Antarctic Field Course - Study Abroad

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Amanda's Journal

QA

Please use the links below to view a specific date further down the page. December - 2003 Sun. 14 Mon. 15 Tue. 16 Wed. 17 Thu. 18 Fri. 19 Sat. 20 Sun. 21 Mon. 22 Tue. 23 Wed. 24 Thu. 25 Fri. 26 Sat. 27 Sun. 28 Mon. 29 Tue. 30 Wed. 31 January - 2004 Thu. 1 Fri. 2 Sat. 3 Sun. 4 Mon. 5

Photos credited to Amanda. Click an image to enlarge, hover over an image for a description.

Sunday, December 14, 2003

The flight from Detroit to Miami was fine; it lasted about five hours, but I started reading the Antarctic Primer to prepare for our first exam on Monday, so I got some stuff done. Then we had a seven hour layover in Miami, and I got some more reading done there. It was pretty boring; I don't know how my sister loves airports, because you just sit there.

The flight to Buenos Aires was a different story - I think it redefined hell for the entire group. Picture a group of about 200 giggling, clapping, spastic, Spanish-speaking 15-year-old girls. Then cram them in a jumbo jet and let them run around for nine hours doing whatever they want. If there is one thing I have learned from this flight, it is to expect the worse, because I certainly wasn't expecting anything like that, and I don't think a flight could get much worse than that.

I got the rest of my primer and part of my course pack read on the first two flights, and I don't know how I did it with everything that was going on around me. The stuff we're reading is interesting, and I'm learning quite a bit about all the animals and environment. I didn't know that 50 percent of seal's body weight is skin and fat as a result of cold adaptations. I also did not know that fish can survive without a lot of red blood cells because the water is so oxygenated they don't need the hemoglobin, and they have yellowish translucent blood. Also, I didn't realize that penguins in Antarctica are so adapted to the cold that they don't do very well in warmer climates. Just imagine if global warming really got going, then the penguins would really be in trouble.

The last flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia was the best one, I think. It was stone quiet, and I was trying to read my course pack, but I fell right to sleep. We had to land at an airstrip a couple of hours from Ushuaia, and for a minute, I thought we were landing on Mars or something. The land was just lifeless, there were some desert-looking tufts of grass and the water we flew over was so clear, but everything else was just rocks and grayness. I wonder how there can be such a difference in environment just a little ways away on the same continent. I mean, here in Ushuaia there is all this lush green growth everywhere - trees on the mountains, grass, flowers, all this green, but in that other town, it was all rock and bare ground. Maybe it has something to do with Ushuaia being right on the water, and all the mountains surrounding it. Maybe the water surrounding it is more nutrient-rich.

Today was also our first time spent in Ushuaia. We got here around six o'clock, and we were going to go to dinner, but the restaurants here close from 3 to 8, and everyone starts eating around nine or so. When we were coming in to land, I could not believe how beautiful the scenery was - it made my jaw drop. The mountains are absolutely breathtaking; they seem to rise right up out of the ocean, and they are green and lush and rolling for a good portion, then as they taper off towards the peak, the trees disappear and the black rock is visible and there is snow on the tops.

We got to look around a little bit, and we tried to get our bearings. We ate at this great restaurant called the Bar Ideal, and I got trout stuffed with king crab and steamed vegetables. I think it was the best meal I have ever eaten, probably because I was so hungry. Later that night, I went for a walk with Cathy, Jaclyn, Kannan, and Mike to the far pier and the old airport. It was really fun, because we got to see Ushuaia all lit up from kind of a distance.

Monday, December 15, 2003

Anyway, back to the museum information. I thought the museums were quite interesting, and very informative about the history of Tierra del Fuego and the Ushuaia area. I found out that Ushuaia is a relatively new city, and hadn't been populated by many people until the late 1800's. The Museo del Fin del Mundo had information about the history of Ushuaia, like the explorers and the first settlements and the shipwrecks and explorers and things like that. I liked the figurehead they had hanging up from the wreck of the Duchess of Albany. I also really liked the wildlife displays they had set up there. There was a whole room devoted to the birds of the area, everything from owls to hawks to ducks to penguins - it was my favorite part of the museum. They also had a small area devoted to seals, and we got to see the difference between crabeater seal teeth and leopard seal teeth. Since crabeater seals really only feed on krill, they evolved this unique sieve-like dentition, where the edges of their teeth have a kind of scalloped edge so they can squeeze the water out of their mouths but still keep the krill inside. The leopard seals have a very smooth-sided but sharp tooth, and is just as different as can be from the crabeater seals teeth.

