Palmer Research StationNov 21, 2008
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Wednesday
As previously mentioned, the plan was to cruise in through the beautiful Lemaire Channel this morning. As luck would have it, we were socked into thick clouds and were unable to see the tops of these magnificent peaks that shoot up almost 7,000ft. On the other hand, thanks to great captaining from Oalf, we did make it through the channel, skirting within ~20ft between the cliffs edge and the massive ice bergs. Later in the morning we made a landing at Petermann Island, where only the brave of us disembarked in the middle of strong winds and pelting snow – a term I dearly refer to as ‘grizzle’. Yes, more Adelie and Gentoo penguins. As we boarded the zodiacs to get back to the ship, however, the winds had pushed in a substantial amount of ‘brash’ – this is loose ice chunks that basically cover the entire surface of the water, and as temps start to cool, they bind together forming sheets of ice. So that made for an interesting (and fun) ride back to the ship as we slowly made our way through it. Tentative afternoon plans were to explore the Penola Strait and hopefully make another landing. The bad weather did not seem to want to leave, and so we settled for a zodiac ride where we wove our way in and out of some bright blue icebergs with extraordinary structures formed by the turning sea.
Thursday
Again, strong winds (about 40 knots, which is just a little more in mph) made for ill conditions to disembark. We made our way through the Neumayer Channel and Bismarck Strait region anyways in slightly rougher seas. With weather like this down here, I’m not really looking forward to our re-crossing of the Drake Passage in a few days!
This afternoon we were granted permission to visit the Palmer Station located in Arthur Harbor on Anvers Island! Only 15 boats are granted permission to visit this U.S research station every year, so we feel very fortunate. The U.S Antarctic Program (USAP) maintains three year round stations in the Antarctic – largest being on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound, and the third on the South Pole. Palmer station fields about 175 projects during the austral summer and the facilities down there include research labs. Currently there are only 24 people at Palmer, with the capacity for double that. All the projects there are grant based and apparently its really hard to be awarded these. Usually, someone like me would need to partner up with a professor at a university, who’s had multiple publications etc. in order to be able to come down. On the other hand, there is a need for other staff – cooks, dishwashers, waste mgmt etc. These folks tend to stay for about three years. The general patterns is that most scientists will come down for the 7 ‘summer’ months and then leave to compile research during the winter.
Palmer station also stamped all our passports!! In the evening, a few of the scientists and support staff came on board for cocktail hour and it was really interesting to hear about their stories. Weather is still highly overcast and sky is light from 3:30am until midnight - so basically just three hours of darkness. Did you know that McMurdo Station (the largest station in Antarctica) has the capacity for 1000 people? Apparently its like a little town in itself – with bars, exercise places, and a two lane bowling alley where volunteers re-set the pins! Even more exciting, it’s the site for what is locally known as ‘IceStock’ – a fun annual event where local bands will get together and play on a stage for the town. Pretty cool!
