Sex, Drugs, and Public Health

Sarah says she came for the ice, more than for the wildlife. An increasing number of guests say they came for the wildlife, but are now more fascinated by the ice.

Every ‘berg is unique. They are continually sculpted by the sea, sometimes adding icicles. Often flipping to reveal a different face. Sometimes jamming a harbor so tightly, that it’s inaccessible (as was the Weddell sea for us).

There are dozens of names for ice here and in the Arctic, but two major categories are: Sea Ice and Land Ice.

The first is what forms on the surface of the ocean when the salt water gets cold enuf in winter – 28.5 degrees F. It starts as a slurry, then becomes floating pancakes. These fuse into a surface of ice extending miles beyond shoreline.

Land Ice starts as snow falling, trapping air. As it builds up over the centuries, it gets heavier, compresses the air, and re-arranges its crystals as ice. Then it begins to flow, rivers of ice joining in the downslope run, into a glacier at the edge of the sea.

The Land Ice, because of the trapped air, is lighter. Once it breaks free of the glacier, it floats a little higher in the ocean than the Sea Ice.

We’ve seen millions of tons of ice.  Billions. Oozing down the valleys in place of water, floating free in the open ocean, in harbors, and in coves. The sheer volume of it is nearly ungraspable.

Then you look at a map. We’ve seen just 1% of the continent’s land and ice mass. The area called “Greater Antarctica” is entirely covered by an ice cap. Scientists have plotted the mountain range, individual peaks, and plateaus beneath the ice.

But 35 Million years of sparse snowfall (this is a desert – only six inches of water equivalent falls each year) and no years of melting have left that ice cap three miles thick in some places. The  ice is so heavy, that we are told much of the landmass (i.e. rock) has been pushed down below sea level. It would be a land of islands if the ice cap were removed.

Given the size and numbers of bergs, you wonder if Antarctica is losing ice faster than it’s accumulating it. So have the scientists.

As the snow falls, it traps small quantities of air and soot (e.g. from volcanoes). Thus, scientists have been able to take core samples, bored from the ice, and measure the level of various gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere over centuries. Then we can compare those readings with today’s levels.

The result:  CO2 levels in the atmosphere have fluctuated over the last 30,000,000 years. The highest level reached during that time was 280.

Today CO2 levels are over 400 and rising. A new record for the last thirty million years.

All the glaciers on this peninsula are retreating.

Regarding the wildlife: two days ago, our ship made its way into Paradise Harbor where snow, wind, cold and waves thrashed the ocean. Captain ran the ship aground to anchor us – an interesting technique – and we took a wet Zodiac ride among the icebergs. The highlite was a Leopard seal swimming within hands’ reach, fangs bared.

It had been prowling the shore, waiting for dinner to enter the surf and swim by. But the penguin babies were still molting their birth down into waterproof feathers. No water experience for them until next week. Back to his ice floe for the sleek, heavily muscled number two predator in Antarctica. He fills the niche where you find Polar bears in the northern land of ice. And these seals are so comfortable on ice floes, that’s where they breed and raise their pups, far from land.

Yesterday Sarah took another Zodiac ride among the icebergs (the final of the trip) and a Humpback whale surfaced just off the beam, almost within touching distance. It then turned on its side to feed, expanding its pleats, and scooping up a vast quantity of water and krill. They hunt where the krill is, of course, and the krill breeds beneath the ice.

So, I would add to the list for this continent of superlatives (the Highest, the Driest, the Coldest, the Windiest, the Loneliest) this: the Iciest. 80% of our planet’s fresh water is frozen solid here, for safekeeping and for regulation of our weather.

There’s work to be done, protecting this most spectacularly beautiful ad untouched continent: preventing the continuing trend toward ever higher CO2 levels, and ever quicker retreat of glaciers. Not just for the Leopard seals and Humpbacks, but for our grandchildren and, indeed, for the entire planet.

Antarctica, 21^st Century Moon

In Med School, they taught us diseases named for the egocentric physicians who’d described them. Such names are useless – they don’t describe the involved pathology or physiology. But here, in cold, wet, remote, magnificent Antarctica, two such disease names arose where sub-freezing water splashes angrily against an iceberg.

