but
important things), then get into all the clothes I wear down to the
colony (1 or 2 pair long underwear and bib wind pants on bottom, 2
light wool shirts, a light fleece, a soft shell, then a hard shell on
top[often this last layer doesn’t go on until I get down to the
colony], finally socks and boots, hat and sunglasses).
It was my day to do the AM sea watch, so I hiked up to the top of
Pat’s Peak (about 10 minutes) and sat for an hour scanning the ocean
for whales or other exciting action. I didn’t see any whales this day,
but we often see Minke’s and occasionally see Killers.
After the hour was up I headed down to the colony, and just as I was
getting there I heard over the radio that a Leopard Seal was eating a
penguin just off the beach. I rushed there, thinking the spectacle
would be over any moment, then stood for an hour or so as the seal
caught and ate two more penguins. Over two hours it caught 7 total and
ate 4, the other three got a way. It was a gruesome show, played out
literally 10 feet from the beach where we stood.
After the seal disappeared it was time to do some actual work. I went
to the weighbridge subcolony to download data from that device. While
this took place I checked the nests in that subcolony that belong to
tagged and banded individuals, and used a hand reader (imagine a
clothes iron) to try and find more nests with tagged birds. The tags
are 14 or 18 mm long and about 2 or 3 mm wide, and are injected under
the skin on the back of the penguins’ necks. To use the hand reader, I
crawl toward the nest (they don’t too stressed by things shorter than
them), then keep it’s snapping bill busy with one hand while running
the reader over its back with the other. If the bird is tagged a
9-digit number appears on a little screen, and I crawl away happy. One
of the birds I scanned was back to feeding its chicks less than a
minute after I finished, a sign I take to mean I didn’t cause too much
stress.
Once I was done at the weighbridge I spent a few hours searching a
section of the colony for banded birds. This area is not very close to
where the chicks are banded, and birds generally return to nest very
close to where they hatched, so I only had a few lines of data to show
for shivering in the cold wind.
Speaking of shivering, the weather is quite interesting here. My
clothing system has to be immediately adjustable, due to the fickle
meteorology. When I was doing the sea watch in the morning it was
sunny with a light breeze. My jacket hood was down and I was happy to
have un-gloved hands out and taking pictures. However, as I walked
down to the colony a dark cloud layer approached from the ocean and
soon snow blew across the colony on a chill wind. Band-searching
involves slowly walking through the colony, so clothes rather than
physical activity are needed to stay warm. On come the neck-warmer and
thick gloves (a joy to write with), and my hat ear flaps are strapped
down tight.
After 6-8 hours, I walk back up to the hut, which is about a half mile
and 770 feet above the colony, up a gently bending snow field. New
snow thinly covers slick blue ice; in most places the traction is
good, but memory of a few falls on the way down this morning has me
stepping carefully. I am soon shedding layers to avoid becoming a
soaking mess, then arrive at the hut to wonderful smells drifting out
the slightly opened window..
After the feast mentioned above we gawk at videos of the Leopard Seal
in action, and have a slide show from Chris, the photographer who is
here working on the Skuas.
We all wandered out to our tents between midnight and 1 am, a standard
end to a pretty standard day.
Hope all is well with you all.
Scott
PS. My current plan is to continue sending these email updates, then
when I get good internet will add more or less the same text and
plenty of photos to the blog.

