Back to the grind...

We are officially back in the US and most of us are back to work (I think!). At least, I am. In getting a little slideshow ready for my coworkers to see what I've been doing lately, I had a chance to reminisce and evaluate my experiences. I'm not sure there are words to express my appreciation for my colleagues on the boat (scientists and boat staff included). The experience gained over the last 6 weeks has been priceless. Not only did I see wondrous things, I have a no-small-amount-of-CV-booster to add.

(Photo credit Selina Vaage)

Specifically, I'd like to thank Dr. Meng Zhou. Being a late addition to the UMass crew set to embark, I find myself incredibly lucky to have been working on something only slightly tangential to the missions of the cruise. Meng is a fantastic mentor, giving career advice willingly, life advice frequently, and being a good friend throughout. If any of the readers have a chance to sail with Meng, do not hesitate - agree to it immediately!

(Photo credit Dr. Alison Stimpert)

I'd also like to thank Dr. Doug Nowacek. Without the efforts of this awesome project Chief Scientist, the cruise simply would not have been such a great success. His dedication to the job of Chief Scientist allowed great coordination between working groups and ship time. It was a fantastic experience to be able to work with such a great scientist and person. I hope to sail with you again soon!

I'd also like to thank my night shifters (or Midnight Marauders)! Without you guys, I surely would have gone crazy. At the very least, embarrassing story time would not have devolved into hilarious embarrassing excrement stories without you all.

Thanks to everyone on the boat for a safe, fun, and productive cruise. You all are great!

Thank you Antarctica - for being there, mostly, but also for housing some of the greatest wonders of the world.

And now that I have gone off the deep-end and thanked a non-sentient continent for being a continent, I will sign off. Perhaps in the near future, I will have another adventure to report. One can only hope (and apply for grants!)

Cold now, hot later!

June 5, 2010

Yesterday was just another breathtaking day…

I began my day at 7:45 AM, when Eric came in the room and told me I'd
have a chance to go out on a Zodiac today. Needless to say, I was quite
excited, but that didn't stop me from catching 15 more minutes of sleep.

Anyway, after getting up, showering, eating breakfast and putting many
layers of clothes on and signing a waiver, I was ready to go. Our Zodiac
was lifted off of the deck, placed in the water and our group (Me, Selina,
Andy (the birthday boy himself!), Maria and Driver Kelley) began to descend
to the tiny boat. I was last to approach the ladder and right before I
began to climb downward, our outboard motor decided not to start. After
trying every combination of gas tanks, primer pumps, throttle positions,
etc. Kelley couldn't get it started. We had to call over another boat to
have Jeremy have a whack at it. No luck.

Then MT Dan Powers came to the rescue, starting the engine (after we had
been trying for a good 10 minutes) in a few pulls. We honored him by naming
our boat "Powerhouse" for the day.

We left the Palmer and went hunting for a good place for Maria to get great
shots of whales. It didn't take long, as the whales were just as eager to
see us as we were to see them. A pair of whales swam around us for awhile
while Maria got some great underwater pictures and I got plenty of video.

After one pair finished checking us out, we found another pair and took
more pictures and video of them. It was quite a fortunate day for
whale-sighting and whale-tagging, as the taggers got two tags on.

The whales the tag boat were following decided to split up, so the boat
called us in to track one of them. So, with daylight disappearing quickly
(it was around 2:30-3:00), we grabbed an antenna and tried to find the
other tagged whale.

We weren't very fortunate, however, as our antenna was misbehaving. After
15 minutes of fussing with it, Andy determined the wine just had a bad
connection and fixed it, somewhat. But even with the fixed antenna, we had
trouble following the whale, as it was taking short dives, disrupting our
tracking efforts.

After a little bit of tracking, it began to snow. Just lightly at first,
but soon very large flakes were falling. The wind was only around 4 knots,
so it was quite peaceful. However, the larger flakes dropped visibility
greatly, so the Palmer had to call us in. As we headed back, the beacon
from the Palmer grew fainter and fainter as the snow got thicker and
thicker. We had a GPS, so we knew where it was, but it was still very
strange to be so close to the only thing lit up and not be able to see it
clearly.