The other museum we went to, the Museo Yamana, had more to do with the paleohistory of Ushuaia, and the entire world. We learned about land bridges, and that America was the last continent to be inhabited because it had a large ice sheet that covered the only land bridge onto it. We also learned that Antarctica has not always been covered with ice; there are fossils of grasses and bushes and tree species similar to the ones found in Ushuaia today. This is one of the greatest pieces of evidence to prove that Antarctica was once connected to places like South America and Africa and Australia in the supercontinent of Gondwana. I also learned from Craig that Gondwana was the supercontinent of South America, India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere, and Pangea was the supercontinent of North America and Eurasia in the Northern Hemisphere.

We also learned a lot about the native people of Tierra del Fuego. Two of the tribes were the Selknam and the Yamana, and they were very interesting to learn about. They were adapted to the cold, so they didn't wear clothes, they just ran around naked and covered themselves in seal oil. I guess they had some kind of adaptation like the animals we have been reading about. I thought it was kind of unfortunate that most of the tribes died out or have very few remaining descendents left because their ancestors were so susceptible to the diseases from the Europeans that came to Ushuaia during the age of exploration and the whaling period.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

We also had another field assignment to do today. We had to go to the Ushuaia maritime museum and write down 5 facts we found interesting from the Darwin wing. This museum was a lot bigger than the other two, and was housed in the old Ushuaia prison. I liked this museum a lot, because it told a lot about the social history of Ushuaia. The Darwin wing was interesting too; we found a lot of fun facts about penguins, like that fact that they will never back down from anything, despite their small size.

Other than that, the day was pretty average for us at this point. A group of us went to lunch and then walked around the city until it was time to meet back at the hotel for our briefing on boat safety and group project discussions. I feel a lot more confident about the group projects now than I did a few days ago.

My topic is whale breeding ecology, so I was a little skeptical on how that was going to work out, since whales breed in warmer waters up north in the winter, and just come to feed in Antarctica in the winter. But I talked it over with Craig, and I'm going to be doing behavioral observations of mother whales and their calves - how does the calf signal to the mother that it wants to feed, how do the calves differ in behavior from the adults, do they follow the boats, do they stay with their moms, etc. It would also be interesting to try to find out if human interactions, like the tourist ship we're on now, have any impact on the relationship between a mother and her calf.

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

We also learned more about the cryosphere, and that something does not have to contain water to be frozen, it just has to have a temperature below 0 degrees Celsius. Craig also went into a little bit about system interactions, talking about how penguin rookeries affect the nearby plant life, because the penguin waste helps to fertilize the nearby plants and gives new life to the surrounding area. I like the idea that you can really see that everything you do here has multiple effects, no matter how small your actions.

Today was also the day that we left Ushuaia! We got on board the M/V Orlova around 4:00, then had introductions and dinner, and left around 9:00. It hasn't really sunk in that I am actually going to Antarctica yet, it all seems like a dream so far.

Even when we saw Ushuaia getting smaller and smaller as we sailed away from it, I still can't believe this is really happening. We saw some wildlife as we were heading out in the Beagle Channel - some gulls, some giant petrels, and a black-browed albatross. The birds are so big here! Their wing spans look disproportionate to their bodies, they are so big. We should hit Drake Passage around 2 or 3 in the morning tonight, so I hope we go through the worst of it while we are asleep.

Thursday, December 18, 2003

I slept for most of the day, but I did make myself go out on deck for about 15 minutes this evening. I don't really know how to describe what I saw. There is nothing but ocean everywhere you look - no land or speck of anything else but water anywhere. It is either the most beautiful or the most desolate thing I have seen in my life so far. The ship rocks back and forth in a way that I'm not sure how it can still be upright and not have breached. The waves do not seem that big, but I know that my sense of depth perception is skewed by this vast expanse of water, and someone told me earlier they are about 20 feet high.