Charcot joint and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease evoke the epynemeous Paris physician whose estate was spent by the son of the famous doctor, constructing a ship for Antarctic exploration. Charcot junior was driven to be an explorer of the only remaining unknown land on the planet (“the Last Frontier” of the day). He bade farewell to his wife – the granddaughter of Victor Hugo – and crunched his ship ashore at Booth Island.

Today we lean all our weight into the fierce wind, trying to stay erect and photograph what remains of Charcot’s stone hut. He and his crew, like several other 19^th – 20^th century explorers, spent the winter: a suicidal move considering what mid-Summer looks like.

We and our cameras are ordered back to the ship, as the wind and waves are becoming unsafe for the Zodiacs to transport us between shore and ship.

“We don’t want to strand any guests on the island,” one staff person told me. “Again,” he added.

Charcot was just one of several turn-of-century explorers who planted flags here. Exploration of the Antarctic was the moon-shot of the day. Several countries have claimed pieces of Antarctica, but a current treaty states no one “owns” it.

Until someone finds oil, coal, or rare metals (component of ‘puters) here, it should remain spectacularly pristine. But, as with the moon, the fear is for future exploitation or militarization.

Next:  the weight of the Ice

Kayaks vs Icebergs.

The ship anchors in a bay, and we take an inflatable kayak out. Sarah sits in the stern, controlling the rudder with her feet and taking photos. I take the bow and the paddle.

Steep black rock pinnacles separated by blindingly white glaciers with 100 foot high walls surround us. In keeping with the color scheme here, the ocean water looks black. A mirror. Ice floats randomly over the surface. No two chunks are shaped similarly. The sea water has sculpted them into parallel grooves, pock-marked faces, tall spires, ovals, and delicate crystal filamentous transparencies finer than Waterford.

We paddle among them, the small ice pieces clinking against each other, the entirety of these thousands of near-the-end-of-their-lives ice chunks tinkling like wind chimes. We paddle around the medium sized pieces – those the size of semi trucks. The ones that draw us to them, but from which we keep a distance, are the spectacular ones: chunks the size of apartment buildings with caves eroded into them, with deep turquoise hues, glowing translucent, beckoning with their magnificent beauty.

There is a grumble, and a sharp crack. My eyes shoot toward the glaciers, looking for a new calf falling. None. Then I see it – a berg is rolling over. Flipping. Its groan echoes over the water, a large wave launches from its splash. Now a part of the 80 % of the berg which had been underwater is dripping above the surface (a new shape) while what had been the berg we’d seen, is now submerged.

Which is why we keep our distance from these beautiful monsters. Even if it didn’t hit us, the wave could swamp us. I look down at the water – black. Like ink alongside the kayak, aquamarine translucent at the edge of the bergs. Would NOT want to go into the drink. They’d try to get to us quickly, but – – – it’s minus one degree, Celsius.

Later, on the ship, the Underwater researcher shows us the movie she and her partner made on a dive the day before. It dramatically reinforces the life cycle here. The bottom is dense with Life: sea stars, urchins, tunicates, cucumbers, and thousands of small, drifting plankton completing the soup. She had to wear a dry suit, of course. Wetsuits, such as Sarah and I used in Monterey when the water was 50 degrees F. would be grossly inadequate.

Ship’s intercom: “those taking the Polar Plunge, put on your suit and report to the Mud Room.”

Hallway conversation:      “are you doing the Polar Plunge?”

                                          “I don’t know. You?”

                                           “Haven’t decided yet.”

The Mud Room has the open doors accessing the ocean three feet below. For getting in and out of Zodiaks. And kayaks. For SCUBA folks. There’s a step and a ramp – but it’s not a pier. All the Peer here is Pressure.

Internal thought:    Minus one degree.

Line up. Take off your robe. Up the step.

In goes Sarah. Out comes Sarah with the wide eyes and open mouth of shock.

Down onto the pontoon boat. Oh, look. Guys are going to film this. They’re in the water.

In dry suits.  Not one inch of skin showing.

Minus one degree.

Don’t think, just go.

