from Tim Page

onboard the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis"

in the Southern Ocean heading to Macquarie Island

November 24, 1999, 9:20am

Hello there to the students and staff of Winthrop and Doyon Schools, and particularly to the

classes of Ms. Kelly. Ms. Watson, Mr. Beal, Ms. O'Reilly and Ms. O'Brien!!

PRESENT POSITION: 50 degrees South Latitude, 154 degrees East Longtitude

DIRECTION HEADING: 100 degrees (South East)

SHIP SPEED: 15 knots

DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA: 533 nautical miles

DISTANCE TO MACQUARIE ISLAND: 301 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: 7.5 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: 8.9 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 15.5 knots

Hello all. I'm back!! Some of you may remember me from last year. I'm the

crazy idiot who decided it would be a good idea to go to Antarctica by ship

to help with a survey of seals. Well guess what, I'm doing it again!

Let me tell you about myself. My name is Tim and I live in Australia, but

grew up in America (in New York), and so have been to Massachussetts many

times. I met your librarian, Ms Kelly, while whale watching last year, and

so I thought it would be fun to keep in touch while I was in Antarctica.

I know that many of the things that interest me, like whales and the sea,

will probably also interest you because Massachussetts is a great place to

see whales and has a very long and distinguished history of seafaring.

Last year I also went to Antarctica and sent back emails from there. You

can see these emails, plus lots and lots of photos from that voyage on my

website, which is at: http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/Canopy/2681 under

"1998 Antarctic Voyage". There is also a small amount of information on

this year's voyage on the website under "New Antarctic Voyage (1999)".

There is someone else very important that I really must introduce, he is

Charlie Chowder the Clam. He was sent to me by Winthrop School last year to

join me on the voyage. Since then he has travelled the world doing very

important research on the role of clams in world history and their

superiority over humans. You can see his adventures on the above website.

Enough about that, let me tell you about our trip. Well we all assembled in

Hobart, which is the capital of Tasmania, the most southern state in

Australia. We left on our ship, the Aurora Australis two days ago. There

was a big party as we left the harbour. I share a cabin with a scientist

called Simon, who studies krill, which are like little shrimp. Every animal

in Antarctica depends on krill in one way or another, so it's very

important.

We were supposed to be heading straight down to the Antarctic Continent, but

there was an accident on one of Australia's Antarctic bases, called Mawson.

A scientist fell down a crevasse, which is a deep hole in a glacier. She

was injured and so the ship had to turn around to pick her up. This means

that the Antarctic Division have had to change the schedule. So, luckily

for us, it means we will be going to Macquarie Island ("Macca") first, to

drop off supplies to the base there. This is fantastic news for us because

this island is a real paradise for wildlife, with MILLIONS of penguins,

seals, albatrosses and whales all around it. YIPPEE!!!!

The Antarctic continent is surrounded by an ocean, called the Southern

Ocean. There is a giant ocean current that goes round and round the

continent clockwise (from west to east). This Circumpolar Current isolates

Antarctica from the rest of the world and helps to keep it cold. The cold

water of the Antarctic meets the warmer water from the north at around 55

degrees south latitude. There are often great fog banks there, and the sea

there is very rich in life, and that explains why there is so much life on

Macca (Australians love nicknames). Islands that are near the Convergence

are called Sub-Antarctic and do not get covered in ice in winter, but still

get pretty cold!

You are probably wondering just why I am going there in the first place.

Well firstly because it's cool!! No, I don't just mean it's cold, I mean

it's interesting. I am going there to help with a seal survey. This

basically means that we will be counting how many seals and penguins there

are of the different species. The reason we do this is to try and

understand how the whole ecosystem works. You see because Antarctica is so

remote, people don't really understand just how it all works yet, and we

have to know this to stop it being screwed up by us humans doing things like

fishing too much. If for instance we were to take out too many fish, it

would first affect the smaller species that feed on them, but would

eventually affect every species, so we must be careful and understand will

happen before we do something.

I hope this all makes sense. Ask your teachers if you don't understand what

I'm talking about. Also you can have a look at last year's emails I sent

for some background information. If you want to ask me any questions, you

can email them to me.

Have fun! Bye for now.

Tim

from Tim Page

on board the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis"

anchored at Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island

December 1, 1999, 4:45pm

Howdy to the students and staff of Doyon and Winthrop Schools, and

particularly to the classes of Ms. O'Brien, Ms. O'Reilly, Mr. Beal, Ms.

Watson and Ms. Kelly!!

PRESENT POSITION: 54 degrees South Latitude, 158 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: -

SHIP SPEED: -

DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA: 835 nautical miles

DISTANCE TO DUMONT D'URVILLE, ANTARCTICA: 914 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: 4.0 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: 5.0 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 18.5 knots

HUMIDITY: 64%

Wow! I'm afraid that it's the only possible way to start when talking about

Macquarie Island. It is just amazing, almost beyond words. I have been

ashore twice now. We go in little inflatable boats from our ship through

the surf to the beach. Once you get onto the beach, it's almost impossible

not to trip over an Elephant Seal or a penguin.

They are everywhere!! Enormous, fat old seals are lying all over the place,

looking almost exactly like Jabba the Hut. They burp and fart and wallow in

the mud just behind the beach. The big males are the biggest seals in the

world, and can weigh as much as 5000 kilos (that's 11,000 pounds!). Adult

males have a great big nose, which they can inflate when they are angry, and

so they look a bit like elephants. The seals give birth in October, so the

young seals are now about 2 months old, and weaned, which means they don't

get milk from their mothers any more. Killer whales patrol the beaches,

looking to gobble up a young seal. Adult seals can dive down to 1800 metres

(5,900 feet) beneath the sea to catch one of their favourite meals, squid.

There are also fur seals on the beach. I suppose you can guess that means

they have lots of fur. They are smaller than the Elephant Seals and look

quite a lot like big dogs.

As I walked along the beach to the research station, I was accosted by some

King Penguins. They are very inquisitive birds. When you sit down, they

will come over to check you out, and give you a little peck to see what you

are. Charlie Chowder (the world famous travelling clam) got a little peck

from a passing penguin, but Charlie asked the penguin to stop, which of

course he did as most penguins are very polite. As you walk along the beach

you come to a bunch of rocks on the shore, and here you find the Rockhopper

Penguins, and yes, they do hop among the rocks. They are smaller and have a

yellow crest of feathers on their head, which makes them look like punk

rockers. They could learn a few lessons in politeness from their King

penguin cousins, because they are a lot noisier and more aggressive. Just

back from the beach is a colony of Gentoo Penguins, who have a little white

patch just behind their eye. Believe it or not, there is a fourth species

of penguin on Macca, the Royal Penguin, which looks like a Rockhopper but

with a pale face.

The base is on an isthmus, with hills on either side. When you climb up

them you get a great view over the island with the ship anchored just

offshore and enormous albatrosses and great petrels reelling over your head.

Magic!

Macquarie island ("Macca") is an Australian sub-antarctic island that lies

below New Zealand on the map, part of the way to Antarctica. It is a skinny

island, 35 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide (how many miles is that?).

At the very northern end is the ANARE Station (that stands for Australian

National Antarctic Research Expeditions). Most of the island is on a

plateau 200-300 metres high, and is covered in tussock, which is a kind of

long grass; there are no trees at all.

Macca was discovered in 1810 by a ship looking for seals. Not long after

that many ships came here and killed almost all of the seals. The Elephant

Seals and penguins were used to make oil (so were whales) and the fur seals

were skinned for their pelts. This was a time before people had worked out

how to use petroleum to make oil. It was very nearly a disaster for the

seals. They survived, but only just, and very nearly were wiped out. The

sealers stopped coming to island because there were no longer enough seals.

Happily a few elephant seals survived and now there are thousands. Fur

seals weren't so lucky. They became extinct on Macca, and are only now

slowly returning from other islands.

One interesting question is why are there so many different types of penguin

on one island? Why isn't there just one kind of penguin in the whole world.