After getting safely onboard the Palmer and eating a dinner of buffalo
chicken pizza, it was time for the mostly-nightly science meeting. Upon
everyone arriving, our Chief Scientist Doug told us we all had to sign a
safety form or waiver of some sort. I thought for a second and remembered
we had planned a soccer match for Andy in the Helo Hangar. Not letting the
surprise slip, we all headed there and gathered for planning of the games.
We figured that it would be best to have teams of three, games to one
point, winners stay. Some music was put on, we stood around the impromptu
field and watched as two teams would try to kick is between two ping-pong
paddles placed on the ground.

Competition was fierce! The field had a distance of only about 30 feet, but
trying to advance a ball past three other people proved quite difficult. We
played for about an hour and were all a little sweaty. My team had a streak
of four games, so we were especially tired.

But that didn't stop me and sever others from playing a couple games of
basketball afterwards. A little half-court 3-on-3 with substitutions really
burned the last of our energy. Tired and sweaty, we decided two games was
enough and headed either to our rooms to shower, or back to the lab to
complete their shift (me).

Like I said, it was just another breathtaking day (in more ways that one)!

Palmer Station + Rock and Roll

It's been about a week since the last post! Oops, sorry about that all.
The weather has been generally terrible. The nights have been a little
better than the days, however. Winds tend to die down at night and we have
a nice pleasant snow. We've had several snowball fights in the night,
assisted in shoveling the helicopter pad and refueling the Zodiacs. But
all in all, there isn't much new. Lots of unpublished data, however! ;)

Well – we were supposed to go to Palmer Station last night, and we did!
For about 20 minutes. Unfortunately for us, the weather turned bad in a
matter of minutes after landing the final boat. That meant that we had a
few perilous moments fighting the mob to buy souvenirs for friends at home.
I'm afraid I might not have bought enough... bahhh! We'll see, I
suppose. This is one of the only trips I've wanted a large amount of
souvenir collection. I ended up buying several clothing items, several
small pins, a magnet, and several stickers. AND, the ability to state,
"I've been on the Antarctic continent"! Pretty cool.

After leaving the station, the night crew had a few hours to sleep thanks
to the day crew agreeing to stay up until 2am. Shortly after 2am, however,
we approached the French Channel. The approach was rough – 5 degree
roll/pitch was not uncommon. As the ship turned to make the Channel, the
swells increased, rolling our ship with might. Winds were up to 45-50
knots. Seasickness. Identifying my odd stomach feeling was a little late
for the drugs to start up. It was a long night. Currently, the winds are
back down to 20-30 knots and we're getting ready to tow for plankton. I
may go take a quick nap before dinner to make sure I've got my sea legs
back.

Discovery!

After many weeks of study, we finally discovered the origins of krill
within Wilhelmina Bay!! Alert the press!

Fog!

Our weather has not been as cooperative as earlier in the trip. We have
had frequent snows followed by windy days. Today was no exception,
unfortunately. As the day began, it was clear that we would have weather
for the day, but the fog steadily encroached on our visual observation
range until finally we could only see approximately 100m from the boat.
This definitely made an impact on our ability to see whales for tagging.
Finally at about 1pm, we found two whales – a pair off in a krill-less
bay. Virtually devoid of life other than birds, these two whales were
enough to send a couple boats after them for radio tagging. (I went to bed
since I had been up for the night shift.)

Fast forwarding approximately 6 hours, I woke up, showered, and brushed my
teeth. The boat had the usual movement of keeping station, bow and aft
thrusters periodically forcefully turning the boat. We must have not been
able to tag today. I eat by myself in the mess, since I am there
approximately 1 hour dinner serving hours are over. Soup and some canned
peaches.

Arriving in the dry lab, I survey the monitors giving our position,
heading, speed, wind speed, etc. We have been on station for over 2 hours!
The whales are sleeping… or something. Oh, yes we did get a tag on
today. Good thing we radio tagged a narcolepsy enhanced whale – we'll
be able to study outlier sleeping habits! Just kidding.

Tonight will be a relatively quiet night for the krill gang. As our main
job while animals are tagged is to make sure our ADCP and echo sounders are
operating correctly, sitting in one place will make the job rather mundane.
Meh. Maybe I'll have to post twice in a day. (Play
dramatic/suspenseful music)

P.S. Yesterday I went out on the "tag" boat whose goal was to pick up
the radio transmitting tag after it detached from the whale. Unfortunately
the mechanism to release the suction cups holding it on was a little
delayed, so we weren't able to pick it up on our boat due to some rough
seas. Attached is the photo of the team locating the direction of the
signal. Enjoy!

