View of Antarctica from above the South Pole. Notice that the tip of South America is the only bit of land showing in this view. The body of water surrounding Antarctica you see in this image is the Southern Ocean.

This time around the Drake Passage greeted us with up to 50ft waves and up to 100 knot wind gusts (1 knot equals 1 nautical mile per hour), enough to make this boat feel like a small cork bobbing around in an endless ocean. Walking straight is no option, nor is getting much work done. To make sure everything and everyone is safe scientists, crew, and support staff make sure that everything from computers to chairs and the two helicopters we have on board are tided down to the boat. As the ship rolls, sometimes 16 degrees from side to side, waves break over the side and occasionally drown the deck underneath a wall of water. Our ship the NBP is built to withstand this kind of punishment, and she and us continue our trek towards Antarctica.

Water spilling over the side of the ship as it rolls in 50ft seas across the Drake Passage. Compare this image to one taken on a calm day (next photo). It really was a wall of water coming down on us.

A calm day.

Debra, Laura, and Mattias trying on survival wetsuits. These suits (nicknamed ‘gumby suits’) are meant to keep us warm in the event that the boat capsizes.

Birds, which form an important part of the marine food web partly because of their consumption of fish and other marine life, are on the other hand old hats at dealing with the storm, carefully dodging breaking waves and using the strong winds to glide gracefully in the air. As we move South the species composition of birds sighted from the ship changes. Wandering, Black Browed, and Sooty Albatrosses are common near South America. Soon Cape Petrels start to appear, along with Southern Giant Petrels. Down in the Antarctic we’ll hopefully be seeing Antarctic Terns, Petrels, and Wilson’s Storm Petrels, graceful birds named after their affinity for stormy weather that seem to tip toe on the water’s surface.

Wandering albatross gliding over the waves. These are the world’s largest birds, with a wingspan of up to 142 inches (363 cm). That’s almost 12 feet! They spend almost their entire life at sea, riding the strong winds of the Southern Ocean.

As we cross we hope conditions will calm down and look forward to reaching the Weddell Sea, the sea East of the Antarctic Peninsula, and eventually the Larsen Ice Shelf System. On our way we will be recovering a ‘whale bone lander’, a metal frame that has been placed at the bottom of the ocean in 600m of water, and on which bones from different species of whales have been placed. Biological oceanographer Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii is interested in the organisms that colonize bones in the deep sea, including Osedax, the bone-eating worm. More on that in the next dispatch. Our group, which focuses on phytoplankton (microscopic algae) in the water column (between the surface and the ocean bottom) will be starting to sample the surface water to see what lives in the uppermost layer of the ocean. Like the birds, the phytoplankton community changes as we move south, and this can have important consequences for the rest of the food chain.

ABOARD THE RVIB N. B. PALMER, ON THE SOUTHERN OCEAN– Adios Punta Arenas, Chile. Hello Research Vessel and Ice Breaker, Nathaniel B. Palmer (RVIB NBP). We, the crew, support staff and scientists of the NBP Iceberg Cruise III, left port in Punta Arenas on March 6th to begin our 40-day cruise to study the water column around free-floating icebergs. This is our third cruise, after two others on December 2005 and June 2008. We are making our way through the Straits of Magellan, past the Southern tip of Argentina into the Drake Passage, and on into the Weddell Sea where our group in particular will be focusing on the phytoplankton, plants living in the ocean that react to the presence of icebergs.

The RVIB NB Palmer at the dock at Punta Arenas, Chile.

As we sail south we cross different water masses. First, the coast of Argentina with a shallow continental margin, only 50 meters deep east of Tierra del Fuego, with cold sub-Antarctic waters of 8 degrees Celsius or 40 degrees Fahrenheit. A day later we enter into deep waters of several thousand meters, the West Wind Drift that circulates all around Antarctica. We cross the Antarctic Polar Front and in a few hours we find ourselves in cold Antarctic waters, close to freezing temperatures. Continuing on our voyage we cross the Southern Front of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As we move from water mass to water mass, the ocean continues looking blue to our eyes but the plankton changes.

Picture this: You are on a 4-day road trip (the approximate time that it takes us to reach our iceberg and waters of study from Punta Arenas). You travel through different zones and see different plants and animals during your trip as you travel through coastal foothills, to the valley, and onto the higher mountain alpine zones. The diversity of plants and animals in the ocean goes through similar changes as we go on our 4 day voyage to the Southern Ocean and pass through different water masses, each containing characteristic species.

Dinoflagellates or cells with a cellulose cover, a top and bottom capsule (or theca), and a central groove (or cingulum) with a flagellum are common in oceanic waters.

To study these plankton changes we collect water from the sea water intake on board the ship. Small cells with flagella are abundant in open waters north of the Polar Front. Diatoms, large and with a siliceous cover, are found closer to Antarctica. Diatoms will be part of our studies in the next few weeks, being the preferred food of the Antarctic krill and growing in diverse forms and sizes around and on the icebergs.

Diatoms such as this Thalassiosira species abound in cold Antarctic waters. Thalassiosira means “thalassos” or “sea” from the greek meaning oceanic species.

Stations sampled along a transect from South America to North West Weddell Sea. Columns are: Date, hour, minute, Latitude degrees, latitude minutes, longitude degrees, longitude minutes, sample number.

