Torgerson Island

There's an island very close to station that has long been an Adelie penguin nesting colony. Torgeson has seen a 90% decline of nesting Adelie pairs in recent years as a result of climate change (the Adelies are moving farther south and traditionally more northern species such as Gentoos and Chinstraps are more and more often seen around these parts). But I had nothing to compare it to so it was thrilling--now that the chicks are big enough that our visit won't stress or threaten them--to get to visit Torgie for the first time last week.

A lot of the chicks were almost as big as the adults at this point, but most of them had not molted so still looked like cute fluffy little kids.

The scenery on the island--including some dramatic metamorphic rocks--was also a joy to explore.

Thanks to CL for taking these pics as penguins got thrillingly close to me. The Antarctic Treaty has strict rules about how close we are allowed to get to various kinds of wildlife without a scientific permit, and even if we are the regulated distance away and the animals are showing signs of distress, we are to move away to a greater distance. But if we are stationary and an animal approaches, that is the animal's choice. That happened a couple of times while I was at Torgie, once while I was just sitting and watching a colony (there was some cross-traffic!)...

...and again when I was back down at the shore getting ready to get back in the boat. I was ahead of the rest of the group and just sitting there quietly and these Adelies just popped out of the water directly in front of me. I didn't move at all, and they were so busy drying off and trying to figure out where to go next considering the other humans that were slowly making their way down from the top of the hill, I'm not even sure they noticed me!

Animal visits

The amazing animal visits continue.

Chinstrap penguins are less common around here than Adelies (on the decline as global temps warm) or Gentoos (coming further south into our area much more commonly than they used to now that everything is warmer) so it's pretty exciting when one hops up on the rocks at station.

We've also seen crabeater seals stopping by for a visit near the pier:

And this AMAZINGLY huge leopard seal that spent a whole afternoon resting on a bergy bit that was floating right near station.

You can't see it too well, because silly me I don't have a camera other than my iPhone, but there's a Weddell seal in the lower half of this picture, in the snow that is pointing to the right, just lazing about on a Sunday morning.

Latest of Palmer gorgeousness

I'll just keep passing along these shots that don't necessarily have a story or theme, other than that it is so gorgeous here!

Skuas scanning the vista for potential food:

Neighborhood berg:

The day was bright and sunny:

The day was overcast and atmospheric:

Humpback waving hello:

Some bergs like to visit station:

Antarctic Eden (mosses of summertime on Bonaparte Point!):

Science!

Okay, it is WAY past due for me to talk about the REASON I am getting paid to be here and to do and see all of these amazing things: Science! I have been waiting until I have better pictures for this post, but it's not really happening that way, so I'm just going to go for it.

The United States Antarctic Program has an annual budget of about 450 million USD, 3-4 million of which is designated for Palmer Station (difficult to tease out Palmer's budget from that of the Lawrence M Gould and Nathaniel B Palmer research vessel budgets), and all of which is funding secured from the federal government by the National Science foundation to ultimately support research in one of three areas:

1) Understanding the Antarctic continent
2) Antarctica's role in global systems
3) Antarctica as a platform for science

The third of those areas encompasses much of the research that was going on at South Pole...all those telescopes, which weren't studying Antarctica at all, but that South Pole provided the perfect setting (high, dry, minimal light pollution).

The science going on at Palmer is much more focused on the first two areas of research--particularly marine biology/oceanography. There are research groups here conducting long-term studies of whales, birds, krill, bacteria, and other creatures they've been tracking for decades and have already been able to observe reacting to the planet's changing climate. In one of the experiments happening on station right now, a group is simulating future climate change in our aquarium to see how various Antarctic species will react in the future.

In general, the scientists here spend a lot of time on the water in Solas, Zodiac, or RHIB boats: going to nearby sites to count penguins or other birds; doing ocean transects; biopsying whales; collecting samples of small oceanic flora and fauna, and so on.

Often they bring back samples to the station aquarium for study or experimentation. Pictured here, Antarctic krill (essential food for penguins and whales)...

And all kinds of sea flora.

We have a team of divers on station right now, too. Of course they have INTENSELY insulated suits to protect them, but still: going out for 15-30 minute dives in Antarctic waters is pretty bad-ass.

And most weeks we have a science lecture given by one of the resident grantees (who are always coming and going, so there's always fresh blood and new projects happening) to educate us about the really cool things they are doing and studying down here. It's fun to learn about it, to interact with the scientists daily, and to be a tiny part of the enormous machinery of human kind seeking to better understand our planet, how we're impacting it, and the future consequences of our humanity on the rest of the species on Earth.

