Made it!

So I have officially arrived in Antarctica. The first 4 hours here were
amazing- sunny, light breeze, penguins watching us offload gear, a fur seal
hanging out on the beach, and a leopard seal apparently cruising the
shoreline (I didn't see the leopard seal but was told it was there). The
nice weather encouraged other people on the ship to come help us move gear,
which was a huge help. However, that weather quickly changed and went to
typical Antarctica.

There are a lot of places you see in magazines or on postcards that you get
to and realize are completely different from what you expected. This is not
one of them. There are mountains and valleys covered in snow. Most days
everything is some sort of shade of grey. The wind has been averaging in
the high 20s to mid 30s mph. Its also cold. Not unbelievably cold, but
cold, and the wind does not help. Right now at 10:30am it is actually
fairly sunny, but its 31F and feels like -2F with the wind chill.

At the same time, its beautiful. When you get around the snow belting you
in the face, you realize this really is a crazy, amazing place. For one
thing, we get a little train of gentoo and chinstrap penguins marching by
our camp every afternoon on their way back to their breeding colonies from
their foraging grounds. They have made the decision to hike several miles
in the snow rather than swim through leopard seal territory. Rough break
for them, but for me I get my own little march of the penguins everyday and
watching their little wobbly steps or them sliding on their bellies is
pretty entertaining even in the worst of weather. I even had the surprise
yesterday of opening the front door to the cabin and seeing a penguin
hiding from the wind only about 3 feet from where I stood. I think he was
about as surprised as I was. I felt bad when he eventually got scared off
by our activities and had to go face the wind and snow again.

We also did a walk two days ago to check out some elephant seal haul outs.
There were about 13 seals down there with two large males and several pups.
Anyone who doesnt know elephant seals, they are huge, squishy, and make
some ridiculous sounds. There were also a handful of fur seal males
sprinkled in along the way.

In other animal news, we also saw a couple snow petrels, which means very
little to me, but I am told that they are one of the birds that people who
pay up to $10,000 to take a cruise down this way look for and want to see.
And I saw it on my second day, so thats fun. We also had a sheathbill
(bird) come tapping on our cabin window yesterday morning at about 5am,
which was not ideal. We are going to do some scouting today or tomorrow if
the wind dies down to look for any tagged weddell seals and leopard seals,
as well as counting male fur seals along our study beaches. The female fur
seals should be showing up relatively soon. We may even try to go tag some
of the elephant seal pups.

More to come soon. We have been uber busy unpacking everything and
shovelling snow. Anyone who has ever said I am a wimp for living in
California and never having do deal with shovelling a driveway... I am
making up for it now. Everything is covered in about 4-5' of snow. We live
in the snow. The outhouse (unheated) is surrounded in snow. All you see is
snow. So my debt is paid.

Cape Shirreff over and out.