We are having a calm voyage across the Drake Passage with gentle seas and brisk air. As I stand outside, there is nothing but the sound of the boat breaking against the waves. Hiss, fizzle, roar, and then silence. Boat hitting water, water streaming away, then a moment of quiet as the bow gently rises only to fall again. Hiss, fizzle, roar. White crests peel away from and stream behind the boat. Below the sound of the waves is the steady hum of the engine. Otherwise, there is silence. Soon the steady rhythm of the boat moving through water becomes its own hypnotic mantra.

This captivates me as I scan the horizon for ice. Last night we crossed the Antarctic Convergence. That means we’ve moved from very cold water, 7°C, to almost freezing water, 2°C. The Convergence acts as a biological barrier, the organisms living north of it would not survive in these colder waters to the south. When I say organisms, this includes me and the other humans on this ship. If I were to fall into these waters, I would survive only a matter of minutes. Lucky for me, our ship is sturdy and stable, providing safe footing out here.

On the boat.

This morning, there are thick clouds clogging the horizon. Eastward, they glow a gentle orange as the sun slowly rises. My 360 degree view is nothing but blue ocean with wide rolling swells. I struggle to describe just how deep and dark the color of the waters are down here. Imagine storm clouds, heavy, dark and full of moisture. Imagine them low, wide and all encompassing. Then imagine them as an ocean and maybe, just maybe you can picture the deep, dark color of the Southern Ocean and the feeling it instills in me.

While we are far from this iceberg, this picture gives a sense of a sunrise on the Southern Ocean.

I’ve seen no artificial lights, no boats, and no other people, except for my expedition companions, for two days. Maybe you think this does not seem like much. But I ask you right now: when was the last time you looked out into your environment and for two days straight did not see a single light polluting the sky? What is the longest amount of time you have gone without seeing one stranger or evidence of humans?

Now, of course we do have some lights from the boat interfering with my view of the stars and there is a whole community on board–about 60 people total–but when it’s 5 am, it is easy to imagine I am out here alone seeing an older version of civilization. On the boat, we experience a world without cell phones, internet, or televisions. There are no bustling cities, no cars, and no corporate anything. We live in an environment without blinding lights crowding out the stars, crowding out imagination. An environment with a true sense of adventure and what it really means to be alive.

Keep in mind that Antarctica is the one continent people never evolved to live on. Our very first stop on this voyage is proof of this. Tomorrow we will bring supplies to the Cape Sheriff field camp on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands. People could not survive in Antarctic field camps without supplies from the outside world. The continent is 98 percent covered in ice, the other 2 percent is rock. The few species of plants that grow could never sustain human life. Even if people harvested the fish, mammals or birds for food, they could scarcely survive more than one or two winters without running out of provisions and perishing. There is no wood or coal to burn to keep warm or means to build shelter. You get the picture.

The Shetland Islands from above, courtesy of NASA.

Being out here in the middle of nowhere, where people were never meant to live, I can’t shake the humbling feeling that I am a tiny speck in a huge ocean in an ever more immense world. And yet I feel more alive than I ever have. Now you tell me, why do I have to travel to the most remote ocean and continent on earth, a place still largely untouched by humans and society, to feel this free?

We do our research from aboard a chartered Russian boat, the R/V Yuzhmorgeologiya. She is a sturdy, ice-enforced vessel, 104.5 meters long and 16 meters wide. Ice-enforced means the boat can safely move through thin ice flows (small, broken up ice fragments that are remnants of old icebergs), but nothing more. The vessel cannot move through thick ice patches, nor could it break through ice the way that icebreakers are designed to do.

Our vessel, the R/V Yuzhmorgeologiya.

Today was the first day of transit, and as we traveled from Punta Arenas through the Straight of Magellan we were blessed with flat seas and sunny skies. Most of the scientific crew was out on the bow of the boat, soaking up the sun and delighting over the wildlife. Commerson’s Dolphins, Magellanic Penguins and Black-browed Albatross were among the most common wildlife spotted. In these pleasant moments on deck, it’s hard to imagine that in a few short days the sun will be scarce and our moments of comfortably hanging out in only jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt will be over.

A Black-browed Albatross (Thalassarche melanophrys).

As I write, we begin our voyage across the Drake Passage, famous for having the roughest waters on earth. I don’t know if we’ll have a calm passing or if we’ll fight terrible 20 foot swells or worse. The current steady but gentle rocking of the boat does not give a clear indication of what’s to come. Only time will tell.

Our cruise track over the first part of the 16^thannual summer cruise of the Palmer LTER, including the end of our southbound crossing of Drake Passage and the two northern-most transect lines of our summer cruise. The 5 standard transect lines are shown as a series of + signs, one for each station on each line.

We crossed Drake Passage, entering Bransfield Strait just south of Deception Island, and then went south through Gerlache Strait to Palmer Station on Anvers Island. Once underway for science, we headed toward the east side of Peterman Island (small print) for one station, then behind Renaud Island where we did another station. Just south and west of Renaud Island we put in a SASSI mooring (more on that later), and then commenced stations on the transect line west of Renaud, moving out to sea. From the seaward end of this line we moved to retrieve and re-deploy the sediment trap on 10 January. For the last 3 days we have been doing stations along the transect line just south of Anvers Island, moving inshore to do a fine scale study of the basin just south of Palmer Station, seen as the grey blocked out section just south of the station.