Hello at last

Hello everyone.
I’m sorry for the long delay. Our wireless signal is supposed to be sent from the hut to a small repeater nearby, then to a repeater on top of 10,000 ft Mt Terror, then to McMurdo Station where it is sent to Hawaii via satellite, where it enters the landlines. Much can go wrong between all these points, and currently a large snow cornice is blocking the view between two repeater antennas. I’m not sure how or when they’re going to fix that problem, so I’m trying out the slow satellite phone connection to fill you all in a bit on what I’ve been up to.
So much has happened, and there is so much to tell, that this first post could get quite long. We’ll see how it goes…
When you last heard from me I was about to board a helicopter to fly across a frozen land to a small outpost situated on the eastern edge of Ross Island, right where the Ross Ice Shelf ends and The Ross Sea began (Ross, as you might gather, is a fairly important figure in Antarctic history). The flight was beautiful; blue sky and an endless variety of texture and pattern on the snow and ice below. Glaciers droop down from the high points of the island, silky smooth in places , gaping with crevasses elsewhere. The Ice Shelf marches purposefully south to the continent, seemingly endless as the sky. 30 minutes from the bustle of McMurdo, we floated through a low pass then swooped down to land at our new home. Hovering down onto a small rocky pad the hut looked small indeed as Grant came out to welcome us. The main room is 9 x 15 feet, with propane heater and stove, small table and 4 bunks. With the 5 people here now it is fairly crowded; in a couple more weeks there will be 7 of us! We sleep in tents but cook, eat, and hang out in the hut.
The days since our arrival have been full of unbelievable experiences, interesting difficulties, and lots of great fun. Our days are mostly spent walking through the colony looking for banded birds. The colony contains around 300,000 breeding pairs, and it takes 4 of us a full week to search the entire area. We’ve caught a few adults by hand or with a net in order to adjust their bands and measure their flippers and bills. We have also ventured twice to the Emperor Penguin colony, a half mile or so beyond the Adelie colony, in order to count the number of chicks there.
Recently the weather has been very nice, calm winds and relatively mild temperatures swinging above freezing by 5 degrees F and below by 10 or 15. There have been intensely sunny days, with ice and ocean reflecting white from all directions. However, for the first few weeks exciting storms kept us in the hut several times. Our highest gust recorded was 120 mph, and on several occasions it blew consistently in the 80’s and 90’s for hours at a time. On our windiest day our main source of entertainment was watching as a tent was flattened and ripped to shreds; in the wind there was no way we could go out and do anything about it. Once I had to dodge an empty 55 gal drum as it blew by, then chase it down before it reached a long snowfield below the hut and disappeared into the ocean.
The penguins are wonderful. When I first viewed the colony I didn’t know what I was looking at, the scale was more vast than I was prepared for. Viewed from high on Pat’s Peak, near the hut, the colony seems like French vanilla ice cream that has been melted and dribbled over the land; white layers of guano and black specks for each penguin. Up close the Adelies are about knee-high, and when they’ve just come ashore from foraging on krill they have the shape of big bloated pears, wobbling on little legs, balancing with outstretched flippers. The ones who have found a mate and successfully laid eggs can be seen walking purposefully up from the beach to their nest; we marvel at how they can find their particular mate and pile of rocks amid the chaos and crowding. At the nest, mates greet each other with loud hollering, heads pointed up waving back and forth. Then they switch places, the fat, full one settling down on eggs and the skinny, hungry one dawdling around a bit then heading out to see to find its share of krill.
They are full of personality, and each has a slightly different reaction to us. Those on nests seem to view us as large skuas, which have most certainly come to eat their eggs. The reactions of the unmated ones fall broadly into two categories: the amusingly curios “Wow, you’re a big penguin, will you mate with me?”, and the more violent “Wow, you’re a big penguin, you better stay away from my pile of rocks or I’ll bash in your shins!” The curious ones walk right up, tilting their heads sideways to get a better look, occasionally nibbling on a boot or outstretched hand.
Chicks have been hatching over the past week, and while I can’t exactly call them cute, I can’t resist watching and taking pictures each time a parent stands up to give a view. They are growing fast on all the krill they can swallow; within a week or so they are too big for their parents to cover up, and soon they will join together in groups called crèches while both parents venture out for food. The speed at which the breeding season progresses is quite different from my work in California.
It is so beautiful here; high volcanic peaks behind and vast cold ocean in front. Sea ice comes and goes with the wind and tide, and recently a big chunk of the ice shelf broke off and drifted away. These weeks have passed rather quickly, but with 24 hours of light the days seem rather timeless. It is difficult to understand in person, let alone explain to others.
So much more fills the space between the lines I’ve just written; I could go on for pages with stories and bits of information, but I fear the meager satellite connection will not handle it. If this post gets up fine I’ll write more soon. I have nearly 3000 pictures that have made it through the first round of deletions, but unfortunately don’t have the bandwidth for you to get the full appreciation of them.
I’m missing family and friends, and the life and home I’ve left behind for a time. But it is so amazing here that I can’t imagine not doing this.
Happy holidays to you all, and best wishes.

