In Town (ish)

I'll be talking a lot about this place so I thought I'd start this post with a map. First Antarctica.

McMurdo Station is located on Ross Island at the tip of Hut Point peninsula, the very southern tip of the island.

Cape Royds is the western point and the most southern Adelie penguin colony. Cape Crozier, where I'm headed for the season, is the eastern point right on the edge of the Ross ice shelf.

McMurdo Station is both a very small town (people there just call it "Town") and a very big place. First day was a blur: briefings, getting keys, finding our lab space, setting up internet access, picking up linens for our dorm rooms and other small tasks. Megan and I were the neophytes, staring wide eyed, not sure how or what to do, or where anything was.

McMurdo. The blue building is the most important: dorms, station store, and galley

Because it was our first time in Antarctica, Megan and I had several days of safety training. First up, sea ice safety. We spent all day out on the sea ice, learning how to determine if a crack was too wide to drive various vehicle across. And enjoying the stunning scenery.

Mt. Erebus, the active volcano on Ross Island

Wind and snow make beauty

First Adélie Penguin!

Barne glacier

Iceberg near the Barne glacieer grounded and hemmed in by sea ice

 Next day, we started snow school (aka Happy Camper), an overnight training where we learned how to set up a camp in snow and ice and wind. We had a great group and it turned out to be super fun despite (or because of) the 40 mph wind.

Lining up gear helps you find it in a white-out

Building a snow wall to shelter the tents

Dug in kitchen to get out of the wind

Me and my layers

Mt. Discovery across the sound

Flags mark safe routes over the ice

With our training mostly complete, we were able to think about penguins again. Cape Royds, the closest penguin colony to McMurdo, was still accessible by snowmobile over the sea ice so we took a day trip out to do the breeding census. Royds is small enough that the entire colony can be counted in just a few hours. I was so excited to get my first close look at a penguin. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time to savor the experience as we dove right in to the counting.

Cape Royds colony ~ 2000 pairs nesting here

Penguins! Everywhere!

Shackleton's Nimrod hut at Cape Royds

Penguins trekking to the edge of the ice

On the way back to town, we stopped by the Barne Glacier and the grounded iceberg again and had a look inside an ice cave in the side of the iceberg

Hard to tell but this is me

Ice cave blueness

A fantastic and packed few days. Next up, Cape Crozier! One of the largest Adélie colonies in the world and my home for the next 10 weeks.

Destination Antarctica

It's hard to believe it has been more than 5 weeks since I left the land of ice and penguins. In case you don't remember, way back in mid-November, I left to spend the next 12 weeks in Antarctica working at the Adélie penguin colony at Cape Crozer on Ross Island. The experiences of the last few months were so remarkable that I'm not entirely certain I didn't dream the whole thing. I'm going to try and do a few blog posts to give people a glimpse of what it was like to live for a short time at one of the largest Adélie penguin colonies in the world.


Getting ready

First, preparing to go to Antarctica is no easy task. There are numerous doctor and medical visits to make sure you are healthy, there are stacks of paperwork to fill out, and...there is clothing to purchase. I tend to be a cold person (physically I mean), so I was a little anxious about how I would cope with the weather in Antarctica. The US Antarctic Program issues every participant clothing and in theory one could simply use the issued gear and be fine. However, the issued clothing doesn't really have penguin biologists in mind. The boots are too clunky and uncomfortable for hiking all day, the outerwear is too bulky, you only get 2 pairs of socks and everything is about 70 years old. So I was advised by numerous experienced people to bring lots of my own gear. That set off months of online shopping, something I would use as a distraction while I was finishing my dissertation.

Essential gear (things I would have been miserable without):
Lots of socks
Boots (crampon compatible)
Down jacket
Baby wipes

I traveled light

Socks, socks and more socks!

Getting There

Traveling to Antarctica takes a loooong time. Travel for me (and fellow penguin science team members Megan and Ben) went like this: San Francisco to LA (1 hr); LA to Sydney, Australia (13 hr); Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand (3 hr); and eventually Christchurch to McMurdo Station Antarctica (5 hrs) for a total of around 22 hours of flight time. US Antarctic Program operations for McMurdo and South Pole stations are supported from Christchurch so the day after arriving there, we went to the Clothing Distribution Center (confusingly referred to as the CDC) to get our issued clothing and our Extreme Cold Weather gear (ECW). In the end we are all supposed to look something like this as we boarded our ice flight.

Racks of "Big Red" at the CDC

Our trip to the ice was delayed by bad weather first by a day, then 2. On the 3rd day we went the the airport, hung out there for a few hours hoping the flight would go but were disappointed again. Finally, 4 days late, we board the C-17 and headed South.

On the flight deck which had the only clear view outside

First view of the continent

Just landed on the sea ice runway

We made it!

Up next, safety trainings, packing gear and penguins!