There are birds that seem to be circling and following the ship - I am sure that some of them are black-browed albatrosses, but I am not sure of the others. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the birds will follow the ships in hopes of getting scraps of food, and I wonder if this is a change in their regular foraging habits, or does the ship kind of scrounge up fish and krill in its wake and does that help the birds? Either way, it is some kind of impact on the food web. Maybe the human impact is helping the albatross population to flourish if they receive food while following tourist ships.

So far the ride has been tolerable, but I think we are in for some rougher weather tonight. I was looking out the window earlier, and there are some nasty looking clouds headed our way. Someone told me earlier that this is the roughest it has been in the passage for the season so far. In a way I am kind of glad that we get a rougher ride - we get to see what it is really like and we can brag to all of our friends later that we survived the roughest sea in the world.

Friday, December 19, 2003

Anyway, after the rough night, the sailing was very calm for the rest of the day. I got up early and went to breakfast, then went outside on the top deck to see if there were any whales about. There weren't, so I decided to amuse myself by trying to take pictures of the birds following the boat. Craig told me the reason they follow the boat is because krill and copepods get scrounged up by the wake we leave behind, so the birds get an easy meal. The big treat for me today was the chance to see a wandering albatross very close up - he flew right by me when I was on deck, and again later when I was at the very front of the boat looking at the horizon.

We had three lectures and a film today, and I went to all of them. The first lecture was about Antarctic ice, and was very informative. It refreshed my memory about all the things I had read in the primer, like the fact that big rocks pointing out of the snow and ice are really the tops of buried mountains. I think that will make me think a little more carefully about where I am stepping and how I view the landscape, because what I think is a stretch of snow may in fact be a fjord covered with snow.

The second lecture was on Antarctic birds, which helped me to identify some of the birds I have been seeing, like the cape petrel, the wandering albatross, the black-browed albatross, prions, and giant petrels. I think my favorite picture of that lecture was one taken of a sooty albatross, just because they look so perfect you think they can't possibly be real living and breathing creatures. After that we had a film called 90 degrees south, which was about Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. I never realized that Scott and his men knew they were going to die at the end, I figured they had just collapsed while walking towards their destination. I don't know if I would have been brave enough to accept the fact that I had done all I could and just wait for the end to come. But at least they died doing something they loved to do - exploring. Our last lecture was on the Antarctic food web, which reiterates the fact that Antarctica is a system, and every link in the chain has an effect on every other link, either directly or indirectly.

Our last event for the day was a briefing on zodiac safety for when we do our first landing in Antarctica tomorrow! They said we should be able to see gentoo and chinstrap penguins, and possibly some seals. Finally, we will be able to see what we really came here for!

Saturday, December 20, 2003

Aitcho Island was our first stop, and we were able to see gentoo and chinstrap penguins, two weddel seals, and lots of southern elephant seals. I think it was the most wildlife we saw all day, and it was so amazing to see all of those wild animals up close with no barriers in between. I think the penguins are my favorite so far, I just love the way they walk and row on the snow and wave their flippers around. The weddel seals were pretty cool too - they mostly slept while we were there, but it seemed like they would pose for the cameras once in a while. While they sleep they look so happy and content because their mouths naturally turn up at the corners, and they keep their eyes closed very tight so it looks like they are laying there sunning themselves and smiling.

We learned later that seals naturally keep their nostrils closed as well, so when they want to breathe through their noses, they have to flex a muscle to open one or both nostrils. It helps them when they are doing long dives in the water, so they don't have to worry about getting water up their noses. The elephant seals were quite vocal, and I'm not talking about yelling and squawking. They like to lay in close bodily contact with each other (we learned that is called thigmotaxis) and burp and fart all the time. They are fun to listen to and watch if you can mind the smell (the same goes for penguins).

Our next stop of the day was to Yankee Harbor where we really got down to collecting data. On Aitcho Island we counted the number of seals and tried to age them, but at Yankee Harbor the real seal group took over and we were left to scour the shore looking for washed up penguin remains. We found two specimens, but we weren't sure if they had been from natural causes or seal attacks. We saw more penguins on this island as well, mostly gentoo, but we actually saw a lone Adelie and a lone macaroni, which is very rare in these parts of Antarctica. He might have been one of a pair of macaronis taking a break from incubating an egg from a distant island, or he could have been a juvenile penguin scoping for other penguins.

