17 November, 2000

Hello World,

We ran the coolest experiment last night. A group of us took Styrofoam cups from the galley, kitchen, and took markers and decorated them. We took the cups and put them in a mesh bag. There were about twenty people around the ship that decorated a cup to put in the bag. i attached the bag to the CTD, Conductivity Temperature and Depth instrument package. The CTD was then lowered to a depth of 1000 meters or the equivalent of about three thousand feet. What do you think happened to the Styrofoam cups? The results were fantastic.

I awoke this morning to a blinding light passing through my porthole window. the light was so bright I had to put on sunglasses to see out of the window. It was a huge iceberg with the suns rays reflecting off of it. I quickly got dressed, grabbed my camera and ran on deck. there I stood with my jaw on the floor. I was stunned. The awesome beauty of Antarctica. Everywhere I looked I wanted to take a picture, and I did. As the ship made its way closer to Palmer Station we passed large snow and ice covered mountains, glaciers, icebergs, penguins and whales. Every corner we turned was more breath taking than the last. I was on deck for 12 straight hours other than meals and to run my chlorophyll samples.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes when I'm typing these journal arcticles I want to put up hundreds of pictures on this web site so you can more clearly experience what I am seeing and doing. In El Paso, where I live, we test river water monthly. One of the tests we run is the dissolved oxygen test. If there wasn't any dissolved oxygen in water, then plants and animals that live in the water couldn't survive. That is why we put air pumps on fish aquariums. Running this test requires you to gauge exactly when your testing water changes color. On board ship they run dissolved oxygen tests on water samples from the CTD. To calculate the amount of dissolved oxygen they use a piece of equipment that uses a sensor to measure when the water changes color. See the picture below. Science is COOL!

Today was my PI's, Primary Investigator's, birthday. We had birthday cake for him a lunch and I gave him a decorated Styrofoam cup from the deep blue sea. Tomorrow I will be at Palmer.

Okay, I know I promised you the scoop on Deception Island, but I have a meeting on arrival at Palmer Station in the morning. So check out a Saturdays story on Deception. It's a good one.

-- Bill

Iceberg looking for a warm home

Dissolved Oxygen titration apparatus.

Antarctica!