The morning bust forth!

After a couple of sadly cloudy and windy/snowy days, we had the most
magnificent sunrise yesterday morning. As I speak, the sun is making its
way toward the horizon to dawn another day, but alas, no photos of today
yet. Counting and measuring krill from our catch overnight, the view from
our starboard window was breathtaking. Sitting at the mouth of Wilhelmina
Bay, the sun crested, bursting forth a full spectrum of reds, oranges, and
yellows. The residual weather was still rolling over the mountains in a
fast moving misty pattern reminiscent of the epic trek across Antarctica in
"Happy Feet". Okay, maybe not as windy – though the night before
gave us 50 knot wind gusts with over 30 knots sustained. It is not a calm
place here. So many krill were caught last night that I, for one, have no
concept of the numbers. So many krill were in one of the nine nets, that
the sample had to be split in half three times (yielding 1/8th the total
krill volume). It still was a tight fit in our 1 liter plastic jars!

Our tag team has been awesome, tagging whales just about every day they
have left on our Zodiac rubber boats. Unfortunately, the whales were
having just too much fun yesterday, so our tags fell off relatively
quickly. Overnight we surveyed a shallow bay – Charlotte Bay.
Unfortunately, we were unable to survey the entire bay due to large
icebergs jutting some 4-6 ft above the water surface in solid ice. The
radar, to my untrained eye, looked treacherous at best. We were able to
map the bottom surface using our acoustic instrumentation along the way and
produced new data.

As a side note, the "Happy Feet" reference really came about because we
watched it tonight. Fun movie if you don't mind the inaccurate portrayal
of tap dancing penguins. They obviously can't produce a real tap without
the proper footwear, yet all the penguins in the movie were shoeless.
Notice: no penguin feet were frostbitten during the filming of this moving.

Also, I was eliminated from the ship ping pong tournament today. Note to
self: never underestimate National Geographic Videographers' ping pong
skills.

-E

(no subject)

Just another typical day in Antarctica. Wait, no it wasn't! Someone must
have tipped off the whales because there were TONS of them just waiting for
our fellow whale scientists to sight and tag them. Seals seemed to lounge
on every iceberg and barely noticed our huge ship pass less than 100 feet
from them. So it sounds like it would be a boring day for us krill-folk,
but hold on!

After lunch, we were hanging out around the dry lab when the opportunity to
take a cruise in a Zodiac around the bay presents itself. Well, the
opportunity was presented by the lovely MTs who work so hard to get
everything running as smoothly as possible. Well, we didn't need to be
asked twice! Meng, Eric, Joy, Greg, Colin and I hopped on the boat and Mark
whisked us away to enjoy what Antarctic marine life had to offer us.

We set off away from the ship and circled halfway around it so Greg and all
of us could get plenty of video and photos. After that, we set to work
trying to find a whale or two to pursue. It didn't take long for a pair
of whale to surface and we sailed their way, getting even more video and
photos.

After the first pair had left, we decided to cruise even further away from
the ship to the opposite side of the little bay, careful not to run over
any icebergs. Every now and then we would see a seal or two, lounging on a
small floe. They would lift up their heads, watch us for a while, maybe
scratch themselves and go back to sleep. Then repeat.

Then, another whale sighting! This time, the whales came within 100 feet of
our little boat. I got some great video of that encounter, as I'm sure
everyone else did, as well. This group circled our boat once and decided to
take off. What an adventure so far!

Heading closer to land, we found a seal floating in the water, just rolling
over and over. He never even realized we were there. These seals can be
quite oblivious sometimes.

Greg interviewed Meng right there on the boat, asking him about iron,
krill, global warming and how it's all connected. I really don't think
there could have been a better backdrop. The sun was setting, giving deep
contrast between the water and the ice. Our main ship in the background
looked like a toy.

