#palmerstation

[chinanomnom]

Made it to the Palmer Station!! Some fun facts: there's a gift shop there which only takes credit card (no AMEX though), the chef there make one of the best brownies on earth, only 12 tour groups are allowed to visit the station each year, people who work there need to pass psychic test before going, not afterwards... We tasted the brownies - 👍 indeed. #antarctica #palmerstation #funfacts (at Palmer Station)

[polarsouth]

Brash Ice

....boating in Antarctica.

I thought you might be interested in seeing and hearing what it’s like to be on a small inflatable boat, going through brash ice.

Brash ice is slushy bits of glacier that have gotten disbursed over the water.  It’s varying sizes, from slush to pieces maybe as big as a bicycle.  This, for the record, is a LOT of brash.  It was lovely the night before, clear and beautiful, and the next day was also clear, but the little breeze had helped to push all the glacier’s brash into the inlet in front of Palmer Station.

This is filmed from the front of the Zodiac (that’s the black rubber boat you see) on the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, on our way back from Humble Island to pick up the entomologists.  I had gone to Amsler Island that day to look at Elephant Seals and get attacked by skuas, although I hadn’t planned on the latter.  Humble Island is between Amsler Island and Litchfield Island in the Palmer Archipelago, if you want to look it up.  (I just tried to ask Google Maps for walking directions from my studio in Portland, Oregon to Palmer Station, Antarctica, and stumped it.  Google Earth is your only hope.  Or Wikipedia.)

At any rate, this should give you a feel for it.  There are no smells, unless you face towards the boat’s fuel line or you’re near the penguins.  The air is absolutely clean.   The sun is vicious and the bounced glare off the snow and ice will give you a sunburn in weird places like the underside of your nose.  The water is a temperature below freezing - salt water can get colder than the freezing point for fresh water, remember.  The glacial bits are all fresh water.  The sound is - well, you’ll hear it.  One of the guys on my raft said “It sounds like we’re boating through a gin and tonic.”

[eyetwitch]

Brash Ice

....boating in Antarctica.

I thought you might be interested in seeing and hearing what it’s like to be on a small inflatable boat, going through brash ice.

Brash ice is slushy bits of glacier that have gotten disbursed over the water.  It’s varying sizes, from slush to pieces maybe as big as a bicycle.  This, for the record, is a LOT of brash.  It was lovely the night before, clear and beautiful, and the next day was also clear, but the little breeze had helped to push all the glacier’s brash into the inlet in front of Palmer Station.

This is filmed from the front of the Zodiac (that’s the black rubber boat you see) on the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, on our way back from Humble Island to pick up the entomologists.  I had gone to Amsler Island that day to look at Elephant Seals and get attacked by skuas, although I hadn’t planned on the latter.  Humble Island is between Amsler Island and Litchfield Island in the Palmer Archipelago, if you want to look it up.  (I just tried to ask Google Maps for walking directions from my studio in Portland, Oregon to Palmer Station, Antarctica, and stumped it.  Google Earth is your only hope.  Or Wikipedia.)

At any rate, this should give you a feel for it.  There are no smells, unless you face towards the boat’s fuel line or you’re near the penguins.  The air is absolutely clean.  The sun is vicious and the bounced glare off the snow and ice will give you a sunburn in weird places like the underside of your nose.  The water is a temperature below freezing - salt water can get colder than the freezing point for fresh water, remember.  The glacial bits are all fresh water.  The sound is - well, you’ll hear it.  One of the guys on my raft said “It sounds like we’re boating through a gin and tonic.”

You can see a lot more about my time here in the Antarctic over on polarsouth.com  - go look.

[polarsouth]

Southern Elephant Seal Vocalizing

These guys like to haul themselves up the boat ramp and then tell every other seal in the neighborhood where they are.