Still in McMurdo

Well, the weather is back to beautiful here at McMurdo. It was sunny all day, but there was still a cold wind blowing from the ice shelf.

I've been getting to know McMurdo a bit better, but am still struggling with how best to describe it to you all. So I've included some pictures to give you a sense of the place.

A Mattrack, this one belongs to the fire department.

A row of dorm buildings. Annie stays in one of these; my room is behind where I took this shot from, in the same building as the cafeteria. The coffee house (steamed dry milk is weird)/wine bar and one of the pubs are just out of the shot to the left, and the other pub is behind me.

A monster of some sort under the bridge we take to get from the cafeteria building to the science labs. The bridge goes over a series of pipes that cross the station. I have yet to figure out what the monster or the pipes do.

A lone, red-clad figure walks between buildings in the last few hours of the storm. You can't quite tell from the picture, but he's carrying a 6-pack in each hand.

Front of the "hospital". Good place to go if you want to get the McMurdo Crud, a pernicious upper respiratory problem that plagues many residents. We hope to get out of here before it grabs hold of us.

There is a library with lots of windows in the upstairs of the science building. This is the view from there, looking westish. In the foreground is the runway, with ski-equipped LC-130's for flights to the South Pole and other places, air traffic control and various support paraphernalia. The ice runway is just past all the red. This is all on 2-4 m of sea ice, and with the coming of summer all will have to be relocated to the ice shelf within the next couple of weeks. This runway is only a 10 or so minute drive from the station, but the ice shelf is 45 minutes away. We will fly from the ice shelf when we leave in 2 and a half months. The mountains in the distance are on the mainland, 40 or so miles away. It was a very beautiful view as the storm cleared.

Inside the dining room, or galley. There is seating for a couple hundred people, but there are over 1000 here now. Each meal time lasts for two hours, and there seems to always be a seat somewhere. In the background you can just barely see people loading plates with roast turkey, steaks, mashed potatoes, frozen pees and carrots, fresh bread, stir fry and rice, or some other mass-produced goodie (we don't get all of these every night). One or two days after planes arrive there is fresh green salad. The food isn't extraordinary by any means, but there lots of it and there are a few shining stars. They play movies on the screen up on the wall.

Today Annie and I had sea-ice safety training all day. We drove in a Hagland north from McMurdo out onto the sea ice. There we searched around for cracks, and when we found them we drilled holes to determine how thick the ice was in the crack (the water had re-froze in all the cracks we found). In general, ice more than 30 inches thick is safe to drive any of the lighter vehicles over (snow mobiles, Haglands, Deltas, Mattracks). Different rules apply for heavy stuff like loaders and cats.

The Hagland. The tracks on both units drive. Tey're loud and slow, but tough to get stuck, unless you fall through the sea ice. (I've seen pictures of this!!! Yikes!!)

Annie drilling a hole. The motor is a small 2-stroke, and the screw is 1 m long with a carbide bit on the end. If the ice is thicker than 1 m then you have to add more sections to the screw part. We got up to 4 sections, which got a little tricky to pull out of the hole.

Later we got to walk through an area of pressure ridges, where the sea ice is being pushed up against an island by the northward-moving ice shelf. There were wonderful shapes and patterns in the tumbled jumble of big ice chunks. There was also drifted snow all over from the storm. It was like walking through the halls of a giant, natural, ice-carving contest.

