Palmer Station

January 3 2019 (Note: this is the fourth in a series of posts describing my NSF-sponsored fieldwork in Antarctica about the Laurence M. Gould. For a brief description of the project, please visit https://web.whoi.edu/tarrant-lab/how-copepods-thrive-on-southern-cuisine/)

Today we pulled into Palmer Station, where we will spend the next two days. I was excited to explore, but first we had some work to do. I spent some time securing an instrument (fluorometer) that I will use to measure the algae in the water. I’ll be using that algae as food for copepods, small animals that I’ll be studying on board the ship. After that, I worked with the zooplankton group to tie a plankton net onto its frame. And then to round out the “scientific arts and crafts” we spent some time putting together a shelving unit that I had bought from a hardware store. I’ll use the shelving unit to hold buckets of copepods during my experiment. I’m planning to share pictures of all these things in action during some of my future posts.

During the afternoon, I had some time off to explore a bit and enjoy two classic Palmer Station traditions. The first was a hike up the glacier from the Palmer “backyard.” With the rest of the zooplankton group (affectionately called the “Krillers”), we headed off into the snow in our ECW gear (government issued “extreme cold weather” clothing). We had heard the snow was a bit soft, but opted to go without snowshoes. There were definitely some places where we sunk into to the snow (“postholed”), but it was manageable. We climbed up the glacier for about an hour at a leisurely pace and watched as the station got smaller and smaller behind us. As we climbed, we could see more of the surrounding countryside and saw some of the glaciers calving. After taking a few photos at the top (like the one posted above), we climbed back down to eat dinner and get mentally prepared for a second Palmer Station tradition…the Polar Plunge! We are lucky to have a hot tub on station, so several of a few got into the hot tub and hung out for a while. After we had socialized a bit and built up some body heat, we got out, quickly hustled along the walkway and down the rocks. One by one, we scooted to the rocks at the very edge, and pushed off into the water…kind of like a seal. The icy water is….well, it really wakes you up! Some people really noticed a feeling of all the air being pushed out of the lungs. I think I was too excited. I felt completely surrounded by cold, it wasn’t as bad as I had built up in my mind. Of course, I got out as quickly as humanly possibly (possibly while squealing a bit) and scooted right back into that hot tub. Checked one thing off my bucket list…lots of work to do tomorrow, but it was fun to have a break!