First sights on Antarctica! "It's an expedition, not a cruise!" A mantra. A deflection. An excuse to feel cool? We first heard the words from our fearless expedition leader, Boris, as we discarded our entire itinerary on day one of excursions. After laying out a spectacular and ambitious plan for five days of landings and zodiac cruises along the Antarctic Peninsula the night before, the agenda was immediately thwarted by ice and weather. A common occurrence in Antarctica. Shocker. Boris is able to expertly work the crowd by conveying adventure to the guests and presenting plans B, C, and D. It feels fake to use words like, "expedition," on a fancy 146 passenger, Lloyds 1AS Ice Class (the highest class), Scandinavian cruise vessel equipped with windows capable of 180 degree views on nearly all decks, a fitness center, jacuzzi, and four course meals. In some ways, it is just a buzz word used for guests to feel better about the thousands of dollars they spent to be there. The word is typically reserved for parties making a journey for the specific purpose of exploration, research, or war. In reality, however, every trip to Antarctica is a journey with a particular purpose and guaranteed adventure. Does that classify it as an expedition? Sure. Antarctica is a unique place. The first person to set foot on the continent wasn't until 1821. Tourism in Antarctica didn't start until the 1960s. It isn't owned by anyone. It is reserved for peace and science under a treaty signed in 1961. Nobody really lives there, instead researchers and staff occupy bases seasonally and occasionally for longer periods. There are no real cities, instead research bases act as hubs for any human activity, particular during the Antarctic summer months. Access is limited to boat via the Drake passage out of South America or less commonly out of New Zealand via the Ross Sea. It is also accessible by small plane out of the same few port cities in Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand. Now over 37,000 people visit Antarctica every year. Antarctica remains one of the last few pristine wildernesses on this planet. It doesn't care about your Christmas vacation plans and hasn't been modified to accommodate them. You get what you get when you visit Antarctica. So at 6:30 am, when we were meant to cruise through the Lemaire Channel, we were turned around by ice and weather conditions. With the day's plan thrown to the wind and no chance of leaving the ship that day, the combined efforts of the captain, crew, and expedition staff, scrambled for a new plan. After checking out a giant tabular ice berg pictured above on the left, we ventured out in search of whales. The "it's an expedition, not a cruise" mentality produced lucky results for the Antarctic vacation of your dreams. Not only did we see orcas, but we had a front row seat for the hot pursuit of a pod of killer whales doing what they do best. A four on one battle between whale and penguin. A great success! The expedition cruise framework, however, isn't always great for science. In my last post, Getting My Sea Legs, I talk about why the Oceanites organization benefits from working with tourist cruise companies. In short, it maximizes the reach of their inventory. Aside from a bit of restlessness, our lack of landing today isn't a massive set back for penguin counting. The Oceanites have two penguin counters aboard multiple ships during each Antarctic excursion throughout the penguin nesting season. While they are at the whim of the cruise plan, they have found ways to benefit from visiting certain sites multiple times throughout the season and using these sites to model sites visited less frequently. Taking spectral measurements is a slightly different story. Unlike my lab group counterparts based in East Antarctica for a couple months, I have five days to get what I can. Additional limitations include weather, equipment issues, and the site we are visiting. Each of these will come up later in the trip, but for now, what was a five day window is now four. On the bright side, I had an awesome Planet Earth display to distract from any initial worries and restlessness. Four more days right?
A drawl from Paul: "It is a foolish and even childish game to try to predict an Antarctic day. No matter where we tried, we were thwarted by a combination of wind, ice and visibility: the unholy meteorological trinity. Lectures blended into sauna and hot tub sessions but there was no evading the understandably despondent mood across all decks. Sometime this afternoon a simple radio message changed all that. In spades. A few metres off starboard a pod of Orcas were toying with Gentoos. Lenses were rolled out like Nelson's starboard canon at Trafalgar as this Blue Planet drama played right under our noses."
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About this blogEverything science, from lab work to field work and anything else important to me in the science community.
Science meI am currently a PhD student in the Planetary Exploration Lab at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. I received my Bs in Geology from St. Lawrence University and am interested in surface processes on Mars. My current research involves scaling the efficiency of image interpretation of geologic features in Antarctica. Archives |