We had a little whale watch before our last island, and I had one a little bit after we got back, but there were no whale sightings. That was really unfortunate because the conditions were perfect - no snow for most of the day, and flat calm waters without any whitecaps. We will have to start our group whale watch soon, because the only data we can get is from the boat, and we have not really seen any whales yet. I saw two minke whales this morning before our first expedition, and I got a really good picture, but I will have to record the data soon before I forget.

Our last expedition of the day was to Half-Moon Island. There was a chinstrap penguin rookery there, and we found two elephant seals and three weddel seals. Stacey, Jen and I couldn't get to the seals, so we got to ride around in a zodiac to try and spot more seals and observe the ones we already found. It was probably one of the better trips so far, because we got to see so much around the island itself, and then we got to hike up a ridge and see this beautiful mountain range with pure undisturbed snow. It was around 10:00 at night, and it was as light as day out. I love the midnight sun - you never feel like going to bed, even when you know you should. It seems to give you more energy, and I know it makes me more cheerful and ready to go.

Sunday, December 21, 2003

Our first expedition took us to the outside of the island, to a place called Baily Head, the site of the largest penguin rookery in Antarctica. Olle said there were probably about 200,000 chinstrap penguins there right now, but after the chicks hatch there will be about 500,000. Stacey, Jen and I first started our visit out by looking for penguin remains again, and we found a lot on this island. Some of the carcasses looked like they had been turned inside out, which I thought was kind of interesting. I know that with that many penguins you get a lot of them dying of natural causes or from secondary stuff like infection from wounds and things like that, and then other animals scavenge on their bodies. But how would a smaller or same-size animal be able to turn the whole skin inside out in one piece? It has been mentioned that seals can do that sort of thing, but everyone keeps telling us that it probably wasn't a seal that has been killing the penguins we have been seeing, because a seal would not have left the remains on the beach. I guess I will still have to keep looking for answers on the islands. It's kind of fun not knowing, like a puzzle I have to figure out.

One very cool thing for me at Baily Head happened while I was sitting on the beach watching the penguins and taking pictures. The penguins on this island were very curious, and as I sat there for longer and longer, they would come closer and closer, until one decided he would come right up to me and take some rocks off of my boot. I just about died; seeing a wild penguin that close to me is probably something that will never happen again.

Our second zodiac trip took us to the inside of the island, to a place called Whaler's Bay. Whaling ships used to tow tons of whales into the bay on the inside of the island and had a whole processing system set up on shore. Later it was used for research, but it was almost totally destroyed by the last volcanic eruption. The buildings and whaling stations set up there are very weathered and look like they are about to collapse. No one was allowed inside any of the buildings, except for the old hangar because there was an airplane still inside you could take pictures of. I decided to walk down the shoreline, and found some old boats and a large collection of whale bones. The bones were so big; one section of bone was about twice the size of my backpack.

I also saw four weddel seals lying on the snow by the water, just sleeping. Then I climbed up the mountain to this big break in the rock called Neptune's Window. I think the view from that overhang was one of the best we have seen on this trip. You could watch the waves crash on the rocks underneath you, and the water was the bluest I have ever seen. After my climb, it was time to go swimming! We had our bathing suits on underneath all of our gear, and some of the sailors dug a pit to get to the thermally heated waters. I had originally thought that there were natural hot springs heated by the volcano, but instead they had to dig in the sand to get at the 50-degree water for us. We made it seem a lot warmer because we ran into the freezing cold ocean, then ran back and jumped in the pit. If felt like a hot tub after that first initial shock. I think almost everyone went in, even the teachers. Today was one of the more exciting days, and a lot of good stuff happened.

Monday, December 22, 2003

The next expedition is set to take place on Peterman Island, at the southern end of the Lemaire Channel. This channel is only a mile wide at most, and sometimes shrinks down to a width of half a mile. The only problem is when icebergs clog it up and ships can't get through the channel, which is what happened to us earlier. So, the ship had to turn around, and now we are heading the long way around to the island. We are doing a mandatory whale watch at the moment, and I just finished a shift. We are having some problems trying to convince people to come out and help us collect our data. Hopefully we will get some people to help us before the trip is over and the whales are all gone. April has been our biggest helper so far, and she has covered more than her share of shifts, which is really nice of her since she isn't even in the whale group.

