Heading North


We’ve gone as far south as we can, sailing just into Marguerite Bay and gathering samples before turning back into the smooth lake-like waters around southern islands and straits just north of the bay. Now we’re officially heading back north, stopping in a new location every day until we reach Palmer Station again around May 19th


It’s hard to believe that back home it’s summer. That days are actually getting longer and hotter on the other side of the world, while I’m watching sea ice begin to form around our ship in the seven hours of dwindling daylight we now get.


The shorter days make watching the sunrise easier, I can sleep in just a little bit longer on my days off, which up to this point, have been nonexistent. After sampling for five straight days, today we’re taking the day off from sampling, wrapping up some simple work and focusing on looking at the data we’ve collected so far and finally giving ourselves some rest. We’re almost halfway through the cruise, with eighteen science days left to use before we have to pack up and batten things down for crossing back through the Drake Strait. And we’re tired, very tired. But every day, getting to wake up and watch the sun peek over the mountains that completely surround us, gives me another small burst of energy, and reminds me that all the work we’re doing is worth the long days and sore muscles. We’re studying this largely untouched environment to understand the last continent, so that we can better protect it as the years go by. Learning, through our short two months of work, how this frozen quiet part of the world is being forced to change, adapt, shrink as the climate continues to change.


If I could explain, in words, what it looked like here, in the straits and around the islands of the southern Antarctic peninsula, I would say “imagine the calmest clearest and deepest blue river running through the Swiss Alps, with no other people in sight.” I’d never pictured the outer edges of this continent being full of black stone peaks left completely untouched. 


No matter how many times I try to think of how to best explain the magical feeling I have being here, I can’t find the right words. Even pictures can’t show the vastness of the year round winter wonderland that surrounds us, but I can’t stop taking them anyways.






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