This is due to evolution. You see if a group of animals finds themselves

isolated on a distant spot (like a small island) for a long enough time,

they will eventually change little by little each generation to help them

adapt to the new environment. After a while it will become an entirely new

animal. When one species turns into a number of species, it's called

"speciation". So if distant cousins then start arriving on the island, they

will not be able to breed with them any more. So there will be two

different but closely related species on the island, which look and act

slightly differently. New species are constantly forming and becoming

extinct as life changes; that's why when you go to the museum and look at

how animals were millions of years ago, they are mostly very different from

what is alive now. In the future, people (or some other intelligent

species) will look back and think how strange our animals were!

Do you remember in the last email I mentioned my room mate was a krill

scientist called Simon? Well he studies genetics (ask your teachers about

that one!). He looks at how closely different species are related to each

other. A few months ago he was doing some field research and he found an

entirely new species of crustacean, which is a group of animals with hard

outside shells and two pairs of antennae, like lobsters and shrimps. Let

him tell you about it:

"Last year I was helping a friend to collect some plants in the lowlands

just near the coast of Tasmania. While I was doing this I noticed some

small wriggly creatures in some pools in the forest. I am a keen biologist

and I always take a net with me, so I caught some of the creatures with it.

Later on, after I had wiped all the mud and the big bloodsucking leeches off

my boots, I was surprised to see that the creatures were smaller versions of

the Tasmanian mountain shrimp.

"The Tasmanian mountain shrimp is a curious creature. The most interesting

thing about it is that it hasn't changed at all since the time of the

dinosaurs 220 million years ago. You can see these shrimps swimming in

pools on the mountains of Tasmania and think that you're seeing the same

thing that a thirsty Allosaurus might have seen when it stopped to drink

some water. These shrimps are about 5cm (2 inches) long and you only find

them high up on mountains where snow falls in winter.

"This new species has tiny eyes compared to their mountain-dwelling cousins

and are patterned like army camouflage. They probably don't need big eyes

as they spend most of their time wriggling about in swamps. The patterns

probably help them hide from things that might eat them. It was exciting to

find a new species of animal that nobody has seen before. I think I will

call it the Tasmanian swamp shrimp."

Thanks Simon, that was very cool. I tried to convince Simon to call the new

animal the Tasmanian Swamp Thing, but wisely he decided against it.

RESEARCH QUESTION

---------------------------------

I'd better go, I'm sure I've bored you enough already. But first here's a

little thing you can research on your own. Can you find out about animals

that have became extinct? One animal which might interest you to research

was called a Great Auk (Alca impennis), because it lived near you in the

North Atlantic and looked very much like a penguin!!!

Tonight we are heading due south to the pack ice and the French research

station, Dumont D'Urville, on the Antarctic Continent. Have fun and I'll

write again soon.

Tim Page

from Tim Page

on board the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis"

in the pack ice off Terre Adelie, eastern Antarctica

December 10, 1999, 4:45pm

G'day to the students and staff of Doyon and Winthrop Schools, and

particularly to the classes of Ms. O'Brien, Ms. O'Reilly, Mr. Beal, Ms.

Watson and Ms. Kelly!!

PRESENT POSITION: 63 degrees South Latitude, 136 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: 300 degrees

SHIP SPEED: 12.4 knots

DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA: 1297 nautical miles

DISTANCE TO DAVIS STATION, ANTARCTICA: 1461 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: -2.6 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: -1.6 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 2.9 knots

HUMIDITY: 91%

Yipee! We finally made it to the pack ice! For the past couple weeks, we

have been passing through the Southern Ocean, heading south to Antarctica.

A few days ago things started to change. We saw our first iceberg, which

looked like a giant floating ice cream sundae. Icebergs are huge chunks of

frozen fresh water that have broken off of glaciers and ice shelves on the

continent and floated north through the ocean.

Then a day of so later, we came to the pack ice. This is where the ocean

has gotten so cold that even salt water will freeze. So as far as you can

see there is white sea ice, with enormous icebergs poking through here and

there. As soon as you reach the pack ice, the animals change. While in the

ocean, there were piles of oceanic sea birds flying around the ship,

especially giant albatrosses and little prions. When you get to the new

environment of the ice, they disappear and all of a sudden there is a whole

new group of animals. Little white Snow Petrels and black and white

Antarctic Petrels dart around the ship. Little Adelie Penguins fly through

the water with as much grace as the other birds fly through the air.

Human-like Emperor Penguins on their ice floes stare calmly as our giant

orange ship ploughs through the ice past them. If you look carefully, you

can also sea seals relaxing on the ice. When the ship comes too close, they

get annoyed and snarl a bit, but mostly they just lie there.

You see, seals are why I am here. Last year I came down to Antarctica to

help with a pack ice seal survey. We had a teeny weeny little problem, the

propeller on the ship broke and we got stuck in the ice. This meant we

couldn't finish the survey, so we are back again this year to finish it off.

I suppose the next question is why are we surveying seals? We are not

asking them their opinions on the latest movie, it's not that kind of

survey! What we are doing is counting them. We need to know how many seals

there are, and what kind of seals are there. We need to know this so we can

better understand how the Antarctic ecosystem works. Because it's such a

hard place to get to, people don't know much about it. We have to learn how

all the animals interrelate with each other and their environments, so we

can be sure not to mess it all up.

There are 16 of us "sealos" on board the ship. Most of us are from

Australia, except Yuzuru from Japan. We have all done many research

projects on lots of different species of animals, so everyone has good

stories. Julie is the veterinarian who makes sure the seals are all right.

She used to work at London zoo in England and so has lots of experience with

animals from all over the world.

Two nights ago, Julie had her hands full. We decided to go for a seal

capture. This isn't as scary as it sounds. What it means is that she,

Colin (the boss), and three others were lowered over the side of the ship

onto an ice floe by crane. Julie then sedated the seal so Colin could

attach a satellite tag to its back. This tag keeps track of how much time

the seal spends on the ice, how much time in the water, how deep it dives

and where it goes. It then sends all this information by satellite back to

Australia. In a few weeks the seal moults, which means it loses its hair

and grows brand new hair. This is when the satellite tag falls off the

seal's back, so it isn't stuck with it for long.

The next question is why do we glue this silly thing to the poor old seal's

back? Actually it's very important for our survey. We count all the seals

we can see on the ice, but seals spend a lot of their time in the water,

where they are almost impossible to see. So we use the information from the

satellite tag to estimate how many seals there are in the water and add them

to the seals that we can see on the ice to get an idea of how many there are

all together.

There are four main types of seal we expect to see in the pack ice. The

Crabeater seal is the one we see most. They vary in colour from white to

brown, and have dog-like snouts. They don't eat crabs at all, but eat those

little krill things that are so important in this part of the world. Nearer

to the continent, we see big, fat Weddell seals, which are dark with light

spots and have little pussy cat type faces. Occasionally we see Ross Seals,

which look like short, fat, dark slugs, with little tiny beak-like faces.

And finally and most impressive, we see big Leopard seals. They are an

important predator and eat other seals, penguins, fish and even krill. They

have a long, powerful body and a big reptile-like head.

Because seals spend so much time in the water, they need a way of

communicating with each other. As you probably know, sounds travel much

better in water than in the air, so many marine animals use sound a lot. I

suppose most famously would be the Humpback Whale, which you guys can see

just off the coast of Massachusetts at the Stellwagon Bank. Seals also use

sound. The male Weddell Seal makes lots of sound to warn other males to

keep away from its bit of underwater territory and to tell the females to

"come on over to my place".

You know how I mentioned that our survey had a problem counting seals in

the water? We have a special problem with Leopard Seals. We almost never

see them, but when we lower a water microphone (hydrophone) over the side of

the ship, we always hear them. So we know they are there but how do we

count them? Well it so happens we have two scientists on board, Kate and

Michelle, who study acoustics (the science of sounds) and Leopard Seals.

