Visitor from outer space

The last boat that came to Palmer not only brought us freshies and new Scientists, but also some high level managers, one of which came from outer space. Actually, I should say that he was a former astronaut. Scott Parazynski is the Medical Director for the US Antarctic Program. If you look at his wikipedia page, you'll see that he has done 5 space shuttle flights and 7 space walks, as well as climbing Mount Everest and some other stuff.

While he was here, he gave 2 presentations. The first one was about a subject that is near and (maybe) dear to all of us who work in the Antarctic Program because it dealt with the medical qualification (PQ) process that we have to deal with before being allowed to come here. Scott explained about the transition process (after taking over from previous contractor; Raytheon) and what they had to do to be able to deal with the very short time frame that they were given (basically hiring a bunch of temp working, taking lots of work home with him, making a strict prioritization of who needs to PQ first because their plane is leaving and PQ'ing people as they were getting on the plane). He has also been inviting feedback from us about the PQ process as a step to improving the whole process.

In Scott's opinion the winning quote from that feedback was; "You people must have put the fax machine right above the shredder, because I have had to fax my forms several times to you." He also showed us the process from their point of view. The winner there was one person who after being told that a certain form was missing proceeded to fax everything several times again except for the missing form. Then there are all the people who forgot that the back side of the forms also needs to be filled out. On average a medical file requires looking at a couple of times, but there were instances where that number climbed to 10 because of omissions as mentioned above.

The second of his talks was about his NASA career and that was great to listen to. Unfortunately he had not really counted on doing this, so he did not have the cool video clips that would normally be in his talks. He made up for that by allowing us plenty of questions at the end. He also said that he had the time of his life during this visit in Antarctica (really, after having been in space? ) and enjoyed our hospitality very much.

I'm shaking hands with an astronaut.

Tourist season

Saluting the Dutch flag.

Today the Dutch flag was flying at Palmer Station. This was not because of me, but because the yacht Sarah W. Vorwerk paid us a visit. When we have vessels visiting us, it is customary to raise the flag of the country (of vessel registration or in this case the Captain's home country) below the flag of the United States.

The Vorwerk is a vessel that can take up to 8 paying passengers to explore the Antarctic and other regions (see http://www.sarahvorwerk.net/en/expeditions). The owner happens to be Dutch, so I had the opportunity to speak my mother tongue again and discover that it has become rusty.

December and January is tourist season in which we notice the increased number of vessels that show up on our "AIS" system that plots nearby vessels on a map for us. As part of our outreach efforts, the National Science Foundation allows a certain number of visits to the station. The reasoning is that everything here is paid for by the American tax payer and they should be able to see what is done with that money.

A second vessel that visited us was the National Geographic Explorer from Linblad Expeditions. ( see their website ) Before the masses (actually, we have to call them "guests" ) arrive on station, the Station Manager and the Lab Manager go on board the ship to give a presentation about Palmer Station and our work here.


The station manager giving his presentation. The people
that are not looking at him are watching the slides on
the screens.



The NGE at anchor in Arthur Harbor

 On days when cruise ships come to town, all of us get assigned different jobs. I helped out in the shop assisting people with their apparel buying. The passengers are brought in groups of 10 by my colleagues who volunteered as tour guides. Outside the shop we hung all the available clothing items for the dual purpose of giving them the opportunity to make a choice and giving them something to do while waiting outside the shop.  After they are done in the shop, they continue their tour around the station and end in the galley, where they are treated to tea and coffee and our famous brownies and get a chance to speak to some of the locals and some of the scientists.

Later in the evening the we get the opportunity to go on board of the ship; in exchange for some free drinks they get to ask us as many questions as they like. The evening ends with the ship's crew coming over to our bar for some drinks and relaxation away from their passengers. The crew does not get a whole lot of free time on board and even when the vessel is in port at Ushuaia ( Argentina ) the turnaround time is so short that there is not much time to unwind. In the past these visits to our bar have led to some pretty memorable nights (so I've been told), but this time everything stayed rather decent.Some more Dutch was spoken since amongst the Croatian, Slovenian, Swedish and American crew was also a Dutch guy.

