From Tim Page
      at Davis Station, Antarctica
      22 November 1998, 2pm

Hello again to the Students of Winthrop School, Ipswich, Massachusetts, especially to the classes of Ms Adamo, Ms O'Reilly & Ms Smith, and of course to Ms Kelly who is in the "Land of the Rising Sun"

PRESENT POSITION:    68 degrees South Latitude,  77 degrees East Longtitude
DIRECTION HEADING:    None (stationary)
DISTANCE FROM TASMANIA:   2808 nautical miles (3190 miles)
DISTANCE TO DAVIS STATION: .5 nautical miles (.5 miles)
AIR TEMPERATURE:    -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit)
WATER TEMPERATURE:  -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit)
WATER DEPTH:   16 metres (52 feet)
WIND SPEED:     50 Knots (56 miles per Hour)

A few days ago I was in my cabin asleep, when my friend Mike called me frantically from the bridge with the magic word "Whales!!!".  I came running up to the bridge full speed.  We were going through open water, with a few icebergs in the background.  We scanned the horizon carefully and a few minutes later we saw a big puff above the water (called a "blow" or "spout"), like a steam train, and we knew it was a whale breathing!  Then we saw its back as it rested at the surface.  A few minutes later it went for a dive and raised its huge tail out of the water on the way down, then we knew it was a Sperm Whale.

Sperm Whales are amazing animals.  They can dive more than a MILE under the water!  While down there they hunt giant squid.  It is so deep that very little light gets down there.  So how on earth do the whales find their food?  They use sound!  The whales make a deep "click click" sound.  The sound waves bounce off the possible prey and come back to the whales, and from that sound they can tell what sort of animal it is and how far away!  Dolphins also use this system; it's called "Echolocation".  It's called that because the whales listen for the "echo" and can use that to "locate" their prey.

In fact Sperm Whales have an important place in the history of Massachusetts.  During the 1700's and 1800's, Massachusetts was one of the most important places in the world for whaling.  Towns all along the coast sent ships out to the South Pacific to catch Sperm Whales.  It was one of the most important industries in early Massachusetts and employed thousands of people.  When the ship got near to a whale, they would look for a blow and then send out the small boats to try to harpoon the whale.  This was very dangerous.  If the whale was caught, it was made into oil.  Fortunetly we now get oil from other sources and so no longer hunt Sperm Whales.  The famous "Moby Dick" from Herman Melville's book was also a Sperm Whale.

Because so many whales were hunted, they became an "endangered" species.  There were very few left.  Luckily their numbers have recovered now that people don't hunt them anymore.

Yesterday we finally arrived at Davis Station.  It's great to be on land again.  To get to the station, I have to walk a mile or so across the ice.  Davis is an unusual place for Antarctica because there is very little snow here, mostly bare rocks.  This makes it a great place to study the land because you don't have to drill through miles of ice.  The land around here used to be at the bottom of the sea about 4 million years ago.  Since then the sea levels have changed.  What this means is that if you look carefully, you can find evidence that this land was once under the sea.  There is a yellow dust all over, which is really the remains of millions of tiny animals called diatoms, the same species that krill eat.  There are also bits of shell all over the place, even on tops of hills.  These are the ancestors of Charlie Chowder the Clam!

An amazing discovery was made here a few years ago.  A fossilized dolphin was found.  It is from an ancient species that is now "extinct", so this is the only proof that it ever existed.  It is interesting that you can find out about the sea by studying the land!

Have fun and have a happy Thanksgiving.

Talk to you soon.

Tim Page