Splash!

Black.

Surface.

Breathing muscles paralyzed.

Now we’re penguins.

Lying in the shallow ocean water, just beyond the beach where penguins stumble and trip over pebbles, is a bone. It’s a rib. The rippling water distorts it to our eyes, but it can’t distort this: the rib bone is twelve feet long.

Late 1700’s, to mid  1900’s (Yankee whalers were working Antarctica in 1791) , they slaughtered whales and brought them to this beach to take the oil. The rest they dumped. Whale populations fell to low single digits of what they had been for centuries before. Wasn’t til after WW II that pressure from those who care (the term “environmentalist” didn’t exist yet) slowed, and eventually halted the slaughter. (Well, almost halted it. There’s still one country that hunts here “for scientific research.” A loophole in the international agreement).

In this place, where there’s almost no Life on land, where it occurs beneath the ocean’s surface, sightings of whales became rare. Even within the lifetimes of the scientists who take these voyages with us paying customers, a whale sighting might occur only once every four voyages or so.

But we’ve seen both Killer Whales and Humpbacks off our bow the past two days, and yesterday we got a whole lot closer.

The Killers – species name “orca” – are easy to spot by their paint job. They all must surface to breathe – exhaling at 200 miles an hour and exchanging CO2 for oxygen in their lungs at an efficient 85% (our exchange efficiency is 20% or so for a single breath). But the scientists have found some substantial differences, using study tools of cameras and crossbows. The whale’s dorsal fin breaks into the air with each breath, and if the scientist’s boat is close enuf, his arrow plants a temporary tracking devise on the fin. Did that yesterday.

This way, they’ve found three groups – the Killer Whales in each group have different patterns of coloring, they hunt in different areas of Antarctica, and they eat different prey. One prefers seals, another a single species of Antarctic fish, and the third eats other whales.

So, they no longer call these whales “Orcas.” They believe that there are three or four different species of Killers, and the taxonomy must change. Only one of the four will keep the species name “orca.”

Twice now we’ve seen a half dozen Killers within reach of our eyes.

Two nites ago and again yesterday when our ship followed a blow, geysering from the water, the animal whose spine curved out, up, and back below the surface was much larger than a Killer’s. Like a fat submarine, black Humpbacks surfaced to breathe while feeding. We could predict where they’d surface again by the bubbles breaking the surface.

When these whales find their preferred food, they often get below their prey, swim in a circle, and blow bubbles. The rising cylinder of bubbles acts like a cage, trapping their prey. Then they open their mouths and swim up thru their cylindrical trap, engulfing everything in there. Using their one-ton tongue, they squeeze out the water from their mouths, and swallow.

Ironic that the bigger whale (up to 50 feet long and approaching 50 tons) eats stuff that’s smaller than the Killers’ prey. Much, much smaller. They eat krill – a 2 inch long shrimp-like animal.

Yesterday we cruised a bay here, in the Zodiac, and a mother and calf, probably just weaned from her very thick and rich milk, surfaced and blew nearly within arm’s reach of our inflatable 22 foot boat. Reminded me of standing on friend’s 40 foot sloop in San Francisco bay, as a Chinese container ship passed by us, eclipsing the sun.

In that bay, dense with floating bergs, we saw at least a half dozen Humpbacks in less than an hour. Good news for species recovery after teetering on extinction’s cliff.

The food chain here is real simple. Diatoms (some of you may know “Diatomaceous Earth,” the shells of these microscopic phytoplankton) bloom in these nutrient rich, very cold waters. The krill eat the diatoms as long as the water temp is colder than 4 degrees C. ; penguins feast on krill; seals eat penguins; some whales eat seals. Other whales, like the Humpback, by-pass intermediary steps and eat krill directly. Up to a ton of it a day.

Tommorow – diving in the Southern Ocean

Sunrise. Three-thirty A.M.

We’ve been steaming all nite, passing thousands of icebergs, and are only now entering Antarctic Sound at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.  We’re still over 1,000 Km. from the mainland.

