Week 1 in Review

It has been a busy week. Its weird, the days feel like they go quickly, but
the week has felt very long. I left home almost 3 weeks ago, so maybe that
is contributing to it, but its still a strange phenomenon.

Things are starting to settle in here. The female fur seals still haven't
arrived so our workday is varied, but I am starting to get the swing of the
general routine. I have gotten used to peeing outside in the snow, often in
wind that brings the real feel temp down to below zero (Fahrenheit), with
teams of penguins watching and judging me. Though I will admit the last
couple days the wind has shifted in a way that makes peeing difficult to
say the least, so I have been using the outhouse more for that. On that
note, I have gotten used to our outhouse, which I am sad to say is little
more than a small shack with a bench with two holes cut out of it- one for
peeing, one for #2. Below the bench are buckets. Yes buckets, 5 gallons,
standard buckets. Human waste is one of the only things we are allowed to
dump here and it must go into the ocean, so we cannot have any kind of deep
hole or composting toilet. Plus, digging a deep hole when the ground is
frozen is tough and decomposition requires microbes and bacteria, which do
not typically work well at freezing temperatures. So we are stuck with a
bucket.

I am also starting to get a handle on just how much food we have here. Our
camp could feed the 6 of us for many many months, possibly years. We are
never short of food. That being said, it has also been an eye opener to
have to cook for 6 people. Parents with kids, or just people who entertain
a lot, I have a new respect for you because its crazy how much food and
time it takes to feed 6 hungry people. I made a stir-fry last night and
almost ran out of room in the giant wok just trying to mix it all together.
There will be days in January when the Chilean camp is full also and we
often have them over for dinner, which could mean cooking for up to 12
people. That should be interesting.

On Saturday I completed my first hike around the entire cape. We do weekly
phocid (again that's the true seals- weddell, leopard, crabeater, elephant)
to count all the seals on the cape. There weren't many out there since it
is still early in the season, but we did see more crabeater seals than they
ever have at this time of year. If anyone is interested in this kind of
thing, I highly recommend looking up what crabeater seal teeth look like
because they are really cool and crazy looking (they mostly eat krill, not
crabs from my understanding). Normally we divide and conquer the peninsula,
but since two of us are new here, the experienced pinniped technician
(that's our job title) took us around to show us the beaches and where
seals hide and what not. Remembering all the beach names and where they
start and end is challenging. Every little curve in the coastline or rocky
point or hilltop has its own name. Its like driving down Hwy 1 in
California and trying to name every curve in the road (in Spanish) for
several miles. Plus then the tide changes, or snow shifts, and it all looks
different. That being said, I am picking up the important ones pretty
quickly. My specific study beaches will likely be Chungungo ("sea otter")
and Cachorros (cant remember what it means...).

In other news, we tagged a few elephant seal pups the other day. As a
disclaimer, and I will likely say this a lot, everything we do here has
been highly scrutinized for safety, necessity, and effectiveness. We can
barely leave camp without a series of permits, let alone approach or touch
an animal. Most of the work we do here is non-invasive. Tagging involves
just clipping a tag onto the flipper of an animal and is little more than
piercing an ear. Plus these animals have evolved in a world where they are
constantly being bitten, scraped, sat on by other seals, etc so they have
very high pain tolerances and heal remarkably quickly. OK so that being
said, we tagged some elephant seal weaners. These ellies are only about a
month to a month and a half old but already can weigh several hundred
pounds, which makes subduing them (manually) very interesting and frankly
kind of fun. It becomes a rodeo as you pounce on their back with a small
net and try to keep them still while other people measure them and then tag
them. The seals are used to having other pups, which are much larger than
me, climbing all over them so they eventually kind of calm down and it
causes no harm to them, but they can definitely take you for a ride the
first few seconds. They are fat enough that its rare that you are able to
get both knees on the ground as you straddle them. One of our penguin
techs, Tony, is only about 5'6" and weighs about 115 lbs. He was dragged a
good 10-15 feet before subduing his pup (with a little help from the rest
of us). I wish I had video taped it because watching a little ball of fat
(sometimes their eyes almost get covered in fat rolls when then tuck their
head in) drag around Tony was one of the funnier sights I have seen so far.

During our circumambulation of the cape I also got my first full taste of
the penguin colonies at the north end of the peninsula. There are hundreds
of gentoo and chinstrap penguins (oh we also saw a lone Adelie penguin
outside the cabin the other day!) that have come to prepare for the
breeding season. They are generally smart enough to wait until the snow
melts before laying eggs. The penguineros (penguin techs) call it the
penguin mines and I can see why. They have to work their way through all
the birds looking for any with numbered bands on their wings. Several birds
were also outfitted with GLS tags, which are barely larger than a jelly
bean, but can use sunrise and sunset times, as well as angle of the sun and
a bunch of other crazy (and proprietary) measurements to tell you exactly
where the bird was for upwards of a year. All in that tiny package small
enough to attach to a penguin without causing any change in its ability to
swim or walk. Crazy.

I may have said this before, but I will say it again. There are a lot of
places that, before you visit, you look at postcards and photos and videos
and form an image of what that place will be like before you go.
Unfortunately, more often than not, those places do not actually look like
what you expected. That amazing tropical beach with palm trees and
sprawling red, orange, pink sunsets also has a 15 story hotel and strip
club next to it or something like that. Well so far Antarctica is not one
of those places. It has proven to be almost exactly what I expected. Jagged
rock outcroppings, snow covered everything, beaches with seals resting
everywhere, hundreds of birds flying overhead, penguins pretty much
everywhere you go, waves churned up by the winds and currents, and just a
general grey, overcast, windy climate. Its beautiful and kind of haunting
at the same time. You start reading or hearing stories about people who
have had to survive here with little to no resources and realize just how
amazing and difficult that is. If anyone is interested in those kinds of
stories (and a precaution, they aren't always pretty) there are several
books about Shackelton (I just started reading South) and one called Alone
on the Ice about the Australian explorer Mawson.

Ok I realize that wasn't really a week in review, more just a continuation
of thoughts and occurrences. The week has been good. I have made risotto
and stir-fry on my cooking days. Plans for mac n cheese and pizza in the
future. If anyone wants to share recipes, feel free to leave them in the
comments below. We have pretty much any ingredients and cooking tools you
could think of. You may need to sign in with a Google account to comment,
just a heads up. Thanks for the support from everyone so far. Its going to
be a long few months, but I think it will be good.