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.