(Later in the day…)
We had our dinner on deck tonight - a barbeque! It was a really good day for it too, because it was so calm and sunny and warm. The staff all came out for it and we listened to music and had a great time. While we were eating we finally arrived at the southernmost end of the Lemaire Channel, and we set off for Peterman Island after desert. They told us that this was the only time we were going to see an Adelie penguin rookery, so I was very excited about it. I wonder why some penguins have rookeries on some islands and not on others. For example, we have been seeing many gentoo and chinstrap colonies the past few days, but they were only both on the same island once. Maybe it has something to do with currents or water temperature, or even the height of the rocks along the coast.

I think the Adelies are my favorite species, because they just look so classic with the all-white abdomen and all-black head. This was also the night we stayed on deck for a little while to watch the sunset and look for more whales. It is so amazing how the sun stays up for so long - it is half past midnight, and the sun is still shining brightly. I am definitely starting to feel the effects of lack of sleep, because when the sun stays up, I want to stay up too. I feel that if I go to bed, I will miss something, and since this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I should be making the most of my time. I'm having a hard time finding a happy medium between sleep and staying awake on this trip.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

We started early and got to Paradise Bay ahead of most of the group. This was our only landing that took us to the actual continent, so now I can say that I have actually set foot on Antarctica. There was an old Argentinean base right on the rocks by the edge of the water, and then the mountains just jutted up right above them. We had a little trouble finding a zodiac landing spot, but we managed to find one near one of the buildings, surrounded by nesting gentoo penguins. We waited around for a little while, but then Craig told us we could go ahead and have fun today! So we really made the most of this opportunity by hiking up a very steep mountain and sliding back down on our backsides in the little paths we made. It was like a giant waterslide, except with snow - maybe more like your own personal luge. It was so much fun!

Then after that we went on a zodiac cruise for about an hour. I had the most amazing whale moment of my life - we were watching to see where the minke we were watching was going to surface, and I looked down and saw that the whale was swimming right towards our zodiac! The water was so clear and the whale was so close to our boat that you could see everything clear as day. He swam underneath our boat and I saw his mouth and blowhole and even his eye as he swam by and looked at us. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life - so majestic and regal and just amazing. Then, as if that wasn't enough, we got to drive by a glacier and then go onto an iceberg! I can't believe I got to walk around on a real iceberg just sitting there in the water. While I was walking around on it I noticed that you could see little glimmers of light blue light coming through the thin snow covering the ice. I guess the berg we were on was not as old and compacted as the other bluer ones we have been seeing. Maybe it had fallen of the glacier recently.

Later after lunch, we were having a meeting, and Olle came to our group and told us that there were humpbacks breaching off the bow! It came at the perfect time, because I was getting a little anxious about not having any data for my whale project. Ironically, we had spent about six hours on deck the day before looking for whales, and they decide to show up when we are stuck inside. But I was so relieved that they finally found us and let us observe them for a while. It was great - there was a mother and her calf, and the calf was spyhopping and breaching every time he came to surface. We got a full ten or twenty minutes of observations from the humpbacks, and then we spotted a minke of the port side for a couple of minutes. Hopefully I have enough data and observations for my project now.

The fun continued later in the day to our last expedition in Antarctica. This last landing took place on Cuverville Island, where there was a very rocky beach and a gentoo rookery nearby. This was the last expedition for this trip, so I was a little sad going there, but the penguins soon made up for it. I can never get enough of penguins, or take enough pictures of them. I even figured out how to use the video option on my new camera and took some video footage of them trying to walk over all the rocks and popping in and out of the water. During our last couple of moments two of the penguins came within about a foot of Ben and Kannan and I. It was the perfect moment to end our trip to Antarctica.

As of now, we have two more lectures tonight, one on whales and one on ice, and then this evening we will be sailing towards the Drake Passage again to make our way back to Ushuaia, Argentina.

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

We did see some whales later on though, quite a few humpbacks seemed to prefer the open rolling waters of the passage - maybe the krill are easier to round up here. We also had a couple of lectures today. I managed to make it to a few of them - one on the seals of Antarctica, one on global warming, and part of one about Otto Nordenskjold's Swedish expedition to Antarctica from 1901-1903. I had to run out in the middle of that last one due to some nausea. That forward lounge on the ship is quite a killer when it comes to rocking back and forth from the waves.

