From Tim Page
on the way to Davis Station, Antarctica
11 November 1998, 11am (by the way, this date and time - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - is very important in many countries because it's the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918; a very nasty war)
 

Hello there to the Students of Winthrop School, Ipswich, Massachussetts, especially to the classes of Ms O'Reilly, Ms Smith & Ms Adamo, and of course to Ms Kelly who is on her way to Japan!!!!
 
 

PRESENT POSITION:   61 degrees South Latitude, 104 degrees East Longtitude
DIRECTION HEADING:   270 degrees (West)
DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA:  1951 nautical miles (2217 miles)
DISTANCE TO DAVIS STATION: 772 nautical miles (877 miles)
AIR TEMPERATURE:   -1 degrees Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit)
WATER TEMPERATURE:  -1.4 degrees Celsius (29 degrees Fahrenheit)
WATER DEPTH:   1430 metres (4690 feet)
WIND SPEED:    11 Knots (12.5 Miles per Hour)
 
 

Hi everybody!  Well guess what? I finally saw land! It's great to see the continent after days and days of nothing but sea and ice!!!  But Antarctica is not the kind of land you're used to.  There are no trees and no grass.  Just ice, snow and bare rock.  We anchored the ship 2 kilometers off shore (that's a little over a mile).  The coast is very rocky and covered in a dusting of snow.  Further inland the huge Antarctic ice cap rises up.  It's like a giant ice "hat" sitting over almost all the land in Antartica.  There are a few spots where large rocky mountains poke through the ice, but mostly it's a giant ice plateau.

One very strange thing about Antartica is that it is very, very dry.  This may sound odd because there's lots of snow, but the reality is that it almost never snows here, but when it does it lasts an extremely long time because it never gets warm enough to melt.  It means that Antarctica is really a desert because there is so little precipitation here; some people call it a "Crystal Desert" because of the ice.

The reason we came to this part of coastline is that there is a research station here.  Australia has three permanent bases on the continent, where scientists study the animals, weather, ice and many other things.  This one is called Casey Station.  We came here to unload supplies for the base and to tranfer people who will be working there.  The ice near the shore is too thick, so all the cargo and people were flown to the station by helicopters taking off from the ship.  It was pretty cool to watch them land on the tiny helicopter deck at the back (stern) of our ship.

We have now left Casey and are on our way to the next station, called Davis.  We have to head north for a while to avoid the thick ice, before heading west again to get to Davis.

Yesterday was a very exciting day!!  We had spent most of the day on the bridge, counting the different seals and penguins as part of our study.  Colin, the guy in charge of the project, decided it would be a good day to catch a seal.  Don't worry, we didn't hurt it and we let it go!  It was very interesting to watch.  There five people on the "seal capture team" - Colin (the boss), Mike, Damien & Vibeke (who are all veterinarians) and Clair (who is experienced working with seals).  They were lowered over the side of the ship by a large crane and onto the ice.  The ice was very thick so it was safe.  There were 2 Crabeater seals, a male and a female.  Damien snuck up on the male seal and fired a small dart at it.  This put the seal to sleep for a few minutes.  The veterinarians were there to make sure the seal was OK.

Then Colin glued an amazing device called a Satellite Time Depth Recorder (a "Sat TDR tag") to its back.  It's a small box with an antenna.  The seal then woke up and went on its merry way.  The Sat TDR tag is a fantastic little machine which will record exactly where the seal is, how deep it dives and for how long.  Then all this information is beamed by satellite back to us.  Isn't that amazing!  Colin can then use this information to work out the daily life cycle of the seal and work out how many seals are in the water that we can't see (we only count seals on the ice).  The Sat TDR tag will stay on the seal's back for about 2 months.  In January the seals moult off their skin, and it will just fall off.  It's a great way of studying animals with out having to hassle them all the time.

I really enjoyed watching the process.  I will try to get one of the capture team to bring Charlie Chowder the clam out and maybe we can get a picture of him with a seal!  We will see.

Have fun everybody.

Tim Page