14 November, 1996

Nov. 14, 1996

Today we took our first helicopter (helo) trip! It was really exciting for me since I had never been in a helo before--I liked it better than flying in an airplane, it was much smoother on take-off and landing and we flew so much lower so you can see everything--it was really neat. Our destination was the ice edge--or as close as we could get. We landed and immediately saw a big group of Emperor penguins coming over to check us out. They were so curious, it was wild! They would come within 5 ft. of where we were trying to work and just 'hang out', they were so great! They are the biggest penguins, up to 3 ft. tall. They look like little people sort of. We were also very close to their swimming hole.

We did end up actually working, not just playing with the penguins! We took 16 cores and water samples and also tried out an instrument called a fluorometer which measures the fluorescence of the water at different depths.

After we got back, we worked on melting the cores etc. and then after dinner we were invited over to Scott Base (the New Zealand Base). We took a shuttle bus over there, looked around their gift shop, got a tour, and hung out with a few people over there and then decided to walk back to McMurdo. We took some silly pictures along the way, snow angels and stuff. It was about a 2 mile walk back. That is about all for today.

Jessica