The sun began to hide behind one of the many islands, basking the shoreline
in beautiful alpenglow. We figured it would be a good idea to head back to
the ship. Of course, our boat is not exactly an icebreaker, so we had to
take the long way back. And I mean the LONG way. The icebergs had made
little aisles that we just couldn't break through so we had to go from
the end of one aisle to the other, cross the bay, and head back down
another aisle to get to our ship. Of course, our fearless MT Mark piloted
us with relative ease safely back. We'd see a whale every now and then on
the way back and slow down to take more video and photos.

This day was by far the greatest day down here. There's nothing quite
like getting as close to nature as possible without getting a dry-suit on!

MISHAP owns its name!

Well, the last few days have been a bit disappointing due to a few
MISHAPs... Sorry if we have disappointed our readers by not posting! It
has officially been more than 24 hrs since the last post. Oops! Although
we had a couple successful CTD casts and a couple more good MOCNESS tows,
we have been hampered by mechanical failures… The winch (used to cast
our rosette - on which are mounted our analytical instrumentation) has
broken for the third time!

For those who think chronologically, I'll break this up a bit. Two
nights ago, we had a series of two MOCNESS tows planned. Starting around
midnight, we all signed in with the bridge so that they knew who was
working on the backdeck. Ending a little after 4AM, we finished the final
tow, sorting and processing of samples. We were able to net enough
plankton to submit some to the galley - they served krill pancakes!
Don't ask how they were, I unfortunately missed the experience… From
about 4-9AM, we completed another sweep of ADCP surveys – VERY basically
measures currents by depth via Doppler effect. The whale crew was up and
ready getting the boat settled for visual transects and deployment of small
Zodiac boats. By noon, it was decided to give over the boat to the krill
folks (us!). After a matter of a few CTD casts, we found that the winch
was still broken! Ahh! So, after some frustration, it was decided that we
head to Palmer Station to grab a smaller rosette and some winch replacement
parts. So in the middle of the night last night, we parked a little ways
off of Palmer and some of the marine techs made landfall to upload data and
grab the parts. Since then, we headed down to Flandres Bay, south of the
bays we have studied so far, to do echo sounder surveys.

Currently, we are waiting for sunup to for the whale teams to start.
Hopefully the parts will relieve our instrument woes and we can resume our
CTD measurements! So because of the delays and several changes in plan, we
are facing two problems: we have no pretty pictures for you and not much
to report other than the stark lack of krill in Flandres. Sigh. Oh, and I
have my first match of the official RV/IB N. B. Palmer ping pong tournament
in a couple minutes. It's a good thing I'm fresh and ready for
competition! (I have been up since 7PM yesterday! Hehe)

Attached are pictures of where I've been spending my time lately! (lab
and mess hall)

(no subject)

Well the danger on the rocks has surely passed.
Still I remain tied to the mast.
Could it be that I have found my home at last?
Home at last.
- "Home at Last" Steely Dan, Aja

I cannot begin to describe the scenery here, it is that beautiful! (Whoops,
I guess I just described it.) Even when the sky is full of cloud and it's
constantly snowing, it's just stunning. I've been taking HD video the
whole time, with the intention of making a trip movie of sorts (scenery
with music). I didn't take any video of the Drake Passage, so you wont
need seasickness medicine to watch!

So far, the cruise has been dominated by the whale-seekers, which just
means more time for us krill people to enjoy the wonderful view that
unfolds around us constantly. Of course, we do actually perform some work.
Each of us has been trained to run the basics of the "multi-beam". This
device is used to map the sea floor as we travel over it. It doesn't run
all the time, just when we're heading over an area that has been
previously been unmapped or when we're over an area that has errors in
some of the measurements. As we can cross these areas at any time of the
day, there's no guarantee Kathleen, the multi-beam controller, is awake.
That's when one of us steps in to turn it on and makes sure it's
measuring for the right depth.

More and more, around the whole ship, other people have been coming up to
Meng, Selina, Eric and I and asking about the krill. "How many are down
there right now?" "Are you going to cast the nets?" "When are we
going to start seeing some krill pancakes?" Believe me, we're itching
to get our nets in the water and hoist up a fresh batch of that delicious
krill. Well, maybe it's not delicious. Meng said we should eat one, so
maybe I'll let you know if they're any good or not. Seeing as I can't
recall any fine French dishes that require krill, I'm assuming they're
disgusting, but I'm still willing to try one! Fear Factor (Anyone
remember that show?), here I come!

Playful Whales!

