Questions from Mrs. Brown's Class

[Written by Elizabeth Leonardis for our old blog, So Civilized]

Mrs. Brown’s 3rd grade class in Santa Rosa, California are currently reading, “Trapped by the Ice,” a story about Ernest Shakleton’s legendary voyage to Antarctica. Here are some of the questions they had for us.

1. What kinds of penguins are there? Are they nice?
2. How many layers of clothing do you wear?
3.What do you do all day (I told them there were no stores, or parks, or movie theaters, or restaurants)
4. Have you seen a leopard seal? A whale?
5. Are there whales there?
6. Is it cold in the station (I told them you lived in a scientific station – maybe you could describe the housing situation a little bit for them and me)
7. What do you eat, and how do you get your food?
8. Have you seen big waves? Have you been in any storms?
9. Do you have a fireplace? How do you  get heat where you live?
10. Has anyone got hurt there?
11. How do you feel living there?

The penguins that are commonly found on the Western Antarctic Peninsula are known as brush tailed penguins. There are 3 types of penguins in this category, Chinstrap, Gentoo, and Adelie Penguins. The penguins are usually scared of us and we make sure to keep our distance so we don’t frighten them. But they usually cooperate for the scientists studying the penguins in the Palmer area, so yes they are nice most of the time.

Adelie Penguin colony

Chinstrap Penguins

Gentoo Penguins

The area in Antarctica where we are living doesn’t get as cold as other areas of the continent. Therefore, we don’t need to wear too many layers of clothing. On a typical day the air temperature is around freezing or 32ºF (0ºC). If I am going to spend time outside I usually have on long underwear, pants, warm socks, a long sleeve shirt and a jacket. Usually a hat as well.

Alex wearing typical outdoor attire while hiking on the glacier

Most days are work days down here. However, work in Antarctica is much more exciting than in most places. We often get to take a zodiac (big rubber boat) out on the water, taking different measurements and collecting seawater. We also spend time in the lab processing all of the data we collect. In our free time, we go explore nearby islands, visit the penguins, hike the glacier in our backyard, play board games or cards, watch movies, read books, and write to our friends and family back home. Some people here even set up an 18 hole disc golf course in the backyard. We are very rarely bored.

Seawater sampling on our zodiac "Bruiser" photo: Scott Sternbach

Alex & I in our lab filtering seawater photo: Scott Sternbach

Alex & I hiking on the glacier with Mt. William in the background

Playing disc golf in the backyard

Playing the board game "Settlers of Catan" in the bar

While out in the ocean we often run into curious leopard seals, penguins, and sometimes even whales. Frequently, we will see leopard seals napping on big pieces of ice that are floating around our station. These piece of ice break off the glacier in our backyard. Whale season is coming to an end here, but just yesterday we saw 2 Humpback whales swimming near our boat. There are also Minke whales in our area, but the most commonly spotted are the Humpbacks.

A Leopard Seal eating a fish photo: Scott Sternbach

A Humpback whale photo: Andrew McDonnell

The fluke of a Humpback photo: Andrew McDonnell

Minke whale photo: Scott Sternbach

Palmer station is made up of 2 main buildings aboud 200 feet apart, that are connected by a wooden walkway. One building has all the labs, offices, the kitchen/eating area, and some bedrooms. The other building has a lounge (with thousands of DVDs and books), a bar, gym, warehouse for storage, the clinic, the power plant, and more bedrooms. There are other smaller buildings as well but most of us spend the majority of our time in one of the two main buildings. We keep the station very warm and comfortable all the time, just like your houses. The power plant is run on diesel fuel which is brought in by ship. Yes, we do have a fireplace in the galley (kitchen area) but that is only there to make us feel extra cozy and is not needed to keep us warm. The heat is always on!

Palmer Station

There are 2 people here whos job it is to cook all of our meals. They make excellent food and we are very spoiled. All our food comes to us by ship. The only thing we sometimes lack is fresh fruit and vegetables. They only last for so long and in between ships (usually about 1 month between ships) we often run out. The Laurence M. Gould is the ship that comes to Palmer and is how we get back and forth to station. The food I miss the most is fresh tomatoes. However, the ship is arriving in one week so I’ll have fresh tomoatoes very soon!

Wendy and Russell, cooks extraordinaire

Our ship the Laurence M. Gould tied up at Palmer Station pier

Luckily, I haven’t been in any big storms while on the ship. When we crossed the Drake Passage, it was very calm weather and there were very small waves. The biggest waves I’ve experienced were about 15-20 feet and that wasn’t too scary. Every so often we get storms that pass over station and bring very strong winds. The wind can get up to 60 mph!

Since I arrived in October, no one has been injured. We did have one person get sick and need to go to the hospital. It normally takes 5 days by ship to get here but they were able to arrange for a Chilean military plane to pick this person up on top of our glacier. It was very exciting to have a plane land here and luckily our friend is feeling better and resting at home with their family. You can read this earlier post that I wrote for more details about the medevac.

A Chilean Air Force plane landed on the glacier (you can see Palmer station in the lower right corner)

Antarctica is a very special place and I have enjoyed living here for the past 5 months. I feel very fortunate to have been given this amazing opportunity. I am happy that I had the chance to share my experiences with all of you. Antarctica is a magical place.

The beauty of Antarctica