Hi all! Welcome to my blog!
Currently sitting on the boat at the port in Punta Arenas, awaiting departure tomorrow morning! We’ve been in PA since Monday midday, with full days of orientation and getting to know the people I’ll be living and working with for the next 6 months.
Punta Arenas is a small but lively city, with some pretty interesting cultural influences. Historically, it was an important stop for ships traveling between the Atlantic and Pacific through the Strait of Magellan, before the Panama Canal opened. Ships and their crews would stop here to refuel, restock, and make repairs, bringing people and influences from all over the world. You can still see a bit of that history reflected in the city today, especially in the various architectural styles.
The station jobs vary widely – from waste officers to carpenters to boat operators to scientists (we’re referred to as “grantees”). It’s been an interesting experience getting to know all the different people and, more generally, the process of keeping an Antarctic station afloat (haha, pun intended). I’ll get into some of this later, as I still have lots to learn!
On Wednesday, we picked up our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear, which basically means lots of overalls, gloves, hats, jackets, and other layers. It’s quite a production getting everyone outfitted before leaving civilization. We also began our boat operator trainings, starting with island survival training on Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday, I started feeling like I might be getting sick, and figured the last thing I wanted was to start a 5-day boat ride feeling under the weather. So I grabbed some pizza and spent my last night without roommates hanging out in my hotel room. I also made sure to rub the toe on the statue outside our hotel for good luck crossing the Drake!
Moving everyone from the hotel to the boat this morning was quite the production. Imagine trying to get all the belongings of 45 people from the hotel into the vans, out through port security, back into the vans, and finally off the vans and onto the boat – all by hand, fire-line style. Quite the operation, and quite the spectacle. I had so much fun with this.
I’m feeling ready to get going at this point – a mix of anxiousness and excitement to finally get to Palmer! It’s a little strange hearing so much about the station from all my coworkers who have been there before, while I’ve never actually seen it myself. Everyone has their own stories, routines, and favorite things about the place, and I’m trying to piece together what life there will actually be like for me. I think I’m one of only four people in our group who has never been to an Antarctic station before! The consensus is that everyone who has been to Palmer Station deems it a very special place.
We’re supposed to have some rough seas ahead of us, but the Ukrainian research vessel Noosfera is rumored to be pretty well stabilized… but I have no idea what the baseline is for the Drake Passage.. Guess we’ll find out whether I get seasick or not…
We’ll have one more fun dinner in town before boarding the boat for our 5-day crossing of the Drake Passage. When we arrive (currently aiming for November 12th!), the boat will stick around for 6 days while we scramble to switch off with the winter crew, get all of our equipment set up, and move our supplies for the summer into the station.
More updates to come!
Leave a Reply