What a morning! Whales everywhere, including right beneath the ship
seemingly playing! Hundreds of photos taken and this is my favorite. Most
of the night was uneventful since we successfully placed a radio tracking
tag the night before. 24 hours of invaluable data – we need to keep
close in case the tag comes off to collect out of the water.

At about 9:40, the tag was retrieved from the water after being in the
water 23 hours, 50 minutes. Not bad for the 24 hour estimate! Today, the
tagging crew was able to place another tag! Great job guys!
Unfortunately, this means that the zooplankton team is out of a job tonight
again! We'll keep the echo-sounders on to map krill aggregations around
the bay as they move about, but other than babysitting the data as it
scrolls across the screen, not much to do!

Before the end of my shift today, the zooplankton group was able to mount
all the nets to the MOCNESS, which is basically a net system to collect
anything larger than 333 micrometers, sampling at specific depths and
closing the net. Our system has 9 nets – 9 different depths to sample
and measure! We may be able to deploy our MOCNESS tomorrow night if the
tagging team doesn't get a tag on the whales, but we'll see!

Antarctica morning

Remembering my first trip down Antarctica in 1992, after a long night shift
the morning sun suddenly lighted the mountains and ice, I took a deep deep
breath of the crispy cold Antarctic air into my lung, vain, …, brain. I
found it is magic, and the magic has made me back to Antarctica.

First midnight watch!

Today was the first shift of midnight to noon for the nightshifters!
Unfortunately, I for one could not sleep much before the shift started, so
I am running on about 4 hours of sleep over the last 36 hours. It kind of
reminds me of undergrad finals week. Or grad school test weeks… Oh, how
I do NOT miss those 20 hour/1 week exams given by Arkansas State
University.

Anyway, for the past six hours, the three of us night-shifting grad
students have peered out the window to see the sights (see example below).
Meh. I can't wait until dawn. We only have 5 more weeks of this? I'm
going to be sad to leave… But I will also happy to come home (Hi Emily!).
If only I could bring Antarctica closer to home…

Coming up in 2 hours, the Zodiacs will be launched (small boats) to
suction-cup radio tag any humpbacks we can find that are approachable! We
hope to have a tag on by 9:30 EST. Wish us luck!

Until next time!

Sun and CTD!

Wow. What a sight to wake up to! The first glimpse of true Antarctic
continent (last night's photo was of the Shetland Islands) left me
speechless for minutes staring out my starboard window in my underwear.
After finally pulling myself away from the window, I was able to get
permission to run around on deck with my camera going full burst fire
speed! With my Carhart issued pants and coat, I tromped around on the
Starboard side 01 deck. COLD! I forgot that wind cuts through clothes
fairly easily. I took a few amazing pictures and ran back inside, waiting
by the door window for more opportunities to present itself. Later, after
a waiting for the sun to dawn fully, I donned more layers of wind-proofing
and took some wonderful photographs! As another one of the grad students
in our group said, "It just doesn't look real!"

Currently, we are calibrating the sonar equipment and visual range finding
and had one successful CTD cast! Our instruments for measuring particles
(both size and number) were also a part of the cast and collected data
successfully. Once the data logger closer to being full, we will download
and process.

More coming later!

First morning in Wilhemina Bay

May 11, 2010

After an evening full of expectations, I got up early this morning to get
used to my new night-shift schedule, which starts tonight. Lying in bed and
feeling as if we're on solid ground, I realized that we must have reached
sheltered waters between islands and mountains. Exciting! A glimpse on the
ship-tracking map revealed that we were entering Wilhelmina Bay, where last
year's team found tons of whales. It was still dark at 6 am, and only some
growlers and thin sea ice visible right next to the ship indicated that
we've actually reached Antarctica. At 7 am, a safety meeting took place in
the bridge for those who are going on small boats today, as well as for
those doing the first CTD cast for calibrations.

The next few hours turned out to be completely breath-taking and
indescribably (see below) wonderful. The rising sun colored the clouds
orange and pink, the glaciers were white-blue, and the sea was completely
calm. Seals and sea-lions were the first mammals we spotted, but it didn't
take long before the trained eyes of our whale-biologists discovered finns
of Humpback, Minky and Killer whales. We're all excited about spending the
next 5 weeks in this amazing place!

Selina

Arrived!

