Ross Sea Connection

Far up in the bow of the Palmer, past the cold rooms, beyond the dry labs, and five stories below the bridge, two people are at work in a gleaming steel room. They mix compounds in metal bowls, sprinkle in precisely measured powders, and then arrange their mixtures on trays to put into calibrated heating […]

It’s 7 a.m. and I’m just sitting down to write about yesterday. I can scarcely remember the emergency glider recovery that Dr. Josh Kohut and Eli Hunter put into motion at 2:30 a.m. yesterday morning. Then the clouds descended and the wind picked up, and the chief mate closed the decks, keeping us all inside […]

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 […]

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 […]

Today’s story starts yesterday evening, and it features valuable items lost at the bottom of the sea, a midnight rescue plan sketched out on a napkin, a grappling hook as tall as a person, and a creature that looks like a space flower. We had come to Cape Adare to help Bruce Huber of Lamont-Doherty […]