Thursday, December 25, 2003

protective instinct towards Antarctica - I want to keep it pristine and as untouched as possible. We had a lecture later about whales and the history of whaling. I like hearing about whales, since it relates to my project, but I could have gone without the history of whaling. I know that it is important to know the history of it so we don't repeat the same mistakes we made earlier, but I found the subject to be a little grotesque on an already shaky stomach. Also, I would never voluntarily kill an animal, but that is just my own personal view on things.

Later in the day we rounded Cape Horn, the southernmost part of South America. It was a little weird to see land again - and trees and green grass! We all had to run out on deck and look at the green cover on the mountains and take pictures. Then we went back inside to watch a film about an old four-masted ship that rounded Cape Horn way back when. It was pretty interesting, and I found it funny that the man narrating it said that when he was on the ship he prayed for heavy storms. I would never had made a good sailor, because I pray for exactly the opposite - smooth sailing and dry clothes.

We had an incredible Christmas dinner and gift exchange later that evening. The dinner was one of the most elaborate meals I have ever eaten, comprising of five or six courses and lots of good conversation. Then at the gift exchange everyone was stealing each others presents and laughing and having a good time. Then we had some drinks at the bar and relaxed outside and watched the sunset. The view was amazing - you could see what looked like rainforest and the mountains were just beautiful. It was a shock to me after seeing all that snow and ice, but I think I'll be able to adapt - I really missed trees while I was in Antarctica. I can't believe that the most exciting part of our trip is over already! It seems like we just got on the boat yesterday, and Antarctica was just a dream.

Friday, December 26, 2003

Then we had our meeting about our group and individual projects - what a rude awakening! I worked with Stacey to try to coordinate our projects, but Jen decided to go to bed instead, so I hope our group project isn't too disconnected. She hasn't been forthcoming at all about what she is presenting, and Stacey and I are a little annoyed with her, seeing as how she didn't really help out that much with data collections, and then she left in the middle of our group meeting to go take a nap.

Anyway, after Stacey and I discussed our projects, Cathy and Jaclyn and I went to the grocery store to bye food for tomorrow's day in the field. We bought some bread and cheese for our lunch and ate outside by the ocean. Then we walked around for a little while to stretch our legs, and worked on our journals for a little while. At six o'clock, we had another meeting about our projects, and then went out to dinner.

Since then, I have been working on my oral presentation, and am stressing myself out. I think I am taking schoolwork too seriously, and I need to relax. I'm just very worried about getting a bad grade, but more worried about being unprepared and looking like a fool in front of everyone and disappointing Craig and Bob and John. Luckily, I have good friends here to help me calm down and keep my sanity intact.

Saturday, December 27, 2003

This was really the first time I have had any real mountain hiking experience. I used to go exploring in the woods when I went camping with my family when I was young, and I take my dog for walks on back trails all the time, but I have never had my backpack on and gone up in the mountains with an actual purpose. I loved it! We rode up part of the mountain on a chair lift, and then we hiked up to the glacier from there. I expected the glacier to be a lot bigger, but Bob and Craig said that as long as snow stays on the ground for a year or more without melting, it is considered a glacier. So, we could go to the parking lot of Meijers at home and keep a pile of snow there for a year, and it would be considered a glacier. I thought that was pretty funny.

After the hike to the glacier, it was time to do some work. We used our GPS's to find a pre-set altitude, then blazed a trail into the forest to measure tree density and girth. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work trying to find your way through the fallen trees and the leaves and the mosses and stuff. I liked how we got to learn about different lichens by actually seeing them while we were hiking and taking measurements, and how we got to learn about paraglacial effects. I want to go for another hike tomorrow, but I need to work on my oral presentation. However, when I do go again, I will have to take some warmer clothes and make sure my boots are completely waterproof!

After we got back from our excursion I went out for a little while to relax and eat dinner. I bought a much-needed wool hat, and then came back to the hotel to do a little research on the internet. Unfortunately, my searches did not yield any useful information, so most of my oral presentation will involve information from books I have borrowed from people.

The plan for the rest of the night is simple - work on my oral presentation, then go to bed early to get some sleep!