We have officially arrived to Antarctica! Shortly after making it past the
outer islands, the sun set and we had a another beautiful start to the
evening. It seems as though we've had excellent luck so far. Aside from
~10 degree rolls during the Drake, everything has gone smoothly.

We set up the instruments on the rosette today: LISST, LOPC, data logger,
and mini-CTD all attached and tested. We should have a trial run tomorrow
morning before the SONAR calibrations. Should be a good day tomorrow!

Into the Drake!

Today was a relatively uneventful day, but FULL of amazing photo potential!
Passing through the Strait of Le Maire, some amazing chances for
photography came about. In a relatively rare stroke of genius, my camera
took the attached photo. Though the sights were amazing in real life,
there's something about photography that can enhance.

Highlights for today:
-Fire drill with abnormally LOUD alarms that rang until everyone was
accounted for
-First time eating a real breakfast on the ship
-Open ocean birds swooping by and gathering in large groups
-Amazing mountain views
-Virtually no wind

Hopefully our luck won't run out soon. We pass into the drake tonight.
Will it be as awful as people have suggested? Keep reading to find out!
;)

Bye PA

May 7, 2010: Seasickness
The Indian God seems more popular in these days. You hardly have any
chance to kiss his toes anymore. We were there, Eric, Mike and Selina.
None of us had a chance as 100s young kids were kissing the toes and
laughing. We only wished to have a smooth crossing the Drake Passage that
seems less important than their wish to have a health and wealth future.
We also have seasick pills which seems more effective than any gods.
Eric does not know if he will get seasick because he never had a cruise in
the sea. Mike was sick under 15-m waves. Selina is sensitive to motion
and will get sick. Me? 100% for sure I will get sick. Many scientists
quit sea-going oceanography because of seasickness. Teaching people how to
deal with seasickness is always challenging because everyone is different.
Also there are different pills, Dramamine, Bonine, patches and
Promethazine. One time I had a friend who was so sick. Like a man sinking
in the water, he tried to grab any rope, and used Bonine, promethazine and
patch at the same time. The drugs made him sicker than the seasickness.
We all decided to take pills last night so that we will be drugged today
before sailing. It was hard to get up in the morning due to drug, legs
were so soft, and the brain just did not want to work. All these were
uncomfortable, but 100% better than getting seasick. It is hard to think
in those old days without seasick pills, how did those seamen survive?
Maybe we were just too wimpy.
The Research Vessel Ice Breaker (RVIB) N.B. Palmer left at 12:30 pm today.
We are going through Magellan Channel and then heading to the South. No
one knows the weather in front of us. How much do you believe any weather
forecasts? The weather forecast in the Drake Passage is probably easier
than the recent storms at Wall Street.
We had a whole day of meetings from the safety to science which were
actually very painful. After you take the seasick pills, it is very hard
to keep from falling to sleep. Tomorrow afternoon, we will be in the Drake
Passage. We will see how big the waves will be. The chemicals from
seasick pill have been circulating in our blood and we are ready for any
waves.

First Post by FreebeEr

Despite numerous attempts to keep my name constant, I have been renamed by
the crew of the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer. My name is now Eric Freeberg
with purportedly the best login ever. If you can follow along have have
not cheated by looking at the subject line, imagine this: your login is
made up of the first six letters of your last name and the first two
letters of your first name. Freebe er, or freebeer when spaces are
removed. Luckily for me, the ship is forbidden of alcohol. Supplying the
ship would have broken my bank account for sure.

We left today from Punta Arenas somewhere around 1PM. Because of the
excitement of my first Antarctic voyage, I somehow missed looking at my
watch. Go figure. As pushed off from the dock, no tug was necessary - our
ship can move horizontally if it wants to. Turning to the East, a
fantastic view of Punta Arenas showed (see attached).

The effects of promethazine are hitting me this afternoon though I took it
last night before bed. Time for a brief nap before our first security
meeting.

We're off and away on our adventure!

Checking out of PA; Checking in to the Palmer

It seems like only yesterday we had arrived in Punta Arenas, yet today is the day we makes our way into the tiny cabins of the ship. Well, the cabins aren't that small, but the bunks are! Seriously, there is no way to sit up. They're closer to pods than beds. Oh well, I'm not going to be conscious (hopefully), so it wont be an issue. At least until I wake up, think I'm somewhere else and go to sit up. It's a sharp learning curve.

