January 7, 2006 - House Mouse

 Today the L.M. Gould left Palmer Station dock for its one month research cruise.  Everyone was out at the dock watching the departure. It was snowing lightly and the air temperature was a little below freezing. Icebergs were all about.  Apparently it is a tradition for some of those left behind to jump into the water after the ship moves away from the dock. I didn't really think people would do this, but they did. They jumped right off the big rubber bumpers into the deep water. There is a ladder right there and they got out quickly, but that had to be one cold experience.  Maybe by the end of the month here I will be ready for such a thing…
 
Today was Saturday and this is the day of "House Mouse". Palmer Station does not have any porters or cleaning staff, so everyone on the station has to participate in cleaning. In this way, a maximum number of scientists can be at the station.  There is room for only 45 people at this Station.   It’s an interesting arrangement.  Every Saturday at two PM, everyone has to show up in the kitchen-eating area.  You pick a slip of paper out of a hat, and that is your cleaning duty. There is quite a frenzy when everyone picks, and some want to trade.   I drew the BIO building dormitory bathroom, which I decided to keep.  It wasn't too bad – it took about an hour to do everything.  After that one hour, the entire Station was cleaned up.  Amazing.    We also have to clean our own dishes after every meal, and once a week each person has to take a 1 hour slot after dinner to do a kitchen clean up.  That way the kitchen cooks (only two on station) don't have to do all the clean up too.  The cooks here are really good!
 
After House Mouse, we had a general Station meeting, where all the new arrivals (including me) introduced themselves.  There are about 10 of us newbies.  They also informed us of upcoming activities. Something I didn't know until I got here was that this Station is visited by quite a few cruise ships during the summer season.  This coming week a ship called the Bremen will visit. It holds only 150 people or so, and sometimes a small ship like that will be allowed to let people into the station for a guided tour.  Later in the week the cruise liner Rotterdam will be visiting, but that ship holds 1800 passengers and 600 crew! They will not come into the station, but the station will send people out to the ship for a lecture.     I guess Antarctica is a very popular tourist destination.  
 
I did a little experiment after dinner tonight and collected seawater from the rocks right behind the lab.  We had to walk by 3 elephant seals sleeping on the rocks.  We stayed about 25 feet away. The weren't moving much so they weren't very interesting, but boy do they smell bad!  It almost knocks you over when you get a whiff of them.  I can't imagine what a whole colony smells like!
 
Tomorrow we will go out in the zodiac for some preliminary sampling at our stations.