Lemaire Channel and Paradise Bay

As mentioned in my last post, the day that I got to spend aboard Holland America's Zaandam included cruising to parts of the peninsula I haven't seen yet, which was a really fun, beautiful experience. In the morning, we attempted a pass through the Lemaire Channel, which is supposed to be one of the most scenic experiences of the whole peninsula due to the steep walls of rock on either side of the narrow channel. Unfortunately, there was too much ice in it to actually go through (you can see the much smaller boat up ahead that was able to navigate much closer than the Zaandam was, but even they had to turn back too rather than passing through the channel. But the approach was still GORGEOUS.

This is the Legend, the private yacht you can see in the first picture, way up ahead of us in the mouth of the Lemaire Channel. It has a helicopter on deck, which the Legend's captain told the captain told the Zaandam captain was for the guests who were chartering it to use to fly up to the top of mountains that they could then snowboard down.

Also, check out these hanging glaciers--the stair-step effect that happens when a glacier is covering an extremely steep slope.

Since we couldn't get through the Lemaire Channel, we had some time on our hands and spent the afternoon in Paradise Bay, which was beautiful as its name suggests, along with the weather.

Soooooo grateful for this experience and getting to see these rare and amazing things. It's definitely one of those times when I'm pinching myself that I am actually getting PAID to be here and do and see these amazing things.

Tourist visits

One of the really fun parts of Palmer for me so far has been that we get visitors to our little corner of Antarctica. I've gotten to board a few ships at this point, as well as to lead tours around the station for visiting groups, and it's been really re-energizing to see things through fresh eyes and be reminded how special it is to be here. 

For example, we recently had a yacht visit that had 12 Estonians on board who are circling the globe in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the first known sighting of Antarctica, by Estonian-born Russian explorer Bellingshausen in January 1820. After they toured the station, they invited any of us who were interested to come on board and see their private yacht. Hard to imagine this getting tossed around the Drake Passage!

We've also had small-end (100-200 passenger) cruise ships come visit, such as this National Geographic/Linblad vessel that anchored in our harbor for a couple of nights:

Their crew brought their passengers on board in Zodiacs for small group tours around station, which I trained to lead and have gotten to do on my own a couple of times since.

And then there are the BIG cruise ships, such as this Holland America vessel, the Zaandam, which bring nearly 2,000 passengers down to the Antarctic. There is no way we can have that many people at wee little Palmer, so instead, we go to them! I got to ride about 30 minutes from station in a Zodiac with 7 others for a rendezvous with the Zaandam...

...climb a Jacob's ladder into the ship...

...and spend the day in cruise boat heaven!

For the majority of the 12 hours we were on the boat, we got to just do whatever we wanted...eat whatever food they were serving, we could have swam, could have gotten haircuts and pedicures (if we'd been willing to pay cruise ship prices), and so on. Our only obligation was to participate in a couple of Q&A sessions in the ship's theater...

Which was actually totally fun.

The rest of the day, we cruised around the peninsula and I got to see some gorgeous new scenery I hadn't seen before. (The next post will just be about those new sights.)

And when our boat guys from station came back to pick us up at the end of the day, there were hundreds of people watching and filming from the starboard decks, shouting goodbye and waving to us. We felt like SUCH celebrities.

Pretty cool experiences, all around. We do these visits and tours as part of outreach and education to the public about the U.S. Antarctic Program, which is of course funded by taxpayers. It's definitely one of my favorite parts of being at Palmer, so far.

Pi Island

Another magical island visit, this time to Pi Island (USGS name is Detrich Island), a rocky mount that first began poking out from the steady retreat of the glacier that covers Anvers Island on 3/14/14--hence the local name of Pi Island. It still has an ice cap covering most of it, but circumnavigating the edges was a perfect evening's entertainment.

I loved all of the olivine veins prevalent in the rocks here.

And the ice cap still covering the island hangs along its sides in beautiful, dramatic ways.

Excellent icicle farm!

We weren't the only ones who found Pi Island to be a lovely place to hang out that evening, either. Elephant Seal pups were enjoying the calm and quiet of this little spot as well.

Whale-watching

Sometimes when we go out on boats, we don't get off and hike around islands, we just drive around on the water and see what we see. This got even MORE beautiful and interesting around Christmas, when the humpbacks came to town.

We still stopped to appreciate the gorgeous skies and views and water...

And there are always new (to me) things to see, like Cormorant Island, eponymously named for its nesting birds, with Mount Williams in the background. 

But it sure was a nice salve to the sting of holidays away from my family, to bring a couple of thermoses of hot chocolate out to the dock, hop in a zodiac with half-a dozen new friends...

...and head out to commune with the humpbacks.