Here's what Kate has to say:

"Underwater Acoustic recordings of Leopard seals:

Leopard seals are one of four species of pack ice seals which live in the

sea ice surrounding Antarctica. Because they feed and breed under the ice

they need some way to communicate with one another under the water. With

the use of underwater microphones we have found that you can hear the

leopard seals 'singing'. They use particular calls like we use words to

give other seals messages. They call most often at night during the summer

months when they breed.

No one knows exactly how many leopard seals there are in Antarctica. They

are one of the top predators in the Antarctic food chain, they eat fish,

squid, krill and even penguins and other seals. As such, they are an

important indicator of how things are running within the Antarctic

ecosystem.

We are recording and counting the calls leopard seals make underwater as a

way to estimate how many of them there are in a given area. The calls are

quite amazing, some sound like eerie ghosts while others sound like birds

chirping!

Using the hydrophones we can hear all the underwater noise. There is the

noise of the ship and also the calls of whales, fish and snapping krill as

well as those made by other types of seals. It makes you realise that there

is so much happening down there beneath the surface of the ocean that we

cannot see from up above."

So there you go, a visual survey is not the only way to estimate numbers of

animals, and I figure the best way is to use all the different methods

together to try and unravel the workings of the Antarctic ecosystem. Thanks

Kate.

Oh yes, as a special treat, Kate & Michelle have given me a short recording

they have made of Leopard seals under water, and I have emailed it along

with this message. Amazing, eh?

RESEARCH QUESTION

---------------------------------

I've got to go and do some work. Can you find out about other animals that

use sound as an important part of their lives? I mentioned whales, but many

animals use it, like birds and bats and dolphins. What do they use it for?

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I will finish by answering some questions from Miss

O'Brien's Class.

1) How many penguins did you actually see?

Actually it's pretty hard to count. The numbers on Macquarie Island were

unbelievable. In one place, Lusitania Bay, there are an estimated 500,000

King penguins!!!!! That's a lot. Also on Macca, I saw 3 Royal Penguins,

about 300 Gentoo Penguins, and about 30 Rockhopper Penguins. There are

different penguins in the pack ice. Here there are Emperor Penguins (the

great big ones) and Adelies (cute little ones). I have seen about 100

Emperors and about 500 Adelies. The largest group of Adelies was 65 that

were standing about a third the way up an enormous iceberg. It was really

steep, so it must've been hard for them to climb up there. The ice was

coloured pink, because they eat krill and so their poo is krill coloured!!

2) Have you ever tripped over an animal?

On Macquarie Island I almost tripped over Elephant Seals on the beach

because there were so many. A couple years ago I did actually trip over a

seal. I was on Codfish Island, which is a very small island off the

northwest coast of Stewart Island, which is itself at the very bottom of New

Zealand. I was there to help with a project researching an endangered

flightless parrot called the Kakapo. I went for a walk on the beach and

stepped over some rocks, but they weren't rocks, they were big New Zealand

Fur Seals! And they weren't happy to see me. I tripped over and then

climbed up the nearest real rock quickly, since they have big teeth!

3) How many people are actually with you on the trip?

There is a total of 110 people. 25 of them are the ship's crew. There are

16 of us "sealos" and about another 20 people doing other research projects

off the ship. The remaining 49 people will be getting off the ship at

either Davis or Mawson Stations on the continent.

4) Did you know any of these people before the trip?

I knew about half of the sealos from last year, plus a couple guys on the

crew, and Mike who studies algae in the ice and Simon the krill biologist.

5) When are you planning on returning to Australia?

I plan to be back in Australia at the end of January, but these voyages

often have delays, so I don't really know. I am then flying to London,

England, which is where my wife and I are living at the moment. I think my

wife, Kaye, may want to see me then!!

Have most excellent holidays if I don't get to write again before vacation.

See ya!

Tim

PS STOP PRESS - IMPORTANT

As I'm writing this, the sealos in the Capture Team are just coming back to

the ship after succesfully putting a satellite tag on a Ross seal for only

the second time in history. Some American scientists in the 1980's put one

on a Ross for 3 days, but no-one has managed to do it again, until now! It

means we will learn a lot about how Rosses live, what they do and where they

go.

from Tim Page

on board the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis"

in the pack ice off the Shackleton Ice Shelf, eastern Antarctica

December 17 (9th day of Ramadan), 1999, 2pm

Hi to the students and staff of Block Island, Winthrop and Doyon Schools!

PRESENT POSITION: 64 degrees South Latitude, 105 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: 259 degrees

SHIP SPEED: 6 knots

DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA: 1972 nautical miles

DISTANCE TO DAVIS STATION, ANTARCTICA: 702 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: - 1.2 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: - 1.4 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 17 knots

HUMIDITY: 95%

Hi there everyone. I thought I'd send a quick email before you all went on

your vacation. Well we've been very busy on board the ship since we got to

the pack ice. Every day we have shifts on the bridge of the ship, looking

for seals for our survey. A few days ago we finally got some good weather,

so we decided it would be a good day to fly in the helicopters. Yipee!!

Some of our seal survey we do from the air in big red and white choppers.

It's just amazing flying over the pack ice. There are huge slabs of white

sea ice, with dark leads of water in between them. Sometimes you can see

whales popping up between the ice floes to breath. There are also huge

icebergs, some very flat, like tables, and some sharp and pointy like a city

skyline. I flew over one the other day that was shaped just like a big,

blue volcano, and it even had a big hole in the middle like a real volcano,

where there were little bird footprints! It's much harder to count seals

from the air because they look smaller from high up and you go past them

pretty fast, so you really have to concentrate. I'm supposed to be flying

again in a couple hours, I can't wait.

Another exciting thing happened a few days ago, we went through a krill

swarm. Krill are the little shrimp-like animals that live in the ocean here

in huge numbers. Most everything here eats them, sea birds, fish, whales,

seals and penguins, so they are very important to the Antarctic ecosystem.

Some scientists are worried that the number of krill may be decreasing.

This could be due to the "ozone hole" over Antarctica. Ozone is a gas high

up in the atmosphere, and it helps to filter out nasty rays that come from

outer space. Sadly the amount of ozone is less now because people keep on

pumping stuff into the air that breaks it down. Because of this, more UV

light is hitting the earth and this could damage krill.

Anyway, back to the krill swarm. No-one has seen one for 3 years in this

part of the Antarctic, so Simon & Stevie (the krill biologists) were happy

when someone on the bridge spotted it. The whole sea was alive with

billions of krill (well, a lot, no-one actually tried counting them). The

sea looked like a giant orange shrimp soup. Hundreds of birds were gorging

themselves on this feast. So Simon and Stevie threw some hoop nets over to

catch some, so they can study them. They got lots and lots and were very

happy.

Simon and Stevie also use a trawl net to try and catch krill, which goes

much deeper. Do you remember Charlie Chowder, the globe trotting Clam from

Ipswich, Massachusetts? (If not, look on my website). Well he was feeling a

bit down, you see he missed being in the ocean. So Simon kindly offered to

send him down in the trawl net to revisit some old friends. Charlie was

very excited so Simon strapped him on hard to the net and flung him over the

side, all the way down to 120 metres under the surface! Now although Simon

is a nice guy, few things in life are free, so Charlie had to agree that

while he was down there he would try and convince some krill to swim into

the net, which he did successfully. I also tried to help catch some (no, I

did not go down in the net!). One day I went out in the inflatable rubber

boat amongst the ice floes with a small trawl net. I obviously lack

Charlie's eloquence, since I didn't manage to convince any krill to swim

into my net. I did however catch some water and some bits of ice, which I

have to tell you isn't that impressive in the middle of the pack ice in the

Southern Ocean!

Simon and Stevie now have 3 species of krill on board; Superba (the most

common kind of krill), Big Eye Krill (little guys) and Crystal Krill

(rarer). But that's not all they got. They got lots of really cool little

worms that look like swimming feathers! They also got big jelly fish, lots

of little insect like looking amphipods, and some ice fish. These ice fish

are amazing. Normally you would think that the blood of a fish that lived

in water always so cold would freeze solid and the fish would die, but these

little guys actually have anti-freeze in their blood to stops this!! They

also have almost no red blood cells to make their blood thinner and easier

to pump.

