A day without land or sunshine
Dec. 18th, 2007 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poletopoleShip's Position at 12:00:
Huge tabular icebergs appeared outside the bar just before 23:00 last night! We thought one might even be land — not the first to be so fooled. It was indeed an iceberg, vast and square and stolid. Land, nonetheless, was there: a couple hours later, after crossing a polynya (an open channel in the ice), the ship crunches its bow into heavy multi-year ice pack which is frozen onto the fast ice and stops, approximately 20 miles from the Riiser-Larsen peninsula.
I wake early in the morning hearing irregular ice-crunching noises and sporadic honking. It seems we're still moving and someone is fooling around on the deck below my window, making penguin noises — but no, the ship isn't under way, the ice sounds are from its being pushed by the current or tide into the sides of its ice-chunk berth, and the penguins are real: emperor penguins in several groups and a collection of Adelie penguins, loafing 20 or 30 meters away on the ice at the stern. The Adelie penguins are mostly lying down, napping, a scattering of tidy black-and-white ovals with tapered ends. One doesn't notice how long their tails are until one sees them lying like this.
I watch a line of emperor penguins toboggan over to another group of emperor penguins, to join them in standing or lying around. An Antarctic skua sits near a dozen Adelie penguins and makes them very agitated — they run back and forth in the group, lie down, jump up, and stare at the skua furiously. After quite a lot of this activity (they're probably quonking too, but I can't hear them), the skua gets up and flaps laboriously away. They are awkward birds and have trouble getting airborne from land or water, requiring a running, wing-thrasing start.
The visitation of penguins lasts until after the 9:00 briefing by the expedition staff. A helicopter-landing schedule is flashed on the screen; we are told to prepare for helicopter shuttles starting at 12:00; the last group out will leave at 16:00 and come back at 22:30, so that everyone can have 6 hours of shore time! Or less if they get tired and cold. It remains only for a helicopter to go out on a reconnaissance trip to locate the penguin colony exactly and to check on conditions. In the meantime they suggest we enjoy looking at the penguins just off the stern. At 9:15 the meeting is over, the passengers run back to their rooms to get out their long underwear and cameras, and by 9:16 the friendly penguins have disappeared, never to return, from right beside the ship because they don't like helicopters.
The helicopter returns with its report. We are about 25 miles from the penguin colony, and weather on the continent (which was visible, I'm told, around 1:00 this morning but is not visible now) is deteriorating. The wind is picking up and there's snow coming down. The expedition team puts everything on hold and tells us a decision will be made after another reconnaissance flight around noon. The white-curtain between us and the destination doesn't look promising, and at 13:00 the bad news is broken in another briefing: the weather is worsening, the ceiling is too low (sub-300 meters) for safe helicopter operations, snow blowing on the ground at the penguin rookery is making white-out conditions and thus the helicopters couldn't land even if they could take off, and snow is predicted for the next two days. In other news, Syowa Station has just gotten its relief icebreaker in and cannot have us visit (unfortunate especially because we have 5 Japanese tourists on the ship — I wish that just they could have been flown over to see their country's research station, even if the rest of the group would be too much.) The decision has been made to leave Riiser-Larsen Peninsula and head for Proclamation Island, about 400 miles away. There's a penguin rookery near there, too. And a lot of other stuff, like Mawson and Davis bases. We are assured that now we're two days ahead of schedule, but it does not feel that way. We might arrive at Proclamation Island around 8:00 Thursday morning.
The ship stays put for another hour and a half and people go out and look through binoculars and telephoto lenses at the penguins, which occasionally swim, porpoise, and dive around the stern but have no intention of staying near this helicopter-emitting monster.
A good talk on glaciers this morning (drumlins! varves! kames!) but I skipped the doctor's talk on "how to stay healthy in Antarctica". Reading Scott on scurvy is a very good reminder of how little was understood about how much a hundred years ago.
