RUCOLD !?

I’ve started and stopped this blog post a number of times now. It’s been a really difficult one to write. Antarctica is an amazing place, the beautiful mountains, vibrant life and the raw power of the weather and nature here are truly humbling. On a daily basis I see things I never imagined I’d witness.

An elephant seal and its pup lounging on Torgeson.

The LMG came back in with a new group of scientists and some old friends from the ships crew last week. Garz and I decided to take our friends on the LMG for a quick tour of one of the local islands. We took 3 round-trips on a zodiac shuttling people and back forth to the nearby island, Torgeson. Torgeson is an island frequented by the LTER birders. It’s home to a massive penguin colony and the occasional elephant seal. Torgeson has an important project going on with regards to human impact on penguin colonies. There are green flags spitting the island in two. On one half humans are allowed to walk around and view the wild life paying strict attention to how far the Antarctic Treaty allows you to get close. The general rule is that you if you affect an animals behavior, i.e. it looks at you or reacts to your presence, you’re too close. On the other half of the island tourists aren’t allowed. This is an ongoing study to see if the penguins and nests on the human impacted side develop any differently than the human free side. It was a  beautiful trip and we happened to stumble upon an enormous elephant seal just begging for a photo opportunity.

A penguin colony on Torgeson

As I mentioned, the LMG came back in and this is where the blog post has been difficult. We’ve spent the last month here essentially seeing the same faces everyday. We’ve built amazing friendships and essentially lived with this group of 30-40 people as a close knit community. We watch movies together, work together, dance, laugh, do dishes, clean and generally rely on  each other for everything. I’d have to say that one of the most amazing things about being down here is the community and the people. The excitement of seeing the LMG pull back into the pier was palpable. They bring us new shipments of fresh fruit and vegetables, mail and more science equipment in addition for the opportunity to share new stories with some of the same people who dropped us off here just a month ago. The whole event is also bittersweet. After seeing them pull in to the pier the realization that some of our friends had finished their stay and would be going home became a reality. Jenna who Garz, Kaycee and I met in the Dallas airport on our way down had finished her project and would spend the next few days packing up her gear and getting her travel organized. She was an amazing person to spend the first month here with, always able to initiate some sort of ridiculous situation that would end in waves of laughter. Kim also departed on the LMG, our first week here she broke her wrist in a freak punching bag accident and is required to go see a specialist in Punta Arenas. We’re all crossing our fingers that she’ll be back again on the next boat. Things look positive, but it’s still been incredibly difficult seeing her go. The other group heading north were the ‘Wasties’ or essentially waste management employees for the US Antarctic Program. They do an amazing job managing all of the waste station produces, regular, hazardous and even radioactive (our group uses some radioactive tracers to measure phytoplankton productivity, in the lab). They do an incredible job of keeping Antarctica clean and minimizing our impact on the region. The ‘Wasties’ are also an enormous amount of fun, and we’re definitely sad to see them go as well. Last but not least Johnny, our instrument tech, was changing over as he had been here since last May. I can’t say enough about how helpful he’s been repairing something we’ve managed to break on a literally daily basis, with little to no complaint. I can’t imagine how we would have gotten anything done over the last month without any of these people.

Me, Garz, Kelsey, Kaycee and Jenna on Torgeson with Palmer and the LMG in the background.

Despite how difficult these departures have been, we also gained a few people and hopefully some new friends. Carolyn took over Johnny’s position as instrument tech and we’ve already put her to work by blowing a few fuses on our zodiac ‘Bruiser.’ We’ve gained a new ‘wastie’ Jed, and a few new members of science. Carolina from Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) will be carrying on Kim’s Krill experiments over the next month. Chris from University of Hawaii and Jen from Arizonia will be part of a group new to LTER that is looking for how viruses can impact the Western Antarctic Peninsula ecosystem.

After all these changes it’s easy to forget to mention how science has been going. Despite the generally terrible weather we’ve fought through and collected a tremendous amount of data. We generally get out to the offshore station, E at least once a week and we’ve been getting to station B 2 or 3 times a week. All but one of our lab experiments are up and running and, ‘knock on wood’ all of our field instruments are working. I can’t ask for much more than that, and I’m looking forward to posting some preliminary data up here in the next week. It looks like theres the start of the first summer phytoplankton bloom at station B and the birders have seen their first penguin eggs laid. This place is alive and changing and it’s good to be here witnessing it all.

~Travis