Pressure ridges with Mt Erebus in the background.

While walking through the pressure ridges, we came upon a group of five Weddell Seals, basking in the sun out of the wind. These big seals (can be over 1000 lbs) live right in the closely packed sea ice (called Pack Ice), and have forward-facing incisors to chew breathing holes. Apparently the seals are a good clue that cracks are in the vicinity, though they may be covered by drifted snow.

Mother and pup Weddell Seals.

Grant flew to Crozier today, and Annie and I are scheduled to go tomorrow at 2 pm. Apparently the Internet link to McMurdo has been acting up lately. The backup option is to hook the computer up the the satellite phone, which is also a bit temperamental. Not sure when my next post will be, or how many pictures I'll be able to include, but I'll do as much as I can, as soon as I can.

At home in McMurdo- for now

The last few days have been spent packing up all our food and gear in McMurdo Station. To get our food, we went to the upstairs of a large Quonset hut, which was organized like a small grocery store. We were the only ones there, and we spent a couple hours picking out what we wanted, then boxing it up and weighing the boxes. All together it came to 512 pounds and 46 boxes of dried, canned, and frozen food. With different members of the project on different schedules, there will be quite a few helicopters flying back and forth through the season, so we ought to get resupplied every 3 weeks or so.




With our pile of food.

Thursday night after doing the food, Annie and I walked over to Scott Base, the New Zealand research station about a mile from McMurdo. Once a week they have "American Night", where they open their bar to McMurdoans. It was fun to hang out with some Kiwis and drink their beer. The walk back was especially beautiful, with the low sun glinting off far-away ice and big mountains silhouetted against a pale cold sky.



Looking west from the walk between McMurdo and Scott Base.



Good name for a research station.

We've also been testing, organizing, and packing gear. We filled up a full sized pick-up and drove all our equipment down to the helicopter pad on Friday, with the hope that on Saturday Grant would get to fly out to Crozier and begin setting up camp. However, that night the wind started to pick up, and we learned that a storm was on its way.

Friday afternoon the predicted storm really clamped down on McMurdo, and travel outside the station was prohibited. Overhead power lines sounded like jet engines in the wind, and one particular set of outdoor stairs was singing eerily. Today has been a day of snow, low visibility, and more wind. At times buildings that are just 100 meters or so away vanish in the white. All through the day the air has been filled with tiny windblown ice crystals and dust.




Heavy wind and snow. Temp 12 F. Peak wind on Fri was 48 knots, though the station is in a protected little nook between three small peaks.




My first impressions of McMurdo Station were of a giant ski resort. People move between square, stout buildings. The stairways are heavy steel mesh with traction teeth to facilitate snow removal from shoes. But as I’ve spent more time here I’ve become acquainted with all that is going on. There are about 7 support staff here for every scientist, and as you can imagine there is a lot of support going. In reality, McMurdo is part mining town, part logistics hub, part high tech science facility, part college dorm, part military base, and still part ski resort.

There is always something going on. While walking back from Scott Base two nights ago there were loaders moving dirt around at 10:30 pm. In the middle of the night the bathrooms are being cleaned. There is a “lunch” from midnight to 1 am for the night shift. Work doesn't stop for the weather, at least not this weather. Forklifts and shuttles drive back and forth industriously. People dart from one building to the next. There is a sort of urgent rush to get out in the field and get work done before winter's darkness overtakes the continent.

Hopefully soon we will be headed out to begin our acquaintance with the Adelies.

Happy Camper

McMurdo Station taxi. These vans and similarly lifted pickups are all over at the station.

The day after we landed at McMurdo (McM for short), Annie and I went to Happy Camper training. This is the survival course required for anyone who will be leaving the station. We had an hour or so in the classroom talking about hypothermia, dehydration and the like, then we hopped in the Delta truck for a 20 min ride out onto the Ross Ice shelf. There we learned how to work stoves, set up tents, and built a couple versions of snow shelters. One of the tents, the Scott tent, is what we'll be living in for the season, so you'll hear more about it later. The other tent is just a regular tent. I'll tell you about the snow shelters.