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Right after Craig's talk we had John give a lecture on toxic chemicals in the aquatic ecosystem. He went over a lot of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, especially PCBs. It was kind of scary to find out that even though Antarctica is considered to be so isolated and such a pristine environment, there are still high levels of PCBs that have accumulated in many top order predators. You come to Antarctica thinking that it is untouched by all of that garbage, and here you find out that you are wrong, because the chemicals can travel such long distances. It makes me angry that we do this to not only our environment close to home, but to environments far away as well. It is a kind of "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist" mentality, and that sickens me. What also bothered me was the fact that early on at McMurdo station, the people just dumped garbage onto the ice to be taken out to sea. How could they do that to such a beautiful place? I just don't understand how we can be so destructive and ugly to the land.

The Antarctic Treaty talk by Craig's friend Chuck did little to dispel my disgust as well. I did not know that raw sewage was dumped into the ocean at the majority of Antarctic bases, and that really shocked me. I though now with all of our technology we could at least try to repair some of the waste problems we are creating, not add more to them. Don't get me wrong, I am all for the advancement of science in the Antarctic regions, but with waste from as many as 1200 people at once, that is going to have some kind of impact on your surrounding environment. I was glad to have Chuck come and talk though; it gave us kind of a break in lecturers.

The rest of the night was spent going to dinner and working on my oral presentation. I have worked pretty hard on it, and I hope I don't get too nervous while giving my presentation on Wednesday. I had Craig look over my slides so far, and he gave me some helpful tips. I will have to do some more research on the internet, but I think I can find everything and finish up pretty soon. I will have to practice in front of some people though, and then I will be ready to present.

Monday, December 29, 2003

After the lecture I went to the Internet café to do some research. It was hard for me to find whale pictures because the computer didn't want to go to the sites that were in English, and they also wouldn't go to the sites that were in Spanish. I eventually found some pictures and some more data, and incorporated them into my power point presentation.

We also had our final exam review this evening, which went pretty fast. We got CDs of all the lectures, which is extremely helpful. When we were going through the lectures for the first time, Bob and Craig went way too fast for anyone to copy anything down. If they wouldn't have handed out the CDs, I think more than half of the people on the trip would be about to fail the exam. I am definitely getting together with some of my friends to study tomorrow. Normally, I would be studying tonight, but I think the review did a good job or refreshing my memory, and I still have more work to do on my presentation. I'm glad that I'm not presenting tomorrow, and I will still have one more night after tonight to work on everything. I thought I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible, but now I will have more time to finish all the details.

Later tonight I went to the Internet café again to do some more research. These long days are killing me! I need to start getting more than 5 hours of sleep a night. Maybe I can sleep on the plane ride home.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

We went on a three hour hike first thing, and it was the best hike I have been on yet. Everything looked so perfect, I didn't think it could be real - it looked like a set right off of a movie. It was a hard hike, but it was worth it, and I had a great time. We saw a lot of different species, and I thought it was neat how the forest would move from all Nothofagus temperate-looking forest to mostly winterbark tropical-looking forest. We also saw some trees called fire bush. Our guide said they were called fire bush because they are the first plants to grow after there is a fire in the area. They had these beautiful bright red flowers blooming off the ends of their branches. I think I got some pictures of them on film. My favorite plant of the day was the winterbark. I liked the fact that shipwrecked sailors who found them when they came ashore could live off the leaves and use them for vitamin C.

Our next hike was not as hard as the first one, but I still had fun. We saw some carnivorous plants called sundews in a bog-like area next to Black Lake. The lake is called Black Lake because, obviously, the waters look black. Right after that we hiked over to White Lake. It was beautiful! The waters were so calm and clear that everything was reflected like a giant mirror. Then we got to skip rocks on the surface and watch all the ripples make a wavy reflection. It was also a good place to rest - we were tired!

Next, we were going to see the beavers but we had to get back to the hotel to start giving our oral presentations. I think everyone but the professors fell asleep on the bus on the ride back to the hotel. Once we got back we heard from about half of the groups that had to present, and everyone did a good job with them. I was surprised at the amount of time it took - even though everyone only talked for about ten minutes each and answered a couple of questions afterwards, it took hours to get through! Then after all that I had to go and work on my own presentation and study for our final for tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

The exam took me about two or two and a half hours to finish, but I thought it was well written and a fair test of what we learned. It certainly was challenging, especially the question that asked us to name ten introduced species to Antarctica and the subantarctic islands. Every time we got asked that question, it seemed like the number of species that we had to name got bigger.