A Trip to the McMurdo Aquarium

Each season, there are several science groups in McMurdo studying the fauna of our region.  These studies focus on seals, penguins and whales and also encompass several long-running projects researching life in the ocean below the surface of the ice.  The sea water here is about -1.6 degrees C /28 F.  In order to collect specimens for study, the scientists and their graduate assistants either employ the services of a professional diver (see post with video from ocean videographer, Henry Kaiser, here) or they go fishing.

Fish groups travel over the sea ice in a tracked vehicle, called a Pisten Bully, to their fishing hole.  These fishing holes are often created using a long drill (manually-operated) with a 3-foot long flight.  Sometimes, a much larger hole is cut with a giant, mechanized drill and a small hut is placed over it for the warmth and wind protection for the science group and divers. My friend, Dan, is a fish scientist and his blog postings will give you a very good idea of what fishing in Antarctica is like:  http://hassumaniantarctica.blogspot.com/2011/10/saturday-october-22-2011.html

Fishing groups and divers bring their catch back to the aquarium for further study.  The community gets to look at these creatures during the weekly tour of the Crary Lab or, for those of us lucky enough to play music with a fish scientist....one evening after work.  Here are some pictures from the touch tank and from the fish tanks.



Various fish and stars





Brittle star



Lice



 

Crinoid





Antarctic Toothfish - Mawsoni - Antarctic Cod - Chilean Sea Bass - whatever you call it, it is overfished



This one is 85 pounds/39 kilos - a small one.  The biggest adult toothfish can reach 330 pounds/150 kilos.



Octopus

The octopus isn't the subject of its own study but it was very cool to see.  Here the scientist is giving us an up-close view.  Apparently, octopi are very intelligent.  Last year, the octopus they were keeping in the aquarium found a way to get out of its tank, walk across the lab and hop into the touch tank for a snack.  The night janitor found him on the floor on his way back to his tank.  this year, they have fashioned a heavy lid for the octopus tank.

If you want to learn more about the Antarctic Toothfish/Chilean Sea Bass/Dissostichus mawsoni, please take a look at the Last Ocean website or watch the Last Ocean documentary.

Thanksgiving Saturday

At McMurdo, we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday on the Saturday and Sunday closest to the the third Thursday of November.  Normally, we get only Sundays off but for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays, we get a second day off.


Workmates getting snazzy for the holiday weekend



That's how we roll in Southern Hemisphere Information Technology

For Thanksgiving, we have a fancy, dress-up meal with assigned seatings at 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 PM.  For the past three years, the band Condition Fun has played our Thanksgiving gig later that evening.  Condition Fun is a band that started in 2005 by Sandwich and Bill.  Sandwich isn't her real name, but it might as well be...no one knows her real name anymore.  Sandwich and Bill wrote catchy tunes on guitar and tuba (yep, we even have a tuba at McMurdo) about the unusual vehicles here in town - the pickles (Case M4K forklifts, which are painted pickle green), Ivan the Terrabus (a big tire Foremost bus), mattracks (Ford trucks with triangular tracked wheels, and Pisten Bullys (tracked snow "pods" often used for grooming ski-trails at resorts).  They had friends join them on different tunes and played open mic evenings at the Coffee House.

Several years ago, Condition Fun decided to re-group and add drums, keyboard and bass.  I was asked to play drums and Ralph joined on keys.  The four of us have been playing together for the past three years.  The bass has been played by a rotating group of scientists and stand-ins.  The heavier sound leant itself well to doing more rock tunes and we added some cover songs with revised lyrics, like C-17 (our military airplanes) instead of "Sweet Caroline"  ("C-17, you're a really big airplane.  So big! So big! So big!") and 155 is Blue (referring to building 155, which they painted Ikea blue) to the tune of  "Nothing Compares to You". 




Susan rockin' the bass

The idea is to make people smile and poke fun at some of the ridiculous things that happen around here.  I guess it is sort of a Weird Al Yankovic concept.  It goes over well on Thanksgiving night because the crowd enjoys mellow entertainment after the big tryptophan fest.

