Boating at Palmer Station

I'm finally back at Palmer Station for the duration of my time in the Antarctic. My plan for my first night here was to hike the glacier behind the station -- a towering wall of ice that has been increasingly receding as the area continues to warm.

But then some folks put together a little boating expedition to nearby Torgersen Island, a rocky island less than 10 minutes away from the station by Zodiac. It's home to an Adelie penguin colony, a fact you can smell as well as see as you hit the downwind approach. Nearby at Elephant Rocks, brutish elephant seals slammed into one another like mammalian versions of sumo wrestlers ...





Elephant seals duels at the eponymously named Elephant Rocks.


Predatory skuas attempt to steal an Adelie chick from its parent.

Parental love among penguins.

Palmer Station with an iceberg in the harbor.

A Zodiac boat used for transportation in the area.

Palmer Station

The dreaded Drake Passage was more like Drake Lake.

I arrived at Palmer Station, a scattering of buildings clinging to the coast of Anvers Island along the Antarctic Peninsula, on Dec. 3. The middle of the four-day crossing is infamously rough between the tips of South America and the peninsula because of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the world's largest ocean current, which circles the continent completely unimpeded by land. High seas and lying low in your bunk are the norm, I'm told. But Poseidon or whatever marine deity that rules these seas was kind to us, and after a day of precautionary seasick meds, I enjoyed the trip, getting to know some of the scientists and crew aboard the ship.

The captain of the Laurence M. Gould, a stick-thin and amiable fellow named Joseph Abshire, said it was one of the two or three calmest crossings he's seen out of 40 or 50 clips across that stretch of sea.

It's a surprisingly young bunch onboard, recent graduates and postdocs, with a few polar veterans, led by Hugh Ducklow, chief scientist who has been working down here since 1994. It's mostly Americans, though the postdoc, an infectiously cheerful lady named Kim Bernard, is from South America, and the chief engineer, a sort of silent, strong type, is from Portugal.

While uneventful in terms of high seas, we enjoyed some wildlife en route, including a large pod of Commerson's Dolphins in the Straits of Magellan. The black and white dolphins looked a bit like mini orcas, gliding and slicing through the rolling waves during the long twilight. Sadly, no photos.

However, lots of other picture opportunities, as you'll see below, and plenty more to come, esp. with nearly 24 hours of daylight. Technically, the sun sets for about two hours or so right now, but it's always daylight out. Not a lot of time for blogging, as the science cruise is preparing to leave, and I'll be on the ship for another day or two to see most of the operation in action, then back to Palmer Station for about a month.

Not all is white in Antarctica. Lichen on rocks.

Palmer Station. My home for about a month.

The breathtaking Neumayer Channel near Palmer Station.

The ship tied up at the Palmer pier.

A crabeater seal prepares to slide off a tiny iceberg into the water, which is right at freezing.

The First 24 Hours or So ...

The second night in Punta Arenas, Chile. If I may: What a long strange trip it's been to get down here. Saturday morning started with a little snowstorm in Denver, with the inevitable delays to de-ice the plane. Of course, the de-icing machine ran out of fluid, adding another half hour to our time on the ground. Fortunately, my connection at LAX was still a couple of hours away by the time we finally arrive, so plenty of time to make the next plane.

LAX: Still chaotic, still ghetto. And smells like an overused gym locker.

A smooth flight to Santiago, which was warm and humid. The city is hemmed in by mountains, and home to about a third of the country's population. But all I saw of it was the airport for a couple of hours before boarding yet another plane for a final three-hour flight to Punta Arenas. By this time, my eyeballs felt as if someone had been poking them with dry erasers; I hadn't slept much at all during the marathon 24 hours of flying and waiting.

It was a fairly pleasant flight, with tremendous views of the Andes for much of the way. Very different than the Rockies, with some dramatic volcanoes punctuating the endless spine of peaks with their perfectly shaped cones. Punta Arenas' notorious wind greeted us on the descent, rocking the plane back and forth like an overzealous nanny rocking a baby's cradle.

AGUNSA, the company contracted to handle the logistics in Chile, met me at the airport. Punta Arenas is only about a 20-minute drive from the airport. The region and city itself are surprisingly hilly. The town seems to be a mix of ugly modern buildings and some wonderful Old World architecture, including my hotel, Jose Nogueira, which boasts a restaurant in a sort of vine-draped arboretium (quite warm when the sun fights through the constant overcast).

After a much-needed shower, I made for the main square, right around the corner from the hotel. A monument of Ferdinad Magellan dominates the little city park. Travelers are supposed to rub the big, polished toe of an Ona India lounging at Magellan's feet to ensure a safe return to the city. So I rubbed the hell out of that foot.

The food: My Spanish isn't nearly as good as I thought it was, so each meal has been somewhat of a surprise and not entirely what I expected. An order of what I thought would be steak and salad was a sliced beef sandwich covered in tomatoes and drowned in mayo -- a very popular condiment apparently. Seafood is plentiful here, and the local speciality is king crab.