The cold effects everything here. Did you know that the largest animal that

lives only on the land in Antarctica is a flightless midge (like a fly) that

is only 10 millimetres long! The water is a much better environment to live

in here, since it never really gets much colder that about -2 degrees

Celsius, but the land can get all the way down to -70 degrees. That's just

too cold to live, so most animals that spend some time on land (or ice),

like penguins and seals, spend most of the time in the sea, where there is

also lots to eat.

There's one animal that endures extreme temperatures so it can have babies

(well, chicks not babies), and that is the Emperor Penguin. They are the

big tall penguins that look like waiters in fancy clothes. In fact, I like

them so much that I have a small tattoo of one on my shoulder (don't tell my

parents!).

The problem with Emperor Penguins is that they are so big that their eggs

take a long time to incubate, but in the Antarctic there is only a short

time of (relatively) warm temperatures, so the poor birds have to sit out in

the cold, keeping their egg warm. The female lays the egg and then goes off

to the sea to feed, leaving the poor old dad to balance the egg on top of

his feet so it won't freeze. He does this ALL winter, in incredibly cold

weather. The expectant dads all huddle together in huge packs to keep warm,

and they don't eat at all! Finally the mom returns after the chick is

hatched, with a meal of fish for their new chick. The 2 parents recognise

each other by the sound of their call. Then the poor old dad has a chance

to trudge for days across the miles of ice to get to the sea to have his

first meal in months. Some people (not me of course) might suggest that

womens liberation has gone a bit too far in the Emperor Penguin world.

In the past, all of the people who visited Antarctica were men. Women used

not to be allowed to come here at all. Happily this has now changed, but

there are still more men here than women. Last year, the leader of our

voyage was a woman, and this year the deputy voyage leader, Gerry, is too.

Only about 10% of the people who spend the winter in Antarctica at the

moment are women, but more than half of the scientists who come here for

summer are female. So, girls, start studying and maybe you can increase the

numbers down here!

RESEARCH QUESTION

-------------------------------

What can you find out about krill? What do they look like (why not draw a

picture)? How big are they? And, most important, what would happen if they

disappeared?

I hope everyone has a great vacation and holiday, and enjoy this special New

Year.

I have to go and get in a helicopter now. Byyyeee.

Tim

from Tim Page

on the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis", in the fast ice off Mawson

Station

January 5, 2000, 7:00pm (that's noon in Greenwich, England & 7am in New

England)

Hello there to the students and staff of Doyon, Winthrop and Block Island

Schools!

PRESENT POSITION: 67 degrees South Latitude, 62 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: -

SHIP SPEED: -

DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA: 3260 nautical miles

DISTANCE TO MAWSON STATION, ANTARCTICA: 10 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: - 1.3 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: - 1.1 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 7.5 knots

HUMIDITY: 85%

Happy New Year/Century/Millennium!! Well, some people say that it's not

really a new century or millennium, but I think that it is, and since I'm

writing this, I guess I'm right. Actually we had an amazing New Year's Eve.

The ship was in really thick ice, so the Captain, Tony, decided to park it

there, just like a car. He pushed the ship into the ice, and lowered a rope

ladder, so we could go and play on the ice. The ice had many small hills

and pressure ridges, which are made when wind and water currents push sea

ice together. Now these little hills are very good for hiding behind when

you want to bean somebody with a snowball, which I did to my boss, Colin!

We decided the ice would be a magic place to spend New Year's Eve, so we

built some tables out of ice and snow to put our drinks and food on.

Melissa, one of the sealos, made some amazing snow sculptures of seals. She

made a life sized Crabeater, Leopard and Ross Seal! We even had some

party-crashers; lots of Adelie penguins wandered around having a look. They

were, of course, dressed very formally, but they didn't bring any of their

own drinks! Just as it neared midnight, the ship blew five loud blasts from

its horn, and someone rang a bell that was suspended over the side of the

ship from a crane. Because it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere and

because we are so far south, it was completely light at midnight, in fact I

got a bit sunburned from the light reflecting off the snow. Also, because

we are further east than you, we celebrated the New Year 12 hours before you

did, so when we were toasting the year 2000 on the ice with champagne, it

was still only noon where you were!

So you see, where you are on the globe effects what time it is and even what

season it is. Have you ever noticed that when you look at the globe that

some of the continents seem to fit together a bit like a giant jigsaw

puzzle? Especially the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South

America. Well guess what, it's no coincidence. You see the continents are

actually on giant plates that move, only an inch or two every year, but over

millions of years they go all over the globe. This is called Continental

Drift. You know how there are seven continents now? Well this hasn't

always been the case. A very long time ago there were only two, a northern

one called Laurasia and a southern one called Gondwana. Laurasia contained

what later became North America, Europe and Asia.

And importantly for this story, Gondwana contained Antarctica, Australasia,

South America, Africa and India. Geologists (people who study rocks) can

compare the type of rock in Antarctica and the other Gondwanan continents to

show that they are the same. Palaeontologists (people who study animal

fossils) can also tell they were once joined because there are fossils of

the same animals on what are now different continents, like a reptile called

Lystrosaurus that couldn't cross oceans. Palaeobotanists (people who study

fossilised plants and pollen) can also show fossils of the same plants. In

fact you can even see the relationship in plants and animals alive today,

like the Antarctic Beech Tree, which is in Australia, New Zealand, southern

Chile and in fossils in Antarctica.

Another interesting thing that has changed is the climate. In the past

Antarctica was not a cold place, in fact it was warmer than New England is

today, both on land and at sea. We can tell this by the fossils of warmth

loving plants and animals that we find in the Antarctic rock, like dolphins,

and even trees high up in the mountains, when now there are no trees

anywhere on the continent. There is coal in Antarctica, and since coal is

made from very old trees all smushed up, there must have been forests here.

The temperatures have changed many times, but Antarctica finally became a

cold place when the old continent of Gondwana began to come apart.

South America, Africa, Arabia and India all broke off and went there own way

thanks to the tectonic plates moving. India crashed into the bottom of Asia

and formed the high Himalaya Mountains. Australia was the last to break

off. It was attached along the Antarctic coastline that we have been past

on this voyage. If you look at the south coast of Australia, you can see

how it fits together.

When Australia moved away, it opened up a strait between it and Antarctica,

and since there was now no land attached, a strong water current formed

around the continent (called the Circumpolar Current). The cold water

helped to keep the continent separate from warm water near the equator and

so the water started to freeze, huge ice caps formed on the land, and

animals had to adapt to the new conditions or go extinct. Scientists can

tell more recent temperature changes by drilling very deep holes (called ice

cores) in the ice cap and bringing up a huge pillar of ice (like a giant

lollypop), with the oldest ice at the bottom. By studying the gases and

compounds dissolved in the ice, they can show how the climate changed.

OK, OK, I hear you say, enough about rocks, tell us something about animals!

Fair enough. A few days ago we stopped off at Davis Station, which is an

Australian base on the continent. We parked up in the fast ice, which, by

the way, is thick ice that is stuck fast to land. We jumped over the side

and went for a 'jolly' (an Antarctic term meaning 'a fun trip'). We

walked over the ice to Gardiner's Island, which has an Adelie Penguin rookery.

There are thousands upon thousands of these little guys there. Last year I

was there a little earlier in the season and so the birds were sitting on

eggs. Well this year there are chicks, lots and lots of them. They are

incredibly cute little grey fluff balls that hide under their parents and

keep warm. The parents alternate in walking across the ice to the open

water and catching some food to bring back to feed junior. Skuas fly

overhead looking for any stray chicks to eat, but they didn't have any luck

while I was there.

