RU COOL?

Things are starting to bustle at Palmer Station! The other day I went out with the phytoplankton group from Rutgers University Coastal Ocean Observational Lab (RU COOL, hence the blog title) to release one of their Slocum Gliders. Gliders are released in harsh environments (like Antarctica) to make real-time observations when it is too dangerous to send out a human. They measure things such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, and chlorophylls to measure phytoplankton biomass and productivity over large spatial domains. As the glider travels it dives up and down taking measurements, surfacing to send its coordinates back to the lab.

To release the glider we loaded it into the zodiac and head for Outcast Island, one of the outer-lying islands surrounding Palmer. We then continued on for about a mile to give the glider a wide berth, you have to release them far away from land because they take a very long time to turn (rudder on the tail).  We then attached a buoy and rope to the glider for a dive test run, after it successfully dives (instructions sent via satellite from Rutgers) and comes back to the surface we took off the rope and let it go for good.

The Glider! 

Waiting for the Glider to do a test dive

Sadly, that day the glider didn’t do so well, it was apparently swimming backwards and they had to go retrieve it. However, since then it has been released again and is successfully navigating itself around Palmer Canyon. Here is the lab website if you’re interested: http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/

Kim and I have had several full days of sampling, where we go to 26 different GPS points on the sampling grid. Overall, it takes 5 hours or so – but we’ve had great weather the past few days and so it’s awesome to be out on the water. We’re hoping to see some whales, so far there’s been sightings of both humpback and minke whales, but we haven’t seen either. 

A Day In The Life

I decided I never really explained a normal day here at Palmer Station, so here goes. I start my day by waking up around 7:30, and heading down for breakfast. By 8:00 I’m down in my lab, where I work on data, posters, or other miscellaneous tasks. 

Kim and I's lab

My desk

Our white board

If it’s a sampling day, Kim and I will be getting ready, making snacks and hot drinks for the boat and getting all our layers on. Then it’s time to head out to the boat, fully clad in mustang suits. We begin by pulling Ms. Chippy in by her bowline and one of us jumps on to put the engine in, get it started, and then unhook the stern lines (attached to the back of the boat and connect to the spring line at the back of the parking lot, to prevent the boat from going forward and hitting the rocks). 

Ms. Chippy 

From there we untie the bowline and throw it in the boat, and as one keeps the boat steady the other loads equipment. After that we call into Station and let them know we’re departing.

Getting ready to leave station

Whenever you go off station, whether it’s boating or hiking, you write yourself on a chalkboard in the administrative hallway with you destination, departure time, estimated time of return, and a team name. Kim and I are always the 'Psycho Krillers'. When you’re on the boat, you must radio in whenever you arrive somewhere and when you’re moving on to a different place. Kim and I follow a grid of GPS points when we’re sampling, appropriately named Echo 1 – 26, so we call in with what Echo point we are departing/going to.

            The day normally ends here on Station at 5:30pm, when dinner starts. Each meal has a set time each day, breakfast 6:30-8:00am, lunch 12:00-1:00pm, and dinner 5:30-6:30pm. However, you’re always welcome to eat left overs in the fridge or eat later then the meal times. When you’re finished eating, everyone washes his or her own dishes at the ‘baby grinder’ sink. You’re food goes down the grinder, except for poultry which goes in the ‘chicken bucket’ (so we don’t spread bird diseases to the penguins). Then you wash your dishes, put them on a tray, and send them through the sanitizer (basically a big dish washer, that doesn’t wash anything but sanitizes dishes with hot water). Once a week however, you sign yourself up for ‘GASH’, where you and about 5 other people clean dishes, put them away, store food in leftover containers, and wash the whole kitchen and tables. Normally you’ve got some good music going to keep moral up. Also, each Saturday we have 'house-mouse', where everyone on station gets a task (such as cleaning the bathrooms, kitchen, or labs) and we spend some of the afternoon cleaning.

            After dinner people normally watch TV shows or movies, hang out at the bar, play cards, hit up the hot tub, read, or just hang out and have some good conversation in the Galley.

Now onto my updates…

           

At the beginning of this week, I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to eat an apple and peanut butter in my life.  The Laurence M. Gould docked here at station to drop off two scientists who will be studying birds down here in Antarctica and FOOD. The Gould only stayed for a day, as it needed to continue on to conduct a research cruise with scientists on board. It was a busy day here at the Station, several of us formed an assembly line across the ship and gangway to help unload cargo. Everyone was excited to have new ‘freshies’ (fruits and vegetables), and I got a new pair of boots for the boat. Before I was sporting some fireman boots they had given me in Punta Arenas, that did not give me much mobility on the boat – but now I have the official sea boots.