Monday morning was back to work for me -- I went to the AGUNSA warehouse where I picked up my cold weather gear for the trip south and met a few of the people headed down on the other ship in port. The U.S. Antarctic Program has two vessels -- the Palmer and the Gould. The former leaves after we do, headed to the east side of the Anarctic Pensinsula to study the remnants of an ice shelf that collapsed there nearly eight years ago. I'll be aboard the Gould, which will be on its annual voyage to observe the marine ecosystem along the western edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. I'll be with the ship for a while and then spending the remainder of my time at the Palmer research station.

Al Hickey, the point man for Raytheon aboard the Palmer, gave me a tour of the ship in the afternoon. The vessel will be at max capacity with 70 people for its two-month journey, so the deck was packed with equipment. Two helicopters were squeezed into a hangar -- only the second time the ship has sailed with helos.

Tuesday I check out of my hotel and report to the ship, where I'll spend the night before we sail on Wednesday. I'll only have very limited email during the four days it takes to sail to Palmer Station.

Bon voyage!


Helos squeezed into a hangar aboard the Palmer.


A crane lifts supplies onto the Gould.



The statue of Magellan. Note the dangling foot of the Indian on the right.

A view of Punta Arenas outside my hotel window.

48 Hours and Counting

Less than two days before I board a plane -- well, several planes -- on my fifth trip to Antarctica. This will be my first visit to Palmer Station, and by all accounts, the perfect time to visit. Wildlife will be at its peak, and I should definitely see penguins and other seabirds, possible several species of seals, and maybe even whales. More importantly, I'll be there at a busy time of the year for polar research, joining the Palmer LTER team aboard the Laurence M. Gould, a science vessel in the U.S. Antarctic Program's two-ship fleet. Seasickness meds packed.

My route will take me from Denver to L.A. (an unusual stop, as usually people exit the country via Dallas or Miami) to Santiago, Chile, to Punta Arenas, the largest city in Patagonia. Based on the itinerary, it's about a full 24 hours of planes and airports, meaning I'll leave Saturday morning, the day after Christmas, and arrive sometime in the afternoon on Sunday in PA. The Gould and the Nathaniel B. Palmer are both in port right now, a rare opportunity to see both vessels together. Al Hickey, a sometime employee of RPSC, has promised to give me a tour of the Palmer, so I hope to get some good pics and maybe even a story before the adventure really begins.

Countdown Begins

Only 10 days before I head south once more to Antarctica, my fifth trip since 2003.

This time is different: A visit to Palmer Station, a research base for the U.S. Antarctic Program out on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the spine of the Andes re-emerges after a dunk into the Southern Ocean from South America. I'm scheduled to take a USAP icebreaker, the ARSV Laurence M. Gould out of Punta Arenas across the dreaded Drake Passage.

I'll spend about six weeks aboard the vessel and the station, writing stories about climate science, penguins, the people and other topics for The Antarctic Sun. I'll also post short dispatches, pictures and videos here of the trip as often as I can.

Here are a couple of more pics from the Antarctic Photo Library to whet your appetite:

Leopard seal with an unlucky penguin in its mouth.

A typical scene aound the peninsula.

Movie Madness

I just got a Flip Camera to use for work. It's about as basic as it gets for video: One big red button. Push it to record, push it again to stop. The software is simple but free, allowing you to cut and stitch your clips together into a little movie, perfect for the Web. Here's my first effort, recorded during a snowshoeing trip to the mountains.

Twitter Tipping Point

The term "tipping point" has certainly entered our modern-day discourse with great gusto, and it can refer to anything from climate tipping points to the seemingly sudden widespread coolness of things like PBR and Hush Puppy shoes, as Malcolm Gladwell noted in his book The Tipping Point, which deconstructs the breaking point for social epidemics.

Add my Twitter account to the latest tipping point phenomena. About a week ago, I had 50, 60, maybe 70 or so followers, people who for some reason have decided they want to hear what I have to say, perhaps multiple times a day, in 140-character snippets. I've at least doubled that number in the last few days after adding my name to a sort of list serv of Society of Environmental Journalists. Now every green, eco-conscious writer, PR professional and spamming love goddess wants to join my virtual cult.

I feel empowered. I feel ... overwhelmed.

Part of this game, as I understand it, is to at least consider following a follower, in some sort of all-inclusive game of leap frog. Yet my inbox is quickly filling in with new acolytes. Who do I follow? How many different "green" headlines do I really need to see? How many can I, in reality, ever see, as the hits come faster and faster. Look away and 30 or 40 souls have cried out into the virtual void, seeking to make their voice count in the most disjointed, ephemeral conversation ever undertaken.

On the other hand, I am getting more RTs and #FFs ... what more can one ask in virtual life?