We also had our New Years celebration tonight. It was at the Albatross Hotel, and we had lots of food and champagne and dancing and fun. We got there, and had to wait for the staff to open the doors to the restaurant. We were all so hungry that we sort of charged the doors when they opened them, then claimed our tables and waited impatiently until we could start on the food. They had an amazing buffet of seafood and such, with the biggest shrimp I have ever seen in my life. They still had the heads and everything left on them, so we had to decapitate them and peel them right there at the table. We went through quite a few napkins and spilled drinks before were done with that course. Then we got to hear some live music from a girl playing a saxophone - Christmas music! I think those were the only Christmas songs I heard on the trip so far. After that, we got to see a man and woman do the tango. They must have been professionals, because they were incredible to watch. That was my highlight for the evening.

The rest of the night was typical for our group, I think. We ate our dinners, then had champagne at midnight and everyone got a little tipsy and had fun on the dance floor - even Craig! I think his dancing was the funniest out of everyone's, and I hope someone got some video of it. I went home a little early because I was tired and didn't feel like drinking that much, so I got Alyssa and Mike to walk back with me. Then I went to bed looking forward to some much-needed sleeping in the next day.

Thursday, January 1, 2004

Friday, January 2, 2004

We drove to the airport and flew into the Buenos Aires airport after about three hours, and got a little tour of the city on our way to our hotel. Our tour guide was really informative, and she told us a couple of places we might want to check out. We got to drive downtown to what would be comparable to Times Square in New York City. We got a little bit of a history lesson, and then we got dropped off, got our rooms, took showers and then went out for the night in Buenos Aires. I was a little nervous about the idea of going out at night, but we went out in groups, so that eased my mind.

We ended up going out to eat at this fabulous restaurant called La Chacra. I had the best steak I have ever had, and the best red wine and the best antipasto salad as well. I think it just about tops the list as the best meal ever. The only thing wrong with it was that I was just too full to eat desert! After dinner we walked around to digest our food a little and to find this section of the city called the Ricoletta. Our tour guide earlier said that was where we would find all the discos and clubs. We eventually found it, and it was really cool. It was just a bunch of fountains and discos and bars and a huge movie theater with tons of people walking around and talking and dancing and enjoying the 80 degrees of humid night air. I had a lot of fun tonight.

Saturday, January 3, 2004

After my nap, I started to while away the hours. We found out that instead of fixing the engine on out plane, the airline was waiting for another plane to come so we could use that one instead. I wished we could have been out exploring the city instead of being stuck inside the airport, but what can you do? I read some of my book, learned how to play euchre, and walked around the airport with my friends instead.

Around nine o'clock at night, we finally got to board our plane and leave for Miami. We were supposed to have left around ten or eleven in the morning. I was not a happy camper.

We got into Miami at about four o'clock in the morning, then spent another hour or hour and a half collecting our luggage and waiting for our hotel transportation to pick us up. We got to the hotel around six, and I just walked in the room, dropped my bags, and passed out on my bed with the knowledge that I would have to get up in about 1 hour to go to the Everglades National Park.

Sunday, January 4, 2004

Next we got to go see where all the alligators were hanging out. Altogether I think we counted 17 or 18 of them. It was creepy to see them just sitting there like statues or to see their eyes and back scales pop out of the water to stalk a bird. We saw a lot of birds too, and fish and also some turtles. I could almost see John salivating over the prospect of getting his hands on some of the fish we saw, but fishing here is a definite no-no.

The highlight of the day was our last stop: we had the choice to slog out to a cypress dome or to take a walk around a scenic area on a boardwalk. I opted to go for the slog, and I'm glad I did it. We wore our knee-high rubber boots, but I think chest-high waders might have been a better choice. The water came up to our knees while hiking out to the dome, but once we got closer, the water went a lot deeper - about butt-level.

I kept thinking "why in the heck did I choose to come out here ?!" But by the end, I was having a good time. I had to slog through these floating things that looked like poop, and I kept tripping over hidden roots, and couldn't see where I was stepping in that stirred-up mud to save my life. I kept thinking I was either going to fall over on my face or get eaten by an alligator or bitten by a snake. What an adventure! I'm glad I chose to do what I did, because even though it scared me, I came out of it okay and had a good time doing it.

After the everglades, we just kind of hung out. We were going to order in for dinner, but we ended up walking to this awesome Chinese buffet. What a great day!

Monday, January 5, 2004