Our friend, Kish, opened the show with his unique songs and thought-experiments and then Don McGlashan performed.  You could say that Don is a New Zealand legend.  He has been a big part of the Kiwi music scene since the early 90's and his work as the lead singer of The Mutton Birds yielded platinum selling albums (at least in New Zealand).  Don was invited to Antarctica by Antarctica New Zealand on an Artist and Writer grant and he ended up OPENING FOR US at our gig!  Only in Antarctica do a bunch of amateur hacks get a platinum-selling national icon as an opening act!

Kish opening the show

 

Don McGlashan




Deed of Sale

Yesterday, I received the electronic copy of the deed of sale for the house.  The deed spells out who the buyers and owners are, where they were born, where they live now, who they are or were married to and all of the official details about the location of the property.  As you might imagine, a notary office in small-town, rural France had a superbly difficult time trying to understand how to deal with an American (with a Dutch passport) and a Dutchman (born in Ethiopia) with a domicile in Alaska, but no actual house there and "living" in Antarctica and occasionally reachable in the Netherlands.  Somehow, it all worked out.

Here are the two photos I sent back to the notary's office to prove that we didn't make up the whole story.

By the way, YES, that is a lot more gray hair than you might be used to seeing.  This has been a stressful process!

Back by popular demand; Penguins.

OK you've all been asking for penguin pictures, so that is what you'll get.

Palmer Station is know for its great opportunities to see wild life and so far it has met all my expectations in that respect. There are lots of birds (that will be another post) and up until recently we had seen the occasional seal and penguin close to town. However, it is now far enough into the season that penguins are here in great numbers.



Just to get an idea of the number of penguins we're talking about.

Surrounding the station are many little islands, some of which are off limits to mere mortals (non-scientists) like myself and some of which are (partly) accessible. We have several Zodiac inflatable boats with an outboard engine that are used by the scientists or us for operational needs, and then there is the "Rec Boat", which is purely for recreational use.  The waters around Palmer have been marked on a map with a "safe boating" zone which is some 2 miles around station and markings on (is)lands indicating their level of forbiddenness. Also on this map it shows where emergency caches and landing sites are.
You need to have done the "Boating 1" course to step into a boat, and "Boating 2" course to be allowed to drive it. When the weather is good (below 20 knots winds and not to much swell) and after approval of the Boating Coordinator you can organize a boating trip. Usually there will be a announcement on the white board with some sign up spots that will fill quickly. The driver of the boat will try to get an idea of which destinations people want to go to and will drop you off or just take you along for the boat ride itself.

My destination of the day was Torgersen Island, which is really nearby, but houses some Adelie penguin colonies and half the island is accessible to mere mortals. The number one rule in dealing with wild life is that "if the animals alter their behavior" you have gone too close. Luckily, penguins have had no reason to learn to be fearful of humans and have seen many scientists come to the island, so getting close did not alter their behavior in the least bit. It was nice to just sit down and look at what they were doing. It is nesting season for them and they are busy finding the best little stones to bring to their mate at the nest site. This one individual I observed kept fetching rocks and then dropping them a couple of feet from his/her mate. I think he was daunted by the idea of having to run the gauntlet; to get to his mate he would have to pass a couple of others who would invariably do a little pecking and squeaking at him.

One of the scientists counting the penguins

A few of them had eggs already.

Skua, waiting to see if it could steal some eggs.

Hard to tell what it is, just seeing the backside.

On the island was also this beautiful Weddell (I think) seal. Just like the penguins, it was not phased at all by our presence.

The other critters that we saw were a couple of Elephant seals. The females are not unpretty, but the males remind you of why they have the name. They have a big nose and humongous torso. They are full of bloody wounds and scars, because they have had to defend their harem from other males.

Lastly, the beauty of the day was in the surroundings themselves. It certainly is not as sunny here as in McMurdo, but when there is some sun peeking in between the clouds it makes for beautiful light. The brash ice has such beautiful geometrical shapes that I am reminded of my dad's collection of fine glass art. If it were up to me this blog would be filled with just these dreamy forms, but I have done my best to make it just a small selection.

Meanwhile, back in France...

The notary has signed the final act of sale on our behalf and as of today, PP (pronounced "pay pay" in French) is OURS!

Home Sweet Home!