The first one we made was called a Quinzhee shelter. We built it by putting all our sleep kits (big duffel bags with a sleeping bag, fleece bag liner, and two pads) in a pile then covering them with snow. After we had shoveled on enough snow and packed it down, we went to build a wind-blocking wall around the tents while our pile of snow froze back together (the high this day was 25 F, and everyone was going bananas at how hot it was!). After an hour or so we dug a hole in the side of the Quinzhee to get the sleep kits out, then plugged it back up and burrowed under the wall on the other side to make an entrance. The trick is to make sure the sleeping platform inside is higher than the entrance. Thus, warm air gets trapped inside and you can have a cozy night's sleep. It took all 20 of us a few hours to make it, and it only sleeps 3, so it doesn't really qualify as a legitimate survival shelter, but it was interesting and fun to build. I didn't take a picture of it, but if you imagine a 6 foot high pile of snow with a hole in it you'll get a pretty good idea.

Next on the list was the one-person survival shelter. First you diging a trench just wide enough to stand in and long enough to lay in. When its about waiste-deep you start undercutting the sides to make a wide enough sleeping area. There is an entrance at one end, just big enough to crawl through. Once the sleeping are is big enough to turn around it, its time for the roof. Go find a smooth patch of snow with no footprints and, with a saw and snow shovel, cut blocks to put over the trench. Finally, shovel a bit of loose snow over the top to fill in the cracks between the block and gently pack it down. Altogether it took me 3 or so hours to finish. The inside of my shelter was a beautiful blue color, and the floor space was big enough for two people to lay side by side.

Me coming out of my survival shelter. The pole sticking out on the right side of the picture is flag, so that if my doorway got covered up at night, people would be able to find me.

However, by the time I was ready for bed, at 10:30, I got a little clausterphobia attack and, since the weather was so good, I decided to try sleeping outside. I quickly shoveled a little wall to block the wind and spread out my bag just outside the shelter opening. I put the big red jacket (called Big Red) around my legs inside the sleeping bag, and wore the lighter red jacket with the hood sinched tight. I had two pairs of long underwear top and bottom, a light fleece jacket, socks, gloves, and a hat on; and I slept very warmly. I had some anxiety about getting cold, which kept me up, but I only ever got a slight chill inside the bag. My face was a bit cold, but I was able to overlap the jacket and sleeping bag hoods to block the wind and still breath fresh air.

Mt Erebus, 12,448 ft, from our Happy C amper site on the Ross Ice shelf. Its an active volcano, and from the crater rim you can look down at one of the few lava lakes in the world!

The next day we broke down camp then had a couple more hours of radio training in the heated instructor hut. We did the bucket-on-the-head whiteout simulation, then drove back to McM to watch a quick helocopter safety video.

All in all the happy camper course was great fun! I enjoy tinkering with tents and other shelters, so it was perfect for me. It was also good to gain some experience and confidence in dealing with the cold, even though our happy camper had the best weather possible.

To the ice.

I made it to Antarctica today!!!!

The morning hotel-airport shuttle, boarding, and flight all went smoothly. There were about 125 of us to fit in to the C-17, which had some airline-style seats and some side-facing ones. Four big pallets with all our luggage were tied down on the rear ramp. It was very loud in the plane; everyone had earplugs and there wasn't much conversation. I was happy to alternate being "alone" with my thoughts and getting lost in my book.

Packed into the C-17

After about 4 hours in the air we could see the sea ice far below, through the parting cloud layer. It had some big cracks and the whole surface was uneven like a confused swell on the ocean. I got a couple minutes up in the cockpit, and could see giant snow-covered mountains on the horizon. Everywhere was white or light blue; so bright!