We were parked in the ice for a few days around New Year's Eve. We had some

good jollies there. A bunch of us flew in a helicopter to Sansom Island to

help restock a fuel depot. It was great to finally get there, because last

year we were stuck in the ice for a month right near here, but we never got

to see the island. This high, rocky island is completely surrounded by sea

ice, and you get a great view over the polar ice cap and Amery Ice Shelf,

which is an enormous flat, white expanse of ice. An ice shelf is where a

glacier flows out over the sea, so the whole thing is actually floating on

water! Some people flew onto the Amery itself, where they drill ice cores.

Some important people (and one important clam) even got to go to the Russian

Progress II Base and the Chinese Base, Zhong Shan.

We saw another amazing thing while parked in the ice. An enormous pod of

Killer Whales (Orcas) swam right past the stern of the ship. There were big

black fins everywhere and little white puffs of air and water when they

breathed. The Whalos (whale experts) onboard figured there may have been as

many as 60 whales at once!! Three very sensible Emperor Penguins, two

adults and one juvenile, popped out of the water just as the whales went

past and had a bit of a rest on the ice. I think the penguins must've

realised that 60 whales can get pretty hungry.

In fact, we've seen piles of whales this year, even great big Sperm Whales.

The head whalo onboard, Ari, is from Connecticut. He even used to work at

the Mystic Aquarium. He now lives in North Carolina, but comes down to

Antarctica to help the Australian Antarctic Division with whale surveys.

Here's what he has to say about his work:

'One of the scientific endeavors taking place on Voyage 4 is whale

observation. Known as WHALOS, these 4 people keep watch and record all

whale and dolphin sightings throughout the trip. They record exactly where

and when, what type, how many, the animal's behavior, and specific remarks

about the habitat (amount and type of ice cover). They also photograph and

take video footage when possible to have a better record of what they have

seen. All of these bits of data are used in a large-scale ecosystem

monitoring program being conduced in the Southern Ocean.

'Whales are one part of the Antarctic ecosystem, and by monitoring their

abundance, distribution, and population trends, we can better understand or

detect perturbations (disruptions), mostly man-made, to the system. In this

way, whales are a good indicator of the 'health' of the ecosystem. A second

aim of this particular cruise was to get a better understanding of what

types and how many whales were spending time in the summer pack ice. To

date, most summer work has been done around the ice edge, so this transect

through the pack ice offers a unique opportunity to understand summer whale

distribution in the pack ice. These data can then be used by managers

(International Whaling Commission) to generate more accurate population

estimates, and therefore more educated decisions about how these animals

should be managed or conserved.

'Most of the large, baleen whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate to

Antarctica in the Austral (southern) summer to feed. These whales include

the blue, fin, humpback, right, sei, and minke. While the blue whale is the

largest of all whales (and all animals ever, for that matter), the minke

whale is the most abundant, and the most commonly seen on surveys. All of

these whales feed on krill, which occur in huge swarms around the continent

in the summer, when the conditions are favorable. Along with minke whales,

killer whales (orcas) are the only whales that spend the entire year in

Antarctica. The killer whales feed mostly on seals and penguins, and can

commonly be seen cruising around the ice looking for a meal.

'So far on Voyage 4, we have seen almost 200 whales. Most of the sightings

have been of minke whales. We have seen several orcas, including a

spectacular group of 60 animals while we were in the fast ice at the Amery

Ice Shelf. We have also seen humpback, sei, fin, and sperm whales.'

Thanks Ari, that was great. So you see, there are many surveys happening

from our ship, not just our seal survey. There are also a couple people

doing a bird survey (guess what they are called,  birdos!).

RESEARCH QUESTION

---------------------------------

To continue the whale theme, can you find out what kind of whales there are

in the waters near you? Do you know what season they are there? Where do

they migrate to when they aren't off the coast of New England? Why do they

migrate?

Hey guess what, the Antarctic Division now have a small website devoted to

our voyage. You can find it at this incredibly long address:

http://www.antdiv.gov.au/s/f.plx?/resources/eyewitness/V4_9900/Index.html

There will be new stuff added every week or so. Bye now.

TIM PAGE

from Tim Page

on the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis", in the Southern Ocean

January 16, 2000, 2:00pm

Hello there to the students and staff of Winthrop, Block Island, and Doyon

Schools!

PRESENT POSITION: 53 degrees South Latitude, 118 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: 60 degrees (northeast)

SHIP SPEED: 17.5 knots

DISTANCE TO TASMANIA: 1330 nautical miles

DISTANCE FROM MAWSON STATION, ANTARCTICA: 1832 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: + 4.8 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: + 4.4 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 23 knots

HUMIDITY: 87%

Hi there everyone. I hope you guys are having fun, since I certainly am.

We are heading north on our way back to Australia, and should be there in 5

days. It was sad to finally leave the pack ice. We have been inside the

ice since December 4, so we were kind of getting used to it. Inside the

ice, the sea is much calmer because all the ice flattens out the waves.

Since we are now in the ocean, the ship rocks a lot in the big waves and

many people are seasick (luckily not me!). The animals are also different

in the ice compared to out in the open ocean. We now don't see penguins

and seals anymore, but we do now see albatrosses, which are fantastic in

their own right! You may also notice how warm it is now. I was amazed to

see the water temperature rise above freezing for the first time since

December 3! This is because we have passed over the Antarctic Convergence

(also called the Polar Front), and so we are now in warmer waters coming

from the north rather than the cold water from the south.

Anyway, you are probably wondering what we've been doing since my last

email, well the answer is lots and lots! When I sent my last email, we

were almost at Mawson Station, which is the furthest west of Australia's

continental bases. One the way in, we went past "Iceberg Alley", which is

an unbelievable area with hundreds of huge icebergs grounded on the bottom

of the sea. We sailed right through the middle, with these giant things

all around us. It was about 2 in the morning, but we could see very well

because it doesn't get dark here in the summer, but the nature of the light

does change. So late at night the light often looks orange and pink and

lights up the icebergs like neon signs in the Las Vegas Strip!

The Captain, Tony, drove the ship through miles and miles of fast ice,

until we were about 10 miles from the station. The fast ice is completely

flat and white. Off in the distance you could see large, brown, pointy

mountains rising out of the ice cap on the continent. They looked

absolutely huge, but the light can play tricks on you down here. These

mountains are 900 metres high, but look much bigger. There is an old story

from the 1950's when some Australians were in this area during a blizzard.

They were surprised to discover a completely new mountain range way off in

the distance. They then realised that what they were looking at weren't

mountains many kilometres away but husky poop only a few metres away! The

light had fooled them.

After dinner we all jumped off the ship to play on the fast ice. There

were long lines of penguins, both Adelie and Emperors, all over the place.

They were travelling between their homes and the open water, where they get

food. We played a big game of touch football. An Adelie Penguin decided

that he wanted to play, but we thought that he probably shouldn't, since he

didn't know the rules. He was very unhappy with this and took a lot of

convincing to leave the field so he wouldn't get hurt by us running around.

Two of my friends, Mark and Mike, had a scary experience on the ice. They

lay down for a snooze, and were awoken by a skua flying very close to them

to check them out. Skuas are big, brown birds with sharp claws and beaks.

Skuas are often scavengers and look for dead things to eat, and it was

looking to eat Mike and Mark! Luckily Mark and Mike were able to

demonstrate quite forcefully that they were most definitely alive!

The next day we had a wonderful jolly. We all got to fly in choppers to

Mawson Station. It is a colourful collection of buildings that sits next

to a rocky harbour, just on the edge of the ice cap. We walked over to

West Arm, which is a rocky peninsula on the edge of the harbour. I was

sitting on the rocks looking at the beautiful ice cliffs, when I heard this

really loud breathing, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. It

stopped and then came back again. I finally worked out what it was. I

could see a seal's snout sticking through a small hole in the ice. It was

a Weddell Seal taking some breaths from under the ice! It then raised its

head and started chewing on the ice hole to make it bigger. This is how

these seals can live in such thick ice miles from the ice edge.

I also found some small, bright white snow petrels huddled in small nooks

in the rock, where they make their nests. From here, you can see the ice

cap rising above the ice cliffs and going all the way to the horizon.