Scott was no historian and a poor epidemiologist to boot: "...although it is an undoubted fact that with the introduction of lime-juice scurvy was largely diminished [in 1795 the Admiralty first ordered that lemon juice and sugar be issued; in 1806 there was 1 case of scurvy in the British navy], yet it is apt to be forgotten that there were other causes which might have contributed to this result [which Dr James Lind disproved conclusively with a controlled study in 1747 aboard HMS Salisbury]; for at the same time sea voyages were being largely reduced by steam power, and owners were forced to provide much better food for their men. [...] I understand [Scott wrote in 1902] that scurvy is now believed to be ptomaine poisoning, caused by the virus of the bacterium of decay in meat, and, in plain language, as long as a man continues to assimilate this poison he is bound to get worse, and when he ceases to add to the quantity taken the system tends to throw it off, and the patient recovers. The practical point, therefore, is to obtain meat which does not contain this poison... Tainted fresh meat may be virulent, but in the ordinary course of events one eats it rarely and so is saved from any disastrous result. The risk of taint in tinned meat is greater because of the process involved in its manufacture, and with salt meat the risk is greater still for the same reason. To what extent meat must be tainted to produce scurvy is unknown...poison may lurk in a tin of meat which to the sight, taste, and smell appears to be in perfect condition. [...] As having achieved an unsurpassed feat in the prevention of scurvy [Not so! Cook had 0 deaths from scurvy!] Dr Nansen may well be taken as an authority in this matter; and more or less to the point he relates a story where a party of men found a depot of provisions, selected the best tins, ate of them, and got scurvy; his comment is that they would have done better to have selected the worst tins." [from The Voyage of the Discovery.]
Ginny the helpful English lady shows me how to make squares with crochet. I have only red, black, and white yarn, so maybe I could crochet a Nazi flag, put it in a gallery, and call it performance art or subversive postmodern commentary on women's domestic roles supporting nationalism during the Third Reich or something of that sort. Or get a whole group of people to contribute one red, black, or white square each, stitch it together without telling any of them what the final product is, and have a metaphor in the process as well.
The pastry chef thoughtfully provides a large chocolate cake on the tea table.
The only expectation I have is that we will be in Perth on 7 January because Quark's contract requires it.
- 68°20.4' S 34°03.5' E
- Course --; Speed 0 kts (halted)
- Air temperature 4°C; Wind 16 kts; Direction 110°
- Weather: Cloudy, intermittent light snow; Visibility 6
- Ice Cover: Fast ice
- Distance covered past 24 hours: 145.5 nautical miles
Huge tabular icebergs appeared outside the bar just before 23:00 last night! We thought one might even be land — not the first to be so fooled. It was indeed an iceberg, vast and square and stolid. Land, nonetheless, was there: a couple hours later, after crossing a polynya (an open channel in the ice), the ship crunches its bow into heavy multi-year ice pack which is frozen onto the fast ice and stops, approximately 20 miles from the Riiser-Larsen peninsula.
I wake early in the morning hearing irregular ice-crunching noises and sporadic honking. It seems we're still moving and someone is fooling around on the deck below my window, making penguin noises — but no, the ship isn't under way, the ice sounds are from its being pushed by the current or tide into the sides of its ice-chunk berth, and the penguins are real: emperor penguins in several groups and a collection of Adelie penguins, loafing 20 or 30 meters away on the ice at the stern. The Adelie penguins are mostly lying down, napping, a scattering of tidy black-and-white ovals with tapered ends. One doesn't notice how long their tails are until one sees them lying like this.
I watch a line of emperor penguins toboggan over to another group of emperor penguins, to join them in standing or lying around. An Antarctic skua sits near a dozen Adelie penguins and makes them very agitated — they run back and forth in the group, lie down, jump up, and stare at the skua furiously. After quite a lot of this activity (they're probably quonking too, but I can't hear them), the skua gets up and flaps laboriously away. They are awkward birds and have trouble getting airborne from land or water, requiring a running, wing-thrasing start.
The visitation of penguins lasts until after the 9:00 briefing by the expedition staff. A helicopter-landing schedule is flashed on the screen; we are told to prepare for helicopter shuttles starting at 12:00; the last group out will leave at 16:00 and come back at 22:30, so that everyone can have 6 hours of shore time! Or less if they get tired and cold. It remains only for a helicopter to go out on a reconnaissance trip to locate the penguin colony exactly and to check on conditions. In the meantime they suggest we enjoy looking at the penguins just off the stern. At 9:15 the meeting is over, the passengers run back to their rooms to get out their long underwear and cameras, and by 9:16 the friendly penguins have disappeared, never to return, from right beside the ship because they don't like helicopters.