A crack in the sea ice seen through the small window in the plane.

The flight was somewhere around 5 hours, and we landed on an ice runway that has been smoothed out right on the sea ice in front of McMurdo Station. Inour big red jackets we shuffled out of the plane to the waiting transport vehicles, an assortment of lifted, big-tired vans and shuttle busses, and some very cool things called "deltas", which I got to ride in.

The C-17 disgorges its load of red-clade passengers.

The delta I rode from the runway to McMurdo.

Upon arrival at the actual station, we were herded through a couple hours of briefing and issuing of room keys. The we ate in the bustling cafeteria and moved in to our lab and office space.

Its all been a bit overwhelming so far.

Now it is 10 pm and still looks like the middle of the day outside. Tomorrow Annie and I will start our 24 hour survival course, then in about a week we ought to be flying out to meet the penguins!

Downtime in Christchurch

Winnie guards the Windsor B&B

With no hope of a plane south until Monday at the earliest, I had a few days to fill in Christchirch. On Sat, Annie, David and I went with Peter, a New Zealand filmmaker friend of David's, to a farmer's market in the nearby town of Lyttleton. This town is the main harbor for Christchurch, and is situated on a cove on the Banks Penninsula, which is a volcano poking up from the sea right on the edge of the flat Canterbury Plains. The steep-sided canyons of this vocano create a twisted coastline, with many coves and impassable headlands. At the market there were beautiful vegetables, and I was wishing for a kitchen to take full advantage.

Taylors Mistake

Next, Peter dropped Annie and I on the top of the ridge between Lyttleton and Taylors Mistake, where I surfed frequently when here before. We walked down a winding trail to the beach, sheep grazed and mountain bikers enjoyed gravity and the warm sunny day. Birds sang hidden in the grass and the ocean and distant snowy mountains made a beautiful scene.

Christchurch, Canterbury Plains, and Southern Alps from the Banks Penninsula.

We continued past Taylors mistake to Sumner, where we dined on bad fish and chips then caught a bus back to Christchurch.

Red-billed Gulls at Sumner Beach

That night Peter had us over for dinner. He and David are working on a project together called The Last Ocean, with the aim of protecting the Ross Sea from industrial fishing. This section of the Southern Ocean is the least impacted by humans anywhere in the world, yet in only the last half-decade big industrial fishing boats have begun plying its waters. Just last week a 130 km-long gill-net was found abandoned near there, with 29 metric tonnes of antarctic toothfish in it. Here is a link to a short news article on it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735229.htm

On Sun I relaxed at the hotel most of the day, reading about penguins and doing a bit of work. In the afternon I went to the Christchurch Museum, and checked out exhibits on the Maori, Antarctic history, and NZ birds.

That evening we went to a presentation by David and Peter at the local art center about their Lat Ocean project. David gave a compelling talk about the science and ecology of the Ross Sea, and Peter showed a documentary about the place and their efforts to save it. Despite being one of the best-studied parts of the ocean, Antarctic Toothfish quoatas are being set for the Ross Sea based on very little information about the fish themselves and the effect their absence would have on other Ross Sea inhabitants. I left the Art Center feeling very inspired to do good science.

The Last Ocean web page is http://lastocean.com/. This trully is one of the last places on earth where humans have had very little impact. Its at least worth your time to check out the web page.

We're scheduled to fly to McMurdow Monday morning. Fingers crossed!!

All dressed up and no place to go

Sad goodbyes at the airport, hours and hours on a plane, brief minutes in Sydney, more hours on a plane. Finally the snowcapped Southern Alps of the South Island of New Zealand emerg from behind a bank of cumulous clouds. The bumpy approach to Christchurch was followed by the unwelcome news that Grant's and my bags didn't make the transfer in Sydney, along with those of 20 or so other passengers. The lost-baggage line was painfully slow, and after over an hour we learned that our bags would be arriving the next day and would be delivered to our hotel. At least we wouldn't have to take them through imigration, which in New Zealand is quite rigorous in order to keep out invasive plants and animals.

