Rime of the Modern Mariner

[This post written 6/25/08; position: lat -57’45”, long -43’10”; temp -1C; wind chill -16C]

I had just finished my shower this morning and was putting on a lot of lotion. I have spent quite a lot of time in dry places before. Death Valley and the canyonlands of Utah (which are pretty darned dry) are among my favorite places. But I don’t think my skin has ever gotten as dry as it is now. Before coming here, I read as much as I could about Antarctica, and over and over again I read that it’s one of the driest places on Earth — a true desert. Down on the continent, it’s so dry that broken ice chunks become smooth as river pebbles after a little while. The wind is so dry that it sucks the water out of the ice in a process called sublimation, leaving the surfaces rounded. I didn’t pay as much attention to all that as I might have, because I assumed it would be much moister out here on the sea. Maybe it is, but my skin sure doesn’t know it.

Phil asks whether I’m a little sad that the trip is nearly over, or am looking forward to being back in the warmth and sunshine. I would have to say it’s a little of both. I have seen wonders in the past month that I will probably never see again, and will certainly never forget, and I have made some new friends. On the other hand, I miss my family enormously. And I miss the long light of summer. It will be very good to get home. Many of the people I talked to at meals today expressed similar feelings. It’s been a wonderful trip, but home is wonderful, too. Within the hour, we’ll begin our sea trek back toward Punta Arenas. We expect some bad weather along the way, but that’s okay.

We did have a last “big chunk” of excitement today here at iceberg A43K. No, it wasn’t another calving. We crossed paths with a hunk of ice that very much stood out from others we’ve seen on this trip. We thought the ice with the algae stripe in it was exciting, but take a look at this one!

Tim Shaw was so excited when he saw this growler that he had to go out and collect a piece. So, the wind and sea being very calm today, he and Ken Smith, First Mate Rachelle, and a couple of marine techs took the NBP’s small motor boat out to see what they could get. As you can see, the thing was visually stunning. The colors ranged from glasslike transparency to milky blue and caramel to sooty black. There were so many petrels flying around it that one of the biologists joked that maybe the black parts were petrel droppings. It actually seemed possible at the time. But once Tim got a close look at it, he knew immediately that the material in the ice was rock and rock powder, probably scraped from the Antarctic continent when this ice was still part of a glacier. You can also see the same sort of dimpling on the surface that we saw earlier in footage from the ROV. Combined with the coloring, it makes the ice look eerily reptilian.

I was able to see the sample later on down in the lab, and there are so many pebbles and sandy particles embedded in it that it feels rough even through the plastic bags Tim wrapped it in. The ice was so hard that they had to use a short-handled sledgehammer to chip off a piece not much larger than a loaf of bread. The opportunity to examine a chunk of ice like this so closely was invaluable. It does seem to add to the evidence that icebergs may be dropping large quantities of terrestrial material into the Antarctic oceans, fertilizing the waters around them.

Now I am off to decorate a Styrofoam cup. The reason will remain a mystery for the nonce, and perhaps forever.

Tags: Icebreaker // 4 Comments »