Follow along on an Antarctic Adventure

Greetings from Punta Arenas, Chile!

My travels began almost a week ago, on Saturday January 3 out of Tallahassee. It was a long journey to Chile involving a four and a half hour delay in the Atlanta airport, and rogue luggage that went through Miami to Santiago, rather than on the plane with me from Atlanta to Santiago.

Finally after about 36 hours of travel I made it to Punta Arenas, on the southern tip of Chile. Although it was 11:30pm when we stumbled out of the airport, it was still twilight because of how far south we are here. This time of year, summer in the southern hemisphere, the sun rises around 5:30am and sets around 10pm – that’s 16 and a half hours of sunlight! It’s convenient for all the work we’ve been doing loading science gear onto our ship, but it has totally messed with my internal clock.

Mobilization began on January 5 which included loading all the science gear on the ship. They have lab spaces for us which include benches, drawers, cabinets, fume hoods (for working with solvents or acids), and chemical storage, but we bring all of our science supplies. We’ll load the last bit of cargo on the ship tonight and then head out through the Strait of Magellan early tomorrow morning. This strait is an important passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; however, it is very difficult to navigate because it can be quite narrow in spots and there are often high winds and fast currents. We will have a pilot coming onboard tonight who will safely navigate us through the passage, then he will get off the ship before we head south towards Antarctica.

In addition to setting up the labs, we are also having meetings about safety. We all need to know how to respond in the event of an emergency. On the ship we have an alarm. The pattern of the alarm alerts us as to what the emergency is. If it’s three short blasts that means there is a fire or piracy (though we aren’t too concerned about piracy in this part of the world). If it’s seven short blasts followed by a long blast that means man overboard. If it’s one long blast it means abandon ship.

We are also each assigned a life jacket and a survival suit which we may need depending on the emergency. Although going through the safety training is serious because there are real dangers here, it is always fun when everyone is trying on the survival suits. They will keep us warm and floating in the water but are cumbersome on land! We are also assigned extreme cold weather gear from the US Antarctic Program, which includes boots, lots of different types of gloves, hats, and various pants and jackets that we may want for operations out on the deck. Although it is summer down here it is still cold!

While I’m at sea I’ll be posting as often as I can about the science conducted on the ship as well as what it’s like to live on board.

If you have any specific questions, contact me at babcock-adams@magnet.fsu.edu and I will respond as I can. We have internet on the ship, but it is limited (and the farther south we go the spottier the coverage may be).

Until next time,

Lydia