GPS Navigational System in reception.
Tuesday, November 5th.
The South Orkneys, Almost
John and I slept well and didn’t
hear Bruce come in. He just told us this morning that he couldn’t find his bed.
He said we were testing his patience. We had hidden his bedding under his
mattress.
During breakfast Jonathan announced
that there was too much ice around the South Orkney Islands and that
unfortunately we would be unable to have a morning there. This disappointed
people but since it was not originally on our itinerary, we were okay. We have
been warned repeatedly that the weather is the determining factor down here,
and safety is the trump card.
The first lecture for today was
about Drilling for Ice Core Samples in the glaciers by Keith. I had seen a
documentary about this at home when at the height of the cold war Americans,
Russians and French worked collaboratively and pioneered the drilling and
interpreting of the samples. With this new science the climatic history of the
planet can be studied and changes analysed and predictions made. It turns out
that Keith was involved in that study for four years in both Greenland and
Antarctica and other glacial areas such as Kilimanjaro and Peru. He gave a
fascinating presentation on its history and his involvement. He stated that
almost all funding has been withdrawn by Trump who wants to know nothing about
science and climate change.
After lunch we had a viewing of the
90-minute documentary ‘The Endurance’ about Shackelton’s incredible journey to
Antarctica.
Next up was a lecture by our
resident scientist Brent Stewart about Elephant Seals. He has been researching
northern and southern elephant seals for years. I learned that they were
declared extinct twice in the early 1900’s but began to rebound in the 1930’s
and now they are very plentiful. They come on shore twice a year, once to breed
and another time to moult. In between they swim out to sea and repeatedly dive
for months on end seemingly without tiring, from the surface to great depths
without breathing! When they are on the surface, they saturate their blubber
and muscles with oxygen that allows them to survive their dives. They routinely
dive to 500 m and can dive to up to 2 km.
During the day I ventured out onto
the decks to look for wildlife, like whales and birds. Other times between
lectures I spent time reading ‘Endurance’ and ‘Humans: A Brief History of How
We F****d It All Up’ or did Sudokus.
During recap, Yvonne talked about
Planeterra, the not for profit arm of GAdventures.
G has been involved in three
excellent projects: 1) the Rat Eradication Project, 2) the Galapagos Whale
Shark Project and 3) the Hook Hood Project which covers fish hooks so seabirds
don’t get caught on the hooks. G donated $50000 to up with this project in
particular.
Scobie explained about a tracking project he participated in on MacQuarrie Island, between Tasmania and Antarctica, trying to eradicate black
rats. He was outside studying them nightly from 8pm to 4am in all sorts of
weather. He has done some amazing things for science!
At dinner Bruce and I (John was
feeling under the weather) sat with two British couples, David and Carol and
Frederick and Diana. Following that we had a mid-term test from John. Everyone
who wanted to compete created teams. Bruce and I remained with the Brits. There
were 30 questions about the flora, fauna and places we had visited so far. John
told us that the highest score on previous trips was 36 (some questions count
for two points). The competition was lively and although our team scored 37
there were two teams who got perfect. Then they had to go into double overtime
to determine the winner. Good fun. Off to bed shortly after.
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