People use quads (4 wheeled motorcycles) and Hagglunds to get across the

ice. A "Hag" is a Swedish tracked vehicle, a bit like a small tank. You

have to be very careful on the cap because there are crevasses, which are

big, deep ice holes. A girl who was here to study penguins fell down one

of these crevasses right near Mawson Station while riding a quad a few

months ago. The Search and Rescue Team were able to pull her out of the

crevasse with ropes. She had to go home because of her injuries, but she

was very lucky not to be hurt even more badly.

The next day we were back on the ship, helping with cargo. The helicopters

were flying fresh food, new people and their gear to the station. The new

people were taking over from people who had been at Mawson all year. As

you can imagine these people are anxious to get home and see their family

and friends after such a long time.

We had one more sad duty to perform before we left Mawson. A man named

Graeme Germain spent a great deal of time working in Antarctica, at Mawson

and other places. He loved the place dearly. Sadly he died in Australia a

month before we sailed, so his parents asked that his ashes be buried in

the sea ice off Mawson. We had a short service in this beautiful place.

Rob, the Voyage Leader, read a message from Graeme's family. Even the

penguins came to pay their respects.

One of the people we picked up at Mawson was a friend of mine, Greg, who I

met on the ship last year. He has spent over a year down here! This is

what he has to say about it:

"Hello. My name is Greg Rocke and I am one of three Diesel Mechanics at

Mawson Station. I am 34 and come from Berwick near Melbourne in Australia,

where I live with my Wife. Let me tell you about my time at Mawson.

"I am a Diesel Mechanic. My job is to maintain all the vehicles, power

station and mobile equipment at Mawson. Our power station is very important

to us so we spend a lot of time looking after it. We have normal four wheel

drive vehicles as well as Honda Quads and large oversnow vehicles. I came

to Antarctica to experience a different way of life and to see somewhere

totally different to Australia.

"I am a fully qualified Diesel Mechanic and Fitter & Turner. I completed

twelfth grade at school before going on to do more specialist studies. When

in Australia I usually go to night school one or two nights per week to

gain extra qualifications.

"We have a large heated workshop at Mawson to do most of our work in.

Sometimes we must work outside which is difficult in the extreme cold and

high winds. The coldest it's been is -29.8 degrees Celsius, the hottest was

+6.7 degrees. When its -25 you can only have your hands out of their

gloves for about 30 seconds before they hurt from cold. Luckily it doesn't

rain (it's too cold) so we don't get wet. If it was a bit warmer and it

rained I think we would be much more uncomfortable. Mawson is one of the

windiest places on Earth.

"We normally work in our jobs for eight hours per day. If extra work is

required we work for as long as necessary. We also do other jobs as well.

I help look after the Hydroponics. We grow vegetables for the Chef.

"Some people have asked me if I feel like I'm going crazy confined in a

small space at the base for so long. Not really. We are very lucky at

Mawson as we have a large Emperor Penguin rookery at Auster about 50 km

away. Penguins are the most popular animals by far. The Emperor penguin is

my favourite. The Emperor stands about 1 metre tall and is very graceful.

The penguins are not afraid of people so we are very careful not to scare

them when we are near.

"Mawson has many high mountains just inland that we climb even in winter.

There are field huts at some of the mountains as well as one near Auster.

We go away for weekends to the field huts which stops us going crazy.

"It is very difficult being isolated for such a long time. We have the

phone, email and the internet but its still very hard being away from home.

I get along with all the people here at Mawson. There are 21 of us this

winter so its important that we get along well together."

Thanks very much, Gregg, it sounds like you had a wonderful year.

Do you know where the name Mawson comes from? It is named for Douglas

Mawson, a very famous Australian scientist and Antarctic explorer from

early in the 20th century. He originally came down to the Antarctic with

the Irish/British explorer, Ernest Shackleton in 1907. Mawson was one of

the first people to locate the South Magnetic Pole. He was more interested

in science than discovering new land, so he lead his own Australian

expedition in 1911. In fact we sailed very close to his old wooden hut

near the beginning of our voyage. His old wooden huts are still standing!

Our voyage leader, Rob, is leading a voyage to help restore the huts next

year. If you're interested, there is a website about it at

http://www.mawsons-huts.com.au/ . Mawson is famous for making a

sledging journey of over a 100 miles completely on his own. His two

companions had died, one down a crevasse, and he had to push on through

incredible cold to get back to the huts. Incredibly he finally made it back

to the hut, but he had missed the ship by only a few hours and had to wait 

another year for it to come back!

My, this email sure is getting long. Before I finish, I have to tell you

what happened a couple days ago. Throughout our voyage, we have been

receiving emails from a Greenpeace ship called "Arctic Sunrise". The

Greenpeace captain, Arne, was on our voyage last year as the ice pilot, so

he has many friends onboard the "Aurora".

Greenpeace are an independent activist organisation who try to stop the

destruction of our natural world. They are down in the Antarctic to follow

the Japanese Whaling fleet. Most countries have stopped killing whales,

but Japan continues. The Japanese argue that eating whale meat is part of

their cultural heritage. They also argue that the whales they hunt, the

small Minke, are in no danger of extinction and in fact there may be more

of them now than ever. They also claim that the few whales they take

(about 300 per year) are put to good use for research. In fact this is how

they are allowed to take whales, as part of "scientific research". Having

said all this, I think it is a great pity that whales are still being

killed. I think they are wonderful animals who should be left in peace.

There are many other things to eat in the world; no-one really needs to eat

whales.

So anyway, it so happened that the Greenpeace ship was on our way home. We

were very excited to see another ship since you almost never see any ships

down here. We met up late at night. Their ship is much smaller than ours,

so it rocks around much more in the waves. It is too dangerous for two

large ships to come close in the open ocean, so the Greenpeace ship

launched an inflatable boat, which pulled up beside our ship. We passed

them some fresh food, because their supply was running low. They passed us

a video showing their activities over the past few weeks, coming very close

to the whaling ships.

We continued on our way. The next morning we spotted another ship on the

horizon. Amazing, it was becoming like Grand Central Station around here.

When we approached it, we discovered it was one of the whaling ships,

called the "Toshi Maru" ("Maru" means ship in Japanese). It was also

smaller than our ship, and had a large harpoon gun mounted on the front

(pretty scary looking). The "Toshi Maru" is one of the catcher boats, so

it's small and fast. After they catch a whale, they transfer it to the

factory ship, the "Nissen Maru". The Greenpeace people try to stop this

transfer and they film the whole thing to try and increase the publicity.

Our voyage leader, Rob, read a prepared statement saying that the

Australian Government disagrees with "Scientific Whaling" and then our two

Japanese scientists onboard our ship, Yuzuru and Akira, wished the crew

well in Japanese. It was amazing to see up close what we hear about on the

news all the time.

We have to remember that Japan has a very long Antarctic history of its

own, going all the way back to the early explorer, Nobu Shirase, in the

early 20th century. They have a base relatively near Mawson at Syowa. In

fact we were rescued last year by the Japanese icebreaker "Shirase" when we

got stuck in the ice!

RESEARCH QUESTION

--------------------------------

I've talked a lot about the Australian bases in Antarctica. Can you find

out which other countries have bases down here? Can you find out the names

of the American bases and where they are?

I'd better go now before you fall asleep reading all of this. We get back

to Australia in 5 days. I will send an email from the ship when we get in

with a list of all the animals we've seen, and I'll try to send one from

Japan or from London when I get home. After January 21, I'll be back on my

old email address: penguintim@hotmail.com .

Have fun!

Tim Page

PS Well, one more thing. Here are some questions from Miss O'Brien's

class:

1) What is the fastest speed your ship can travel at?

It so happens that right now we are going about as fast as we ever go, 17.5

knots. Yesterday we were up to 20 knots because we were surfing down the

sides of big waves! A knot is one nautical mile per hour (a little bit

faster than a regular statute mile per hour).

2) Have you seen any whales (orca whales)?

