Ross Sea Connection

Yesterday I got an e-mail entitled ‘ATTENTION ALL SCOUNDRELS AND POLLYWOGS.’ As I read it, I realized I was being summoned before King Neptune’s Court. I had never crossed the International Dateline before this trip, and so in the eyes of Neptune I was a pollywog—an insignificant landlubber with no business being at sea. I […]

It was the color of the ocean from space that brought us here. We knew it was a gamble, a dogleg away from our main sampling plan. But satellites were telling us that phytoplankton were flourishing here, over deep water, where no one could explain it and no one had ever been to study it […]

This morning was Feb. 2 for us–Groundhog Day. I looked out the window but saw no groundhogs. I didn’t even see any ground. The really odd part was that in the afternoon we crossed the International Dateline and the date turned back to February 1st. That means that when I wake up tomorrow morning, it’s […]

Antarctica is renowned for having some of the fiercest weather on Earth. At any time of year, torrents of cold air can stream off the Antarctic continent and create vicious gales on the sea. So far we’ve been lucky to have calm seas and winds—especially on our visit to notoriously wind-whipped Cape Adare (see Jan […]

The Palmer spent most of today on the move. We steamed 180 miles northeast of Ross Island to recover a glider for Dr. Walker Smith of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Then we turned toward Station 16 (see Jan 28 post), about 120 miles to our northwest. Along the way we are sampling the […]

At 5 a.m. we came to a stop at the sea-ice edge about 10 miles north of McMurdo Station. A single emperor penguin was asleep about a quarter-mile away, its head tucked snugly out of sight. In the patch of open water our ship had created, a minke whale surfaced. Underneath the ice plain before […]

We spent all day today just outside McMurdo Station, docked to a tanker and refueling. Most of the scientists relaxed, or talked about what they hoped to find in their next sampling stations, or sneaked into the galley to see when the cook brought out warm cookies. (For the record, it was about 8 p.m.) […]

Clouds form and dissipate, snow falls, and the sun emerges in this time lapse video shot during the transit from the central Ross Sea to the entrance of the McMurdo ice channel. At the end of the video, Beaufort Island, Cape Bird, and Mount Erebus come into view in that order. It represents 13.5 hours of real time.

The Palmer spent all day cruising back toward McMurdo Station to refuel. The ship travels at a steady 10 or 11 knots (about 12 mph), and we had about 300 miles to go. The scientists took this opportunity to review their data and decide where to visit during the second leg of our expedition. Yesterday […]

See exactly what the glider sees during this video montage from a glider test dive. In the first part of the video, the glider is launched from the zodiac, then it travels to a depth of three meters, and finally surfaces. As the glider prepares to surface you can hear the sound of the pump changing the buoyancy.