Off Starboard are black mountains smothered in snow. To Port, is a very large chunk of ice: either Joinville Island or Dundee Island. When closer, I see that it is flat on top. Like a landing strip. And its edges are straight as the walls in a house. Looks like a perfectly sawed-off rectangle of ice, floating leisurely.

A scientist, up as early as I, says that it’s a Tabular iceberg, some of which can be several kilometers long, and several more wide.  Snapped from – not a glacier – but from one of Antarctica’s gigantic ice sheets.  From my reading,  I realize that what we see – a berg as massive as a small city – is only the 20% that is above the water line.

Unlike the traditional glacier-spawned bergs, this one will live for years, perhaps decades. It will float free until the 80% below waterline snags on the bottom, and remains stuck there. It’ll be a place of refuge for penguins, other birds, and seals.

On the Bridge, I check the digital charts. We are now south of 63 degrees, well inside the area designated “Antarctica,” but still 400 Km. from the Antarctic Circle. I go outside on this Summer morning to photograph the tabular berg, and the wind slices me like razors. Colder than a doctor’s stethoscope. Minus 8 degrees Celsius. I don’t stay out long.

The enormity of this continent is beginning to sink in. We’d have to steam another two days to reach the edge of the circular ice cap that encases the round mainland.

As for Life, from the ship I see no birds, no mammals this morning. Just low grey clouds, rocks, snow and water. Feels like certain death from freezing, even in Summer.

And in the early morning:   silence.   Mystical, spiritual silence.

Here’s an interesting way to look at the difference between the two Polar regions:

Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water; the Arctic is water (frozen) surrounded by continents.

Entirely different ecosystems. The Arctic has over 700 vascular plants, including forests. Antarctica has two. Maximum height here is under three inches. No Polar Bears here, No land mammals, really. All the life here is dependent on the sea.

First trip ashore.  We dress to stay warm and to stay dry. Funny-looking Pillsbury dough-persons, all in red parkas. The penguins will, no doubt, laugh at us. Into the inflatable Zodiacs, trying to cling to both the boat and our cameras, we bounce over the waves to a beach for which the adjective “desolate” would be an absurd understatement. We dis-embark into the water, and wade onto the pebbles. Into the penguins. This place is their breeding colony. Several hundred of the birds waddle about. The majority are moulting fledglings, chasing adults, yammering for food. That yummy regurgitated half-digested puke of fish and krill which they eat directly from their parents’ mouths.

It’s been nearly 50 days since the eggs hatched, and now the remaining down of the chicks is nearly all plucked out, replaced by their waterproof feathers (unique among birds) and it’s time to hit the 3 degree water. To learn how to swim, catch their own food, and avoid leopard seals.

They already have other predators, as a skeleton of a chick on the pebbled beach attests. Skuas. A species of sea bird known to drool over penguin chicks and who can even hold a stolen egg in its beak.

You who hear the word “penguin,” and think of either Nat’l Geo documentaries or cartoons entitled “Happy Feet” have not had the full experience. You missed the smell. Penguin feces come in two colors: red means eating a lot of krill. White reflects a fish diet. There’s a carpet of it here.

They scamper back and forth at the water’s edge, unsure who to follow, but always following someone: clumps of several dozen birds waddling back and forth, stumbling, face-planting, flailing comically with their flippers, testing the water, then scampering back to shore. Finally someone wades in, ducks his head into the surf, and becomes one of the most powerful, aerodynamic, and fastest swimmers among birds. Like a SCUBA diver, their cute clumsiness evaporates at the water. (Now I’m anthropomorphizing, too. Drat!)

All the other chicks in his gang follow. Twenty yards or so from shore, one of them has his first (and last) encounter with a leopard seal. But the gang is large, and penguins are one of the most successful species here. Mother Nature likes the sheer numbers approach.

We steam into another bay. “Whale!” someone spots a blow. I put down the camera, watch, and see at least a dozen separate whale blows. Seals frolic off our bow. The density of seabirds has increased tenfold.

Then this day morphs into a display of the Life here. Life I couldn’t see in the early morning. Seals, birds, two kinds of whales. And the ocean-based critters which sustain, in pretty robust fashion, everything up to 50 ton whales.

Next time: Killers and Humpbacks.