There were a few set backs with our equipment this week. First off after a full day of sampling on Wednesday we came back to find that the program had got shut off by accident on the boat and we had about 1/4 of our data saved. Then on Thursday, in an attempt to repeat the same track as Wednesday, a piece of plastic on the Towfish where a cable connects broke off as I tried to attach it. However, we had the piece on station and thanks to our Instrument Tech (Mark) it was ready to go the next day! That’s one of the great things down here at Palmer Station, the Raytheon staff are always very helpful and work their hardest to get everything ready for us – we’re very thankful. Anyway, so Kim and I then took the Towfish out for a test run and everything was working smoothly again. However, the seas were very rough that day and even I got a little seasick on the zodiac.

Working on the Towfish

This Sunday we had great weather, which allowed for lots of recreational activities on everyone’s day off. Here at Palmer you can go boating, hiking up the glacier, skiing and snowboarding, camping, or just explore around the rocks in the backyard.  This week several groups went out recreation boating. My group went around to different points, getting a good look at the glacier and the Bahia Paraiso (a sunken cruise ship). We hoped to see some leopard seals, but instead were able to see a family of elephant seals on Torgersen Island. In addition to elephant seals, Torgesen Island is home to several penguin colonies. I was lucky enough to see some eggs, which look like a pale yellow tennis ball under the penguin. 

Penguin egg!

We also saw several Skuas, birds that prey on the penguin eggs and young. You have to make sure you give Skuas a wide berth or else they’ll dive-bomb you from the air. I finished my day off with a hike up the glacier, looking out over the ocean and islands, just being glad to be here. 

Body sledding anyone?

Luckily, there was a break in the high winds and sea ice, so Kim and I were able to accomplish several things this past week! We were able to go out sampling a few times, allowing me to learn more about our equipment and earn some boating experience. So far we have seen several krill aggregations on the echo sounder, and yesterday we were lucky enough to see the krill themselves swimming around under the brash ice! At the moment there are only juvenile Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in the area, but later on in the season we expect to see more of the large adults. Antarctic krill can live for 6-8 years and can grow up to 60 mm in length. A group of scientists from the University of San Francisco, led by Dr. Deneb Karentz, studying phytoplankton actually caught some krill in one of their net tows and much to our appreciation, brought them back for us! We measured the krill lengths, which we then use with the acoustic data to calculate krill biomass and abundance. All of the krill measured were smaller than 20 mm, which means they are most likely a year old. We have also seen a lot of foraging activity from the penguins and seabirds in the area, it looks like it might be a good year for krill.

Antarctic krill

Echogram

Due to some of our sampling destinations being outside the normal 2 mile boating limit, Kim and I were required to participate in additional boating training. We have the boating limit here at Palmer Station because of the amount of time it takes for help to reach you in the event of an emergency. Inside the normal limits, the Ocean Search and Rescue (OSAR) team can reach you within 10 minutes. However that amount of time lengthens the farther out you are, and extended training allows you to know what to do until help arrives. For training, Kim and I took turns putting on an immersion suit and jumping overboard into the water to await rescue. I was a little nervous considering there had been leopard seal (at least we think) sightings the past few days, but I was a big girl and jumped in. For the first jump, the person in the water is conscious and able to help you get them back into the boat. The second time, however, the person in the water pretends to be unconscious and the person rescuing them has to try to get their body as high up out of the water as possible and lash them to the boat with rope or bungee cord. Since it is only Kim and I boating together, we needed to feel prepared to rescue each other and know what to do in that situation. I feel much more comfortable now driving the boat right up to the overboard victim and getting them onboard. We will both be very focused on staying safe and inside the boat.

After a week of work, we celebrated Halloween at Palmer Station last Saturday. Kim and I decided to host a cocktail hour before dinner, and with bad weather at the end of the week preventing sampling we went all out in our planning. We ended up making an alcoholic jello brain with gummi worms, a pumpkin cheese ball, chocolate vodka/orange juice mimosa’s, and vampire blood cocktails with candy-rimmed glasses. And of course we had a large piece of bar ice (see to my left in the photo) from the ocean to put in our cocktails. You have to use an ice pick and hammer to crack off pieces and I thoroughly enjoyed that part. At the party it was fun to have everyone together and to see just how creative they were with their costumes. I ended up wearing a hazardous material suit to complete my polar bear costume.

Cocktail hour

On the actual day of Halloween, it was Kim’s birthday, so a friend and I decided to make her a cookie krill cake – it was a great success and delicious. After dinner a group of us went to a near by island and did some body sledding down the slopes, it was awesomesauce.

Krill cake!

 Body sledding!