You bet we have. I asked the whalos onboard for a count of how many whales

they have seen far, and this is it:

- Minke Whales: 136

- Orcas: 103

- Humpbacks: 23

- Blue: 3

- Fin: 1

- Southern Bottlenose: 1

- Unknown Whales: 20

3) What is the most interesting animal you have ever seen?

I think it would have to be the Sperm Whale. Did you know that they can

dive many KILOMETRES beneath the sea! They collapse their lungs so they

don't get the bends by going so deep. It's so dark down there, they can't

see a thing, so they use sound (echo location) to find the giant squid that

they eat. Now if that's not cool, I don't know what is!

4) When you were in second and third grade what did you want to be when you

grew up?

You know, I wasn't too sure. I used to like to draw and I really liked

history and playing soccer. I was pretty keen to find something

interesting to do. In fact, I haven't changed much, I'm still not sure

what I want to do, but as long as it's interesting I will be happy.

5) Did you always like travel, discovery and animals?

I sure did. I had great pets when I was younger, lots of gerbils, a cat

called Shadow and a dog called Vicky. I was always interested in travel, I

think mostly because of my family. All of my family on all sides have

travelled a lot. Both of my grandfathers were in the navy and travelled

the world, and so was my father. They all married women who also liked to

travel (in fact, so did I). I heard many stories from my father about all

the amazing places he has been to. He made me a desk when I was in the

third grade. Instead of painting the top, he put a world map there,

covered in plastic. So whenever I got bored of my homework, I'd look at

the map and plan where I'd like to go one day. I still know where lots of

obscure islands are around the world thanks to the many hours I spent

staring at that map!

6) Lastly, how did you get started?

I got started doing fieldwork with animals because a friend of a friend of

mine, Erin, was studying kangaroos and asked if I'd like to go and help

her. I did and it was wonderful, so I tried to get on other research

projects. After you've done a few, it's easier to get on new ones because

you have experience and because you meet many people. I consider my two

trips down to Antarctica as sort of a pay off for the many years I spent

doing other projects. Oh boy was it worth it!!!

from Tim Page

on the Australian Icebreaker "Aurora Australis", off the south coast of

Tasmania

January 20, 2000 5pm

Hi there everybody at Winthrop, Doyon & Block Island Schools

PRESENT POSITION: 43 degrees South Latitude, 145 degrees East Longitude

DIRECTION HEADING: 46 degrees

SHIP SPEED: 12 knots

DISTANCE TO HOBART, TASMANIA: 99 nautical miles

DISTANCE FROM MAWSON STATION, ANTARCTICA: 3132 nautical miles

AIR TEMPERATURE: + 15 degrees Celsius

WATER TEMPERATURE: + 15.5 degrees Celsius

WIND SPEED: 35 knots

HUMIDITY: 77%

How do? This is just a quick one to let you know that we've just seen land!

We are just off the south coast of Tasmania, which is the large island off

the south coast of the mainland of Australia. Almost home! Tasmania is

where the famous Australian Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson left from. He

even sailed in a ship also called the "Aurora". Actually Tasmania is also

where the Norwegian Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen first announced that

he had made it all the way to the South Pole.

We are right near an island called Maatsuyker, which some of you may

recognise is a Dutch name. The first Europeans to sail around this part of

the world were the Dutch (well, that's not strictly true since the

Portuguese were here first). A chap called Abel Tasman sailed all around

New Zealand and also discovered "Tasmania". He named this small island

which is near us now after an official from the Dutch East India company

named Jan Maatsuyker. The Dutch were particularly interested in this part

of the world because of the huge fortunes that could be made from spices,

like nutmeg, which grew only in the islands north of Australia.

You probably already know that the Dutch were also very active in North

America in the 1600's. In fact New York used to be a Dutch town called "New

Amsterdam". In the end the Dutch let the English have the town in exchange

for the English giving up an island in the Spice Islands where nutmeg grew.

I think the English got the better deal!!

You may have noticed that I put the word "discovered" inside quotation marks

when I said Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania. This is, of course, because

the Aboriginal people of Tasmania discovered this place THOUSANDS of years

before the Europeans turned up. They have been in Tasmania so long than

when they first came here, it wasn't an island but was attached to the rest

of Australia. Around ten thousand years ago or so one of the ice ages

ended, and lots of ice from Antarctica and the Arctic melted and the sea

level rose up, trapping people on Tasmania. Antarctica strikes again! And

to think some people don't think Antarctica is important, the fools.

Of course there is a similar story when you talk about who discovered

America. Some say the Vikings, some say Irish monks, or Egyptians, or even

good old Christopher Columbus. Of course the truth is that the Amerindian

people discovered it many thousands of years ago! New York may have once

been New Amsterdam, but it was Indian land before that. I'm afraid I don't

know which Indian people owned it, may be you can find out? Which Indian

peoples live (or lived) near where you are?

Guess what I missed seeing yesterday? About 60 whales. Darn it!! I was

asleep. You see the Antarctic makes your body very confused about what the

time is, because it's always light. Now we are further north, it's getting

dark at night but my body hasn't adjusted yet. I'll tell you what the

others saw, about 60 Pilot Whales. These are long black, sleek whales.

They look like very big dolphins or torpedoes. There were 3 different pods

(groups), and lots of small calves. There were also Bottlenose Dolphins and

piles of birds, albatrosses, petrels, prions, and gannets, flying around.

There must have been lots to eat in that patch of ocean. You'd think

somebody would've woken me up to see it, wouldn't you??

Anyway, I've got to go now. I will be in Australia for a week, then Japan

for a week, and then back to England to see my patient wife and get back

into the "real" world for a while. I will send another email in the next

couple weeks with a list of all the animals we've seen on this voyage.

Have fun.

Tim

FINAL EMAIL - NASA AND ANTARCTICA #8

From Tim Page
London
England
6 March 2000, 8pm

Hi there from England, everybody!

PRESENT POSITION: 51 degrees North Latitude, 0 degrees Longitude
AIR TEMPERATURE: 5 degrees Celsius
WIND SPEED: 5 knots

We finally made it back from the Antarctic! It was an unbelievable trip,
even better than last year. I was exceptionally lucky to go to Antarctica
once again. I would love to go back again one day, but it won't be for a few
years at the earliest. I want to spend some time with my new wife!!

We landed at Hobart in Tasmania, which is the large island-state off the
southeast corner of Australia. It has a long history of links with the
Antarctic. Well, actually it's not that long a history. You see the
Antarctic has only recently been explored by humans.

This is very different from the Arctic in the north. One major difference
between the Arctic and the Antarctic is that the Arctic is almost completely
surrounded by land (Siberia, Northern Canada, Greenland) but the Antarctic
is surrounded by open ocean. This means that it was easier for people to get
to the Arctic. There have been people in Arctic regions of Asia for at least
20,000 years. Some of these people crossed over to North America on a land
bridge, which was later flooded at the end of the last ice age. This means
that, unlike in the Antarctic, there were indigineous people in the Arctic
(Inuit, Aleut) long before European and American explorers turned up.

There are very old stories of Polynesians from the Pacific travelling into
the southern frozen seas, but the first people that we know travelled to the
Antarctic were lead by the great English explorer James Cook in 1775. He
sailed below the Antarctic Convergence for the first time and landed on the
sub-Antarctic South Georgia Island. He kept on sailing south, through thick
ice and past huge icebergs. Eventually he had to turn back because wooden
sailing ships were not good icebreakers!! He never saw the Antarctic
Continent but he suspected it was there.

This man, James Cook, was one of the great men of the Eighteenth Century. He
not only explored the Antarctic, but also all around the Pacific, New
Zealand, and eastern Australia. In fact the British settled Australia as a
direct result of Cook's explorations there. As you can imagine, no-one tried
to colonise the Antarctic (too darn cold), but Australia was another matter.
It is a very large place, with lots of wild and weird animals and plants.
And like the Arctic, Australia also has indigineous people, the Aboriginal
people, who have been there at least 60,000 years!!

