Ice, Ice, baby!
63.85 South 55.63 West
We have gone around the tip of the peninsula, through the Antarctic
Sound and into the Wedell Sea. This is the first time we've entered
really serious ice. Before that there were plenty of bergs and
some bits of pancake ice floating around, but now we're in a genuine
kilometers-wide ice field that the Palmer has to break through. I've
never before considered just how loud an ice breaking ship can
be when it's fulfilling its function. For the past months, the
soundtrack to our lives has been the steady chugchugchug of the
ship's engine. It got to to the point where I didn't even notice it
anymore. Until yesterday, when it suddenly changed to
chugchugchugGRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNDDDDD. It's loudest in the
galley; mealtime conversation has become pretty much limited to people
hollering "Pass the salt!" at the top of their lungs.
(The section of the sea we're in, BTW, has the picturesque name of
Erebus and Terror Gulf. Named after the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror,
ships that Ross used to explore this area. I found this out from a
very cool book of Antarctic place names that I discovered on the
bridge. This is also how I found out that Pesky Rocks got their name
because they block an otherwise clear shipping lane. Also, there's a
mountain range down on the continent called Executive Committee Range.
You learn something new every day around here.)
Ice plays havoc with scientific instruments. We still plan to do some
CTD casts, but that's about all we can do. The multibeam echosounder
won't work; the current profiler won't work; the satellite altimetry
data I plot shows nothing but a big blank patch where we are. If you
want to look at critters, on the other hand, ice is the place to be. I
saw three more whales today, and more seals than I can possibly count.
They congregate around holes and channels in the ice, where they can
surface to breathe, which makes them much easier to spot than in the
open water. The whales, of course, never allow you more than a quick
glimpse of their back and fins as they surface. The seals were doing
the same at first, and I had resigned myself to coming home with no
pictures. But then my luck turned, and we had several excellent
sightings of leopard seals lounging on the ice.
Leopard seals make great photo subjects, because they're vicious
predators with big nasty teeth, and therefore hard to intimidate.
They're also very lazy. They lie about on the ice and totally ignore
the ginormous orange metal monster bearing down at them until it's just
a few yards away. Then they perk up, flop over, and scooch away across
the ice on their bellies, looking cute and comical and not at all
vicious or predatory. All this leaves plenty of time for picture
taking.
We have gone around the tip of the peninsula, through the Antarctic
Sound and into the Wedell Sea. This is the first time we've entered
really serious ice. Before that there were plenty of bergs and
some bits of pancake ice floating around, but now we're in a genuine
kilometers-wide ice field that the Palmer has to break through. I've
never before considered just how loud an ice breaking ship can
be when it's fulfilling its function. For the past months, the
soundtrack to our lives has been the steady chugchugchug of the
ship's engine. It got to to the point where I didn't even notice it
anymore. Until yesterday, when it suddenly changed to
chugchugchugGRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNDDDDD. It's loudest in the
galley; mealtime conversation has become pretty much limited to people
hollering "Pass the salt!" at the top of their lungs.
(The section of the sea we're in, BTW, has the picturesque name of
Erebus and Terror Gulf. Named after the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror,
ships that Ross used to explore this area. I found this out from a
very cool book of Antarctic place names that I discovered on the
bridge. This is also how I found out that Pesky Rocks got their name
because they block an otherwise clear shipping lane. Also, there's a
mountain range down on the continent called Executive Committee Range.
You learn something new every day around here.)
Ice plays havoc with scientific instruments. We still plan to do some
CTD casts, but that's about all we can do. The multibeam echosounder
won't work; the current profiler won't work; the satellite altimetry
data I plot shows nothing but a big blank patch where we are. If you
want to look at critters, on the other hand, ice is the place to be. I
saw three more whales today, and more seals than I can possibly count.
They congregate around holes and channels in the ice, where they can
surface to breathe, which makes them much easier to spot than in the
open water. The whales, of course, never allow you more than a quick
glimpse of their back and fins as they surface. The seals were doing
the same at first, and I had resigned myself to coming home with no
pictures. But then my luck turned, and we had several excellent
sightings of leopard seals lounging on the ice.
Leopard seals make great photo subjects, because they're vicious
predators with big nasty teeth, and therefore hard to intimidate.
They're also very lazy. They lie about on the ice and totally ignore
the ginormous orange metal monster bearing down at them until it's just
a few yards away. Then they perk up, flop over, and scooch away across
the ice on their bellies, looking cute and comical and not at all
vicious or predatory. All this leaves plenty of time for picture
taking.