Anyway, the weather has been really good to us (considering it's their winter) and has holding the rain and snow to a minimum (only snowing yesterday evening/night). But, this morning is very drab and grey and it seems everyone is ready to get on the ship and head south.

I'm very excited to push off and get to the open ocean. The Antarctic awaits!

Punta Arenas, 5. 5. 2010

Today has been our first serious day on the Palmer. We've unpacked boxes from last years cruise (and found some pleasant surprises - i.e. Yiwu's giant (GIANT) drinking mug), and picked up new material at the AGUNSA wear house. Most importantly, we got the LISST and LOPC instruments safely secured them onto tables for passing the Drake. We're all excited and curious to see how rough it will really get... The LISST and LOPC will be used to measure plankton of all different size classes while on station, i.e. while not chasing the whales. The second high-light of the day was the construction of our patent-worthy Gravitational Plankton Splitter (GPS). Picture and manuals publication will follow soon.

First full day in Punta Arenas - look at the boat!

I figured I would take advantage of the high bandwidth availability - I may be able to post a video from the top of R.B. Palmer tomorrow, but thought this image was fantastic.

Our ship is enormous - the largest this Iowa native has ever seen! Who knew that a boat would have so many stairs! Standing 100 ft above sea level, looking at Punta Arenas, I realized where I would be going and had a chill. Not the kind of chill from the cold, but of amazement. I am sure the coming days will bring plenty of chill. Antarctica, the last frontier on Earth! Hopefully my cohort won't be upset I posted this image before they could post their respective first looks at Palmer. If you can follow with me - the big angled section is the bridge. The lookout above that also has railing above it so that you can look from there as well. That was one stop on today's tour guided by fearless Meng Zhou. With half a foot through the railing and hanging over the edge, Meng looked out on the ocean. After I recovered from my fear, I experienced a sense of awe. Here we are with a panoramic view of the end of the world.

More later, but I thought this would be the perfect time for the followers to glimpse our larger-than-a-football-field boat. :)

Pre-Departure Excitement!

Today's the day! Ever since I was a little kid and decided that penguins were my favorite animal, I've wanted to travel to Antarctica. Well, that dream comes true today! All it took was a little over a month of lab tests, physicals, teeth extractions and whatnot and I was cleared for travel. All that stands between me and the Antarctic is a 24-hour plane trip to Chile, 3 or 4 days of Punta Arenas, 3 days of travel through the Drake Passage. I'm ready. Antarctica, here I come!

To the South -

When I say "south," it really means the southernmost. I am flying out, directly to the south, through Miami, Santiago, Punta Arenas, and then Antarctica. It is crazy to leave a beautiful spring, warm and sunny for a cold and dark Antarctica. It reminds me Shackleton and his poster:

I have Eric, Mike and Selina. They determinedly want to go, not for money nor famous. For what? You have to ask them.

Unfortunately, we will miss Yiwu who has been in Antarctica 6 times, and is having a herniated disc. She wanted to hide her illness – crazy! Mike was called. I thought he may hesitate to pull out all his wisdom teeth. But he didn't.

Well, I have to go to Logan Airport. Our expedition starts!

last minute details

Of course.. out of deodorant.   Luckily, I found deodorant specifically for the Arctic.  With a little creative modification by my wife, I was able to have the perfect deodorant.

All packed!

I am ready to go! Got extra dermal patches just in case? Check. Got all necessary toiletries? Check. Clothes? Check.

Big aluminum box filled with instrumentation? Check, apparently (see box below the open suitcase).

Luckily for our research group, each of us gets TWO (count 'em, TWO) checked bags. Though one of my checked bags is actually an instrument for measuring salinity, temperature, and pressure. Also, my checked
bag has a data logger for another instrument, complete with 42 "C" batteries. Packed up tight with foam, this bad boy weighs in at 49.5 lbs. Just a hair under the 50 lb limit. Good thing it put on the plastic workout suit this morning before weigh-in. All three of the UMB participants have similar stories. Large aluminum boxes with instrumentation. I feel proud to be trusted with sensitive equipment. Hopefully the "throwers" at the airport feel a pang of pride before tossing my shiny aluminum friend on with the other oversized suitcases on their way to Miami. Good thing this isn't Spring Break week.