At the airport we were suprised to find that Annie, the third member of the Adelie team at Cape Crozier, was also on the Sydney-Christchurch flight with us; she was scheduled to be a couple hours behind us.

That afternoon and the next morning we recovered from the flight in our hotel, the homey Windsor B&B, and wandered downtown Christchurch hunting food and last minute necessities. Christchurch feels generally familiar from my time here in 2002, but its taking me a while to get my bearings.

The Windsor B&B

Yesterday afternoon (Nov 5; NZ time is 21 hours ahead of CA) we went to the US Antarctic Program Clothing Distribution Center near the airport and tried on our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) clothes. These consist of the classic red jacket with fur-lined hood, insulated windproof bibs, big blue boots with double felt insoles and fuzzy liners, fleece balaclava, goggles, and giant over-mittens called gauntlets.

We had a celebratory Thai food dinner that night with David Ainley, the Principle Investigator for the project, and Phil, an New Zealand partner. By the time we got back from eating, our bags had finally arrived and I hastily did my final rearanging of gear for the big flight to the ice the next day.

Nov 6

Alarm sounds at 4:30 this morning; onto the shuttle bus shortly after 5. Anticipation grows as we near the airport. There we donned our EWC for the flight (just in case we have an emergency landing on the ice), and sorted our luggage into "check-in", "carry on", and "boomerang" bags. If our flight gets turned around due to weather, our checked bags stay palletized (plastic-wrapped onto a pallet) on the plane, and we get our boomerang and carry-on bags for the night and hopefully fly the next day. Breakfast was at the Antarctic Center cafe, then we piled into a bus for the ride to the plane. The morning's first rays of sun struck the US Antarctic Program logo on the side of a warehouse as the nearly full moon set behind. I took it as a good sign.

We pulled up along side the giant military transport plane (C-17 Globemaster 3), and waited for the go-ahead signal to load up. Gaping gray jet engines looked big enough to suck in the whole bus, not to mention the ground crew milling about. We waited and waited. Some RNZAF Huey helicopters took off right behind us. We waited some more. Then we learned that our plane had a fuel leak and we wouldn't be flying today, nor tomorrow, and likely not Sunday either. A wave of frustrated dissapointment washed over the bus. Back to the Clothing Distribution Center and out of the EWC, then onto a shuttle and back to the Windsor.

Annie and Grant wait for our luggage to be unloaded after learning the plane couldn't fly us south.

That's where I am now. We're not sure when we'll be flying, but we will take this chance for some more good coffee and beers around town.

4 days before departure

Well, it's around 4:30 in the morning, 4 days before I leave for Antarctica. Excitement, nerviousness, curiosity, and scattered to-do lists drift through my conciousness and prevent me getting back to sleep.

At times the notion of what I'm about to do is floating off somewhere in the abstract, while at others it hits me like I'm caught inside an overhead, winter set at Ocean Beach- This is real!!


Last night I laid everything out on the floor and Libby read items off my my packing list while I loaded them into two big parent-borrowed duffel bags.



I've got a miriad of layering options, fancy boots, somewhere around 9 lbs of coffee, favorite snacks, 3 pairs of sunglasses, camera and 2 lenses, books, magazines, and a bunch of baby wipes (for cowboy showers). It all fit nicely, and both bags come in under the lower of the two airline baggage limits I've found online.

The website for the project I'll be taking part in is http://www.penguinscience.com/. There'a a link at the bottom of the home page to a Google Earth file that shows where I'll be going. I'll be at the Cape Crozier colony.

Though I don't fly until Monday night, my travels begin today. Libby and I are spending the weekend in San Francisco and Marin County, seeing friends and playing outside.

My next update will likely be from New Zealand!