The helicopter returns with its report. We are about 25 miles from the penguin colony, and weather on the continent (which was visible, I'm told, around 1:00 this morning but is not visible now) is deteriorating. The wind is picking up and there's snow coming down. The expedition team puts everything on hold and tells us a decision will be made after another reconnaissance flight around noon. The white-curtain between us and the destination doesn't look promising, and at 13:00 the bad news is broken in another briefing: the weather is worsening, the ceiling is too low (sub-300 meters) for safe helicopter operations, snow blowing on the ground at the penguin rookery is making white-out conditions and thus the helicopters couldn't land even if they could take off, and snow is predicted for the next two days. In other news, Syowa Station has just gotten its relief icebreaker in and cannot have us visit (unfortunate especially because we have 5 Japanese tourists on the ship — I wish that just they could have been flown over to see their country's research station, even if the rest of the group would be too much.) The decision has been made to leave Riiser-Larsen Peninsula and head for Proclamation Island, about 400 miles away. There's a penguin rookery near there, too. And a lot of other stuff, like Mawson and Davis bases. We are assured that now we're two days ahead of schedule, but it does not feel that way. We might arrive at Proclamation Island around 8:00 Thursday morning.
The ship stays put for another hour and a half and people go out and look through binoculars and telephoto lenses at the penguins, which occasionally swim, porpoise, and dive around the stern but have no intention of staying near this helicopter-emitting monster.
A good talk on glaciers this morning (drumlins! varves! kames!) but I skipped the doctor's talk on "how to stay healthy in Antarctica". Reading Scott on scurvy is a very good reminder of how little was understood about how much a hundred years ago.
Scott was no historian and a poor epidemiologist to boot: "...although it is an undoubted fact that with the introduction of lime-juice scurvy was largely diminished [in 1795 the Admiralty first ordered that lemon juice and sugar be issued; in 1806 there was 1 case of scurvy in the British navy], yet it is apt to be forgotten that there were other causes which might have contributed to this result [which Dr James Lind disproved conclusively with a controlled study in 1747 aboard HMS Salisbury]; for at the same time sea voyages were being largely reduced by steam power, and owners were forced to provide much better food for their men. [...] I understand [Scott wrote in 1902] that scurvy is now believed to be ptomaine poisoning, caused by the virus of the bacterium of decay in meat, and, in plain language, as long as a man continues to assimilate this poison he is bound to get worse, and when he ceases to add to the quantity taken the system tends to throw it off, and the patient recovers. The practical point, therefore, is to obtain meat which does not contain this poison... Tainted fresh meat may be virulent, but in the ordinary course of events one eats it rarely and so is saved from any disastrous result. The risk of taint in tinned meat is greater because of the process involved in its manufacture, and with salt meat the risk is greater still for the same reason. To what extent meat must be tainted to produce scurvy is unknown...poison may lurk in a tin of meat which to the sight, taste, and smell appears to be in perfect condition. [...] As having achieved an unsurpassed feat in the prevention of scurvy [Not so! Cook had 0 deaths from scurvy!] Dr Nansen may well be taken as an authority in this matter; and more or less to the point he relates a story where a party of men found a depot of provisions, selected the best tins, ate of them, and got scurvy; his comment is that they would have done better to have selected the worst tins." [from The Voyage of the Discovery.]
Ginny the helpful English lady shows me how to make squares with crochet. I have only red, black, and white yarn, so maybe I could crochet a Nazi flag, put it in a gallery, and call it performance art or subversive postmodern commentary on women's domestic roles supporting nationalism during the Third Reich or something of that sort. Or get a whole group of people to contribute one red, black, or white square each, stitch it together without telling any of them what the final product is, and have a metaphor in the process as well.
The pastry chef thoughtfully provides a large chocolate cake on the tea table.
The only expectation I have is that we will be in Perth on 7 January because Quark's contract requires it.
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Date: 2007-12-19 06:25 pm (UTC)