post I make for this season.
Currently I am bobbing off the coast of Argentina waiting to enter the
Straights of Magellan and transit over to Punta Arenas, Chile. My camp
got picked up by the Laurence M. Gould on the 19th and we have been
making our way north since. We are actually way ahead of schedule,
having made very good time across Drake's passage. Unfortunately, its
more costly and logistically difficult for the ship to arrive 2 days
early than it is for them to just drive super freaking slow for a day or
two. We will still get in a day early, but we have been going about 5-7
knots for the last 24 hours. That's a light jog.
The only thing worse than being trapped on a ship with nothing to do
for 4+ days is to be trapped on a ship that is known for being extremely
rocky. The Gould is a great ship for its basic functions- like staying
afloat and providing a bed for travelers. Beyond that it largely
resembles a bright orange bath toy with little water wings on either
side of the bow. I've heard conflicting reasons for the water wings-
they may be to help stabilize the boat when its main crane is in
operation, or its to help the ship break through ice. The ship is
considered ice class, meaning its not exactly an ice breaker, but it can
deal with ice a couple inches thick. The way ships like this generally
do that isn't so much by plowing into the ice, but actually they
essentially drive the bow onto the ice and crush it. Therefore, the
water wings help give the front some extra buoyancy to get on top of the
ice. Also to help this, the hull is generally very rounded so it can
slide up on top of the ice. Again, anyone who knows a little about boats
will recognize that round hulls just slosh around in the waves.
Pretty much this all comes together to say I felt pretty sick the first
day or two. As much as it pains me to admit it, I do get seasick. I wish
I didn't, but I can't exactly help it. Exacerbating the problem is the
fact that until Saturday I hadn't been on a single moving object, except
a few brief runs on an ATV going about 7mph on solid ground. Try to
imagine that. Imagine you haven't sat in a car, bus, train, airplane,
even a bicycle since October! Then jump on fallen tree trunk and try to
ride it down some class 4 rapids. It's a bit of a shock to the system.
On the upside, I have adjusted (and we reached calmer waters), so now I
just get to be bored instead of bored and feeling like crap.
Before the ship picked us up, we were able to fully close camp and get
some special projects in too. As far as I know, we officially had the
longest continuous stay at Cape Shirreff of any Americans. We were
dropped off a few days earlier than usual and picked up a couple weeks
later than usual (all due to boat schedule, not our call). I somewhat
selfishly made sure I was the first one to get off the zodiac back in
October and I slyly positioned myself to be the last one on the zodiac a
few days ago so I can say I officially hold that record by a few
seconds. Stupid? Yes. Maybe a little petty? Probably. Am I happy about
it anyway? Absolutely.
This season has to have been one of the better experiences I've had in
a long time. I was extremely impressed by my crewmates and had more fun
with all of them than I would have thought possible. Its always a tricky
situation when your world shrinks like that. Suddenly you have only a
handful of people who, depending on the day, are now your best friends,
your coworkers, your confidants, your enemies, your everything just
about. This is of course not to undermine the love and support I have
gotten from people back home, which I am immensely appreciative of. But
it also makes you realize how one bad egg could change everything in
place where you cannot escape that person.
Because of how well this season went, there is a good chance I will end
up back down here as early as this coming October. I have to see how
some things play out, but it is a distinct possibility. Plus I ALREADY
miss the puppies! The whole crew went on a walk the day before we got
picked up to an area dubbed the puppy ponds. Basically its just a small
runoff pond that formed this year where up to 50 pups can be found just
frolicking. It very well might be one of the happiest places on Earth.
When the pups are wrestling each other or scratching themselves to aid
in grooming/molting, they are usually practicing their acrobatic moves.
When we were there these moves mostly were launching yourself out of the
water onto the icy shore surrounding the pond and practicing porpoising
(jumping out of the water as you swim, like a dolphin).
Often both these activities result in adorable failures. Porpoising
becomes shooting straight up in the air then belly flopping back down
into the water. Launching onto the shore is often undermined by poor
judgements of distance resulting in crashing into the bank or another
pup. Even when they do make it up on shore (which to be fair was most of
the time), they had to contend with the fact that it was so icy and
smoothed out by EVERYONE doing this, that they often couldn't get much
of a grip. This would result in them pulling a Shamu at SeaWorld type
move of jumping onto the ledge and then slowly sliding sideways back
into the water. Even funnier is when one of the bigger pups decides to
be tough and waits on the edge for another pup to launch out of the
water. The big pup then runs over and pushes the jumper back in the
water with a solid chest bump. And don't worry, sometimes it works in
reverse. Sometimes the big pups try to keep other pups on shore,
practicing their herding instincts and trying to form tiny puppy harems.
This often ends in everyone slip sliding into the water and then trying
to race to see who can get back on shore fastest. Or when in doubt, just
go for the big rock in the middle of the pond to proclaim yourself King
of the Rock.
So just multiple all that by 30-50 seals and you have yourself a pretty
good time. The pups there also tend to be a little friendlier and more
naïve to our presence. Every 2 weeks in January and February we would
weigh 100 pups to get an idea of how healthy the population is.
Unfortunately, this activity often means breaking the trust of some of
the pups because they don't exactly enjoy being caught. However, the
pups at the ponds were generally from an area we never went to for these
weights, so they are still curious about us.
When you first show up at the ponds, its completely normal to have 15
pups come rocketing out of the water and lining up on the shore to stare
at you. Much like dogs, they will often do the adorable head tilt thing
when looking at you as if trying to get a better view. Sometimes they
even turn around and look at you upside down as if that will somehow
make you make more sense. If you sit down for a little bit, they will
often come right up to you and feel you out by chewing on every dangly
thing of yours they can find. This often includes zippers, straps, ski
poles, and fingers. After a while, they get bored and return to playing
with each other, but if you really commit to staying there (or take a
nap there as Whitney has on more than one occasion), you will often end
up with on crawling over you or tickling your nose with their whiskers
to investigate you more. It's a hard place to leave sometimes.
Ok enough rambling about puppy ponds. As some of you may know, I am
planning on traveling for about a month before heading back to the US. I
will be going through Patagonia and the Chilean Lake District, as well
as spending some time in and around Santiago and Buenos Aires. So I will
continue to have limited email access. That being said, limited email is
better than no email, so feel free to email me or leave comments here if
you need to reach me.
::Photo Notes::
My favorite pup who managed to make it the entire season!
Some pups in one of the many ponds, though this one isnt at the big one
I talk about above.
Closing crew minus Jesse our NOAA Corps officer
