Big Boots

“When you see somebody putting on his big boots, you can be pretty sure an adventure is going to happen.”  Winnie the Pooh (AA Milne)

This adventure actually began a few years ago when my collaborators, Bob Sanders (Temple University) and Wade Jeffrey (University of West Florida), and I developed a project to assess the activity and impact of mixotrophic protists during the late fall and early spring in the Antarctic marine environment. The project was recently funded and we are now on the first of our two expeditions. I’ll say more about the science later, but right now I’m going to talk about where we are going and how we are getting there.

We work onboard ships to carry out our research. I have been in the Antarctic before, but all of those trips have been to the Ross Sea. We met the ship either in Lyttelton, New Zealand or flew down to McMurdo Station. It’s an experience flying in a large cargo plane and landing on the ice runway, to be met by Ivan the Terrabus and driven to the station. It’s also quite an experience to travel on the ship from New Zealand, a trip that takes 7-10 days and goes through a part of the ocean that is known for its strong storms.

This time we met our ship in Punta Arenas, Chile because we will be working in the region along the Palmer Peninsula. Our ship is the Laurence M. Gould (LMG), and it’s one of the two vessels used by the National Science Foundation for Antarctic research. We left Punta Arenas in the late afternoon today, and we will travel through the Strait of Magellan into the Argentine Sea, then head south towards Cape Horn. This will take about 36 – 40 hours. After that we cross the Drake Passage, another part of the ocean known for strong storms – taking another 2 to 3 days. We are hoping for a quiet trip, but we always prepare for a bumpy one.

Over the past few days in port, we have been busy unpacking our supplies and setting up our lab space. All of the equipment and materials we need to accomplish our work have been secured to the benches or put away in drawers and cabinets. Even the chairs are strapped to table legs when not in use. Anything not tied down runs the risk of being flung to the floor even in relatively calm weather.

After 20 years and 5 trips, every trip to Antarctica has been an adventure, and this one is no exception. Here is a picture of our group with our big boots on.