Off to Chile tomorrow! Wish us luck!

PQ'd

Wow! Finally PQ'd... After sending two sets of dental records, one form sent three times, three forms sent twice, and nine emails later, I am finally physically qualified to go to Antarctica and the plane tickets will be purchased soon! Exciting.

I'll post more later, but wanted to share the good news that I am, in fact, going to Antarctica. :)

3 weeks to go!

Only 3 weeks before we will be on our way to Antarctica.  I'm going to ask my doctor for seasickness meds this week, just in case.  Anyone
have suggestions for dealing?  I'm not anticipating major problems other than that already mentioned!

Sea legs, here I come!

Email to post!

A cool thing offered by blogger.com is the ability to simply email to
post. It even works with picture attachments! Look forward to
reading more frequently than initially anticipated (I can still only
post 40k per photo, so they'll be low res anyway). Handy, that!

Little black strings

Today was stitches removal day. I've been noticing these little black strings becoming more and more visible in the back of my mouth as the swelling has reduced. Only thing that was unusual was that the dental assistant actually laughed when he looked in my mouth. He didn't say why, but I have a sneaking suspicion. Upon noticing the black strings in my mouth, I noticed part of the very back of the inside of my cheek had been also stitched to my gum. Odd.

A note to oral surgeons, if the dental assistants laugh at your work, maybe you need a new glasses prescription.

Boston man removes wisdom in the name of science!

Hello all,

I realize that the blog is brand new and that nobody even knows it exists, but I had an urge to actually create and write a little about the MISHAP-X experiences thus far.

That last couple months have been a battle to become PQ'd. For those of you unfamiliar with working through government or government grants, these people are huge fans of acronyms or at least turning phrases into their initialed components. PQ'd really means physically qualified. Now at first, this may seem like a boot camp of sorts: dire conditions require tip top physical condition! You must be able to withstand 10 minute sprints without feeling fatigued!!!

Not at all really... All you really need to do is make sure you have no major disabilities and all your immunizations are in order. This may be different for those staying on the actual continent of Antarctica, but since we are on a boat for almost the entire six week duration, we can skip the syphilis testing. Yep, that's right: syphilis. You also need an HIV test if you're staying overwinter. I guess people get a little stir-crazy during 24 hr darkness.

As a person who has had numerous bad needle experiences (small, rolling veins + caffeine allergy + inexperienced nurses as a child = bad experiences), the blood testing could have gone better. After being poked once, thinking I had given all the blood that I needed for the huge panel of tests, I found out later that I needed more taken. The second time around, my veins weren't as cooperative and I needed to different vein entries. Needless to say, I almost passed out and was wheeled into the pediatrics room on a big blue recliner. It would have been a kicker to receive a lollipop. But alas, no lolli.

So blood drawn, tests done, one down. Physical exam next. Oh, the normal exam process which is always uncomfortable for everyone. No details needed, I'm sure - but it is nice to know my doctor keeps his hands warm. You can tell a good doctor by the warmth of his hands, in my opinion.

Wisdom teeth removal is next. As part of a complete evaluation and filling of any suspect areas, wisdom teeth must be removed unless they are uncannily healthy. Almost nobody has acceptable wisdom teeth it seems. I had mine removed Tuesday. One impacted lower left tooth has left the left side of my face rather large. Luckily no signs of infection yet. That was an interesting experience since I was only under local anesthetic. Yes, all of my wisdom is now in the garbage somewhere.

Our cruise has been delayed 5 days out of Punta Arenas due to the earthquake in Chile as well. So our official day for leaving Boston will be May 2nd, 2010. Wish us good look!

First Post!

Greetings all to the MISHAP-X blog written by UMB professor Dr. Meng Zhou, Research Associate Yiwu Zhu, and graduate student Eric Wilcox Freeburg. As with most blogs, this will be set up to give insight into the day-to-day operations of the MISHAP-X cruise from the UMB participant perspective.

All three participants have access to this blog and will post their own experiences and/or photos from time to time. Although we'd like to share every photo taken, limited bandwidth via satellite uplink will limit our ability to do so. Please be patient for the complete set of photos - they will be posted at the end of June!

Thanks again for visiting and we hope to have more for you to read soon!

-EWF