Jan. 13 and 14, 2011
Today is a Friday 2 for 1 special for this journal about studying in Antarctica. Time is flying by down here as Mark and I look at our clocks and realize it is getting late and we haven’t looked at the day’s data or replied to certain emails or taken care of other tasks. This is normal for fieldwork, and is one of the many aspects of being in the field that we must manage and not drive ourselves crazy trying to do everything.
Yesterday (13th) went well and as with every other day so far, brought some craziness. Another cruise ship came into port today, named the Ushuala. A group of about 80 came in at different times, ferried back and forth from the ship by zodiacs. They roamed around the station and talked with the scientists and station members. It has been a busy week for the ships, and I almost feel like this a tourist destination on some Mexico or Alaska cruise.
In terms of an outreach program though, this is very important for people to see where their tax dollars are going and how the station facilitates the study of this area. Everyone is very grateful and interested in the research that goes on here.
After sleeping in and catching up on lots of lost hours of sleep, we waited for the last zodiac of tourists to leave and loaded up our zodiac with the REMUS and anything else we needed. We went around Bonaparte Point (right next to the station) and were about to drop off the REMUS when we noticed that our local iceberg had moved from where it had been the last couple of days.
We went over and took a GPS position and it was sitting right in the middle of where the REMUS was supposed to run. We changed the vehicles path and let it go.
Being the first time going around the islands and having some other troubles flying in days past, we decided to follow it and make sure everything was okay. The mission was only supposed to last a couple of hours, so it would be nice to see some of the local islands.
We got to see some more of the coastline and glaciers that pour off of the bigger islands and continent along with smaller local islands that are inhabited by penguins and seals. At the end of the mission we noticed that the vehicle was not moving through the water anymore so we went over to inspect and found out from our towfish that it was stuck on the bottom in 25 meters of water.
We got a little nervous, but at this point there is not much we could do other than react. Luckily the company has a command built into the towfish that allows us to end the mission, which stops the vehicle and spins the propeller in reverse. What this does is reverse it out of a hole or uncoil seaweed that has gotten stuck in the propeller.
Fortunately this worked and the vehicle floated to the surface (Its does not always work). Lucky again!
We picked it up and returned to the station to figure out how we could change the flight of the vehicle to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We spent the rest of the night looking at data, and downloading pictures and video of the day.
Today (14th), we went out to launch the vehicle that had problems calling in. We got a software fix from the manufacturer so we needed to test it out in and see if it had worked. Yessss! The vehicle called in over the satellite phone so we can set it free in the next couple of days to swim around and we don’t need to worry about it or follow it.
While this vehicle was under the water we went over to look at the iceberg, which had made a friend during the night. Another iceberg was parked right next to it. When I say iceberg, I mean a chunk of ice the size of a football field and we could only see 1/10 of it (the amount that floats above water). We would have to change the path of the next mission again so we would stay away from them if they moved.
After lunch we dropped off the second vehicle and went back to the station. We will now be monitoring the vehicles from the station as they call in and then go out if they have any problems. This allows us to work on other things instead of sitting in a zodiac and having to look at each for a couple of hours.
Everything went great and we went out to pick it up after dinner. Hopefully the data is great. The glider group also went out to pick up a glider that was getting pushed around by currents and the birders and bug group went out and had an eventful day. Almost forgot, we had a couple of visits from a leopard seal close to the dock today. Scary creatures!
We finished up the day by going over to Torgersen Island and walked around to look at the penguin chicks (and adults). Very interesting to see the groups of penguins nurturing their chicks and then to see the Skua flying inches over head looking to pick them off. Nature at its best.
Well, I’m off to look at data and get ready for tomorrow.
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