Anyway, you are probably wondering why I am babbling about the British
colony of Australia. Well there's a good reason. As you all know, America
also used to be a British colony. At the same time that James Cook was
sailing around the Pacific, the Americans were launching a revolt against
the British. This revolution eventually led to the independence of the
United States. This made problems for the British. They had lost their big
colony. One thing they had used the American colonies for was to transport
criminals there because the jails in England were too full. Once America was
independent, the British couldn't work out where to put all their convicts;
that is until someone suggested they send the convicts off to the land
recently discovered by Cook, Australia!! This is exactly what happened, and
in 1788 the first convicts landed at Botany Bay (near present day Sydney)
and the colonisation of Australia had begun. So next time you learn about
the American Revolution, remember that one of the results was the settling
of Australia.

You are probably wondering what happened to James Cook. Well, he met a nasty
end in Hawaii in 1779. Ironically he was killed by Polynesian people, who
were also great early explorers of the Pacific.

OK, OK, you are probably bored now with old stories. So now I'm going to
talk about modern up-to-date stuff, in fact not just modern but
ultra-modern, almost science fiction. You see I'm going to talk about the
relationship between Antarctica and Outer Space!! Yup, that's what I said, I
'm going to talk about Astronauts and Cosmonauts and all that sort of stuff.

It may not seem obvious, but the Antarctic and Outer Space have a many
things in common. For one thing, they are both really, really cold! They are
also very remote and very hard and expensive to get to. This harsh climate
makes it a perfect place for astronauts to train. They can test out their
space suits, which have to be heated to keep them alive.

American astronauts train in the dry valleys in Victoria Land near McMurdo
Base in the Ross Sea. These, as you have probably already worked out, are
valleys where there is very little snow. Continuous wind blows it away and
so makes it a very strange rocky landscape; very much like the moon. These
valleys have another link with space, because they are a great place to find
meteorites.

Antarctic bases are usually very small, remote and self-supporting, very
much like a space ship will need to be in future. So that makes them perfect
places to carry out medical and psychological research. NASA has a long-term
relationship with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions
(ANARE). Doctors on the stations test people to see how they react to the
harsh and remote environment. In fact the Russians also used their Antarctic
bases to do medical research to help out their cosmonauts. Cosmonauts on the
Mir Space Station and scientists on the Russian base on King George Island
were both taking the same heart drug at the same time to compare the
results. Sadly they had to stop because the Russian economy didn't have the
money to keep the tests going.

There is another link with space. The ice cap on top of the continent is
very high and the skies can be very clear, so it's a good place to put
telescopes to scan the skies. The poles are also the best place to see
Auroras. Auroras are amazing lights in the night sky that are caused by
streams of charged particles hitting the atmosphere high up. In the south
they are called the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) and in the north it's
the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). The Americans have a space research
facility at their base at the South Pole. The Australians also have a
facility at Mawson Station to monitor cosmic rays.

Guess what, our old friend James Cook even has a link with space. His ship
when he explored Australia was the Endeavour, the same name as one of the
American Space Shuttles! Now I've got an a great surprise. I have an old
friend called Nick. I've known him since I was a kid. When we
were children, he used to say that he was going to be an astronaut when he
grew up. And you guessed, he now works for NASA as an astronaut in
training!!!!!! Luckily I managed to catch Nick to tell us a little about his
training.


"Hello. My name is Nick Patrick, and I'm a friend of Tim's.
Actually, Tim and I have been friends since we were about 4 years
old. I grew up in England (Yorkshire and London) and the Northeast
of America (Philadelphia and New York). I attended university in
England (where I studied Engineering), and then spent 10 years living
in Boston.

"In 1998 I was selected by NASA to become a "Mission Specialist"
Astronaut and I moved to Houston Texas, where I started a 2-year
period of training with my class of 31 new astronauts (25 Americans,
1 Canadian, 2 Italians, 1 German, 1 Frenchman, and 1 Brazilian).
Each class of astronauts (NASA selects a new class about every 2
years) picks a name for itself. We chose to call ourselves "the
Penguins".

"Our training keeps us very busy. We have learned how to operate the
space shuttle, which -- according to some -- is the most complicated
vehicle ever to have flown: it takes off like a rocket, orbits for up
to 2 weeks, and then lands like a glider. This means you have to
learn three sets of systems: rocket motors, space-station life
support systems, and systems for gliding back to earth.

"NASA is also preparing to put astronauts on the new International
Space Station, so we have also been learning how to operate that.
Although the Space Station and the Shuttle have much in common (for
example, they both have pressurization and electrical power systems),
they are different enough that they require separate training.

"Some of the most fun training has involved learning how to get around
in so-called "zero-gravity" (there's actually plenty of gravity in
Earth orbit, but you don't feel it because you're constantly
"falling" around the planet!). We occasionally fly in a large
airplane affectionately called the "Vomit Comet". This airplane
flies parabolas (up and down, like a huge roller-coaster in the sky),
and as you go over the top of each parabola you experience about 20
seconds of free-fall or "weightlessness". The attached picture
"floating.jpg" shows the result inside the airplane's cabin -- I'm
on the far right.

"The picture "Space.jpg" shows me wearing a space suit for the
first time. Actually, this isn't a suit to be worn outside the space
craft -- it's a "pressure suit" designed to be worn inside the
shuttle. If the cabin were to leak during the ride up to space or
during the ride back down to earth, then this suit would inflate and
would contain a pressurized breathable atmosphere to keep you alive
and healthy.

"There are many interesting training challenges ahead of us -- like
learning to swim in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (the large pool where
astronauts train underwater for space walks), and learning to survive
in remote and inhospitable environments (NASA currently uses remote
regions of Canada and Russia to train astronauts to survive in
isolated environments).

"I wish you all the best as you discover the fascinating things that
science and engineering have to teach us, and I hope that learning
about them will be as interesting and important a part of your lives
as it has been of mine.

Nicholas Patrick
Houston, Texas, USA
March 5, 2000"


Thanks a lot, Nick. I fully expect to be at Cape Canaveral when you go into
space! If you want to know more about Nick, you can find a short biography
at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/patrick.html .

So, that's about it. There's one more thing to do. Here's a list of species
seen on our voyage:

MOSTLY OCEANIC
----------------------------
Black-browed Albatross (Diomedea melanophris)
Grey-headed Albatross (Diomedea chrysostoma)
Light-mantled Sooty Albatross (Phoebetria palpebrata)
Shy Albatross (Diomedea cauta)
Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans)
Australian Gannett (Morus serrator)
White-chinned Petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis)
Wilson's Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus)
Fairy Prion (Pachyptila turtur)
Broad-billed Prion (Pachyptila vittata)

Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
Long Finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala melaena)
Southern Bottlenose Whale (Hyperoodon planifrons)

MOSTLY SUBANTARCTIC
----------------------------------------
Kelp Gull (Larus dominicanus)
Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua)
King Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus)
Rockhopper Penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome)
Royal Penguin (Eudyptes schlegeli)
Blue-eyed Shag (Phalocrocorax atriceps)
Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus)
Antarctic Skua (Catharacta antarctica)

Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina)
Subantarctic Fur Seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis)

MOSTLY PACK ICE
----------------------------
Southern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialoides)
Adelie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae)
Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)
Antarctic Petrel (Thalassioca antarctica)
Cape Petrel (Daption capense)
Snow Petrel (Pagodroma nivea)
Southern Giant Petrel (Macronectes giganteus)
South Polar Skua (Catharacta maccormicki)
Antarctic Tern (Sterna vittata)

Crabeater Seal (Lobodon carcinophagus)
Leopard Sea (Hydrurga leptonyx)
Ross Seal (Ommatophoca rossi)
Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddelli)

Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalis)
Killer Whale (Orcinus orca)
Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)
Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis)
Sperm Whale (Physter macrocephalus)

It's been fun doing these emails, I hope you've all enjoyed them. Now I've
got to go and find a job in the city! In a few weeks I will be putting
photographs (including some of Charlie Chowder) from this year's Antarctic
voyage on my website at: http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/Canopy/2681 .

Bye for now.

Tim Page