Lake Sonoma boat in camping

The last weekend in September Libby and I met some friends at Lake Sonoma for a bit of boat-in camping. We only have my one-person kayak, so the day before the trip I went to Big-5 and bought a cheep rubber row boat for Libby to ride it.







Libby and her yacht.





Everyone we were meeting got to the lake on Thurs and Fri, but Libby and I didn't get to the boat ramp until around 9 pm on Fri. We packed up the boats, tied them together, and set out on the three mile paddle with a Google earth printout of the lake, a cold beer handy (it was still above 70 F), and a beautiful half moon. A herd of wild pigs spooked from the shore as we passed, and racoons foraged along rocky beaches. Dead trees reached out of the depths and would loom up in front of us with little warning, trying to pop Libby's boat. We finally saw a big camp fire in the general vicinity of where camp should be, and before long the brothers Tompkins had paddled out to meet us and show us where to beach. After some short catching up we were all in bed, resting for what we hoped would be a good day of fishing to come.







Low water and many dead trees made the night-time paddle in slow and stressful but were interesting scenery in the calm early morning light.




It was already shorts and t-shirt weather by 8 or so, and the lake water was very warm. We tried fishing for a few hours in the morning, and there were a few bluegill hookups, but not much action. We were back to camp by mid morning, and spent the next 5 or 6 hours either in the shade, where it was in thi 90's, or in the lake where it was in the 70's. We stayed out of the sun as much as possible, where it seemed to be 163 F. We tried a bit more fishing that evening, but mainly just sat in our boats, drifting on the slight breeze and philosophizing under susnset's colors.




A Common Merganser eyes us as we paddle by.

A family of river otters were seen most days of the trip, slinking amongst dead trees then dissapearing up narrow fingers of the lake.

On Sunday we packed up and had a slow, lazy, several hour paddle back out to the boat ramp. We would paddle a bit, then stop and drift and talk and watch great egrets or double-crested cormorants fly by, then paddle some more. Libby rowed the whole way out in her little boat, toting the ice chest and dunking her shirt and hat in the lake to stay cool. By noon we were back to the boat ramp, transfering gear from boats to cars, and making plans for In And Out lunch in Santa Rosa.

We vowed to return to Lake Sonoma in the spring, when hopfully the weather will be a bit cooler and the fishing a lot better.

Lauren and Tristan, loaded up and paddling out on Sunday morning.

The Brothers Tompkins celebrate the slow fishing with warm mid-day Tecates.

Welcome to my blog!

Hey everyone.

I've decided to set up a blog to keep you all posted on my whereabouts and goings-on. I just finished up with the UCSC Wilderness Orientation program, and had 2 wonderful trips in the Sierra Nevada with great students and co-leaders. Much of the time was spent above tree line, up with great masses of granite and nightly shows of alpenglow. The weather was generally perfect, including one beautiful morning of snow! This was my last year doing WO, and my final trip was an absolute pinnacle of my five years with the program. We had a strong group and were able to climb Lightning Peak (including one short pitch of roped climbing) and do a ridge traverse connecting 3 peaks in the high 11,000 foot range (a traverse no WO group had done before). For both trips we were in amazing, inspiring, and spectacularly rugged terrain. What a great mountain range we have!

Here's a few pictures from both trips:

Me with Lightening Peak in the background, which we climbed the following day.



Lower Mills Creek Lake and Mts Abbott and Gabb.

First view of Lightening Peak emerging from the storm clouds. We spent about 3 hours semi-lost in the clouds on this day, trying to find a water source amongst steep gullies and sheer dropoffs, with visibility down to about 100 ft most of the time! It was by far my most challenging navigation experience ever. When the clouds finally cleared it was one of the most amazing mountain views I have ever seen, and mixed with the relief of finding a place to camp for the night it was an exhilarating evening.

Storm clouds clearing from the upper reaches of Buck Creek in Sequoia National Park.

Looking north from Gabbott Pass (~13,000 ft)

Looking south from Gabbot Pass at Bear Creek Spire (left-most peak) and others.