January 31, 2006 - I jumped!
Today was a day of just running samples in the lab so we had to do something interesting right? Lots of people have been jumping off the dock in the evenings to celebrate the beautiful sunsets. Well, the peer pressure got to me – or should I say pier pressure. After all, I didn’t want to be the only one in our group that didn’t jump – I couldn’t let that happen. So a bunch of us, including ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE DMS BIOCOMPLEXITY GROUP, got together for an evening jump. It was about 7:30 pm and it was still nice and sunny and relatively warm – say about 39 F. The Harbor was full of brash ice, but there was no ice right off the dock. We all gathered on the pier in shorts and swim suits. George, a veteran of many such jumps, led the way with a nice twist move. Next went Kerry, also a veteran. Then came the first-timers –Maria jumped bravely – and she let out quite a yell when she surfaced. Ray went next and had good form going in. Finally, it was my turn. I jumped onto the big black rubber bumper and there was no turning back. Unfortunately, instead of striking a nice pose in the air for the cameras I was holding my nose as I jumped. I hit the water and went under. My first impression was not of the cold, but rather how green the water looked from underneath. Of course it was cold, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, I quickly headed for the ladder and climbed out. Amazingly, I wasn’t all that cold and I was even able to walk around for a while without anything else on but my shorts. The worst part was walking around on the gravel of the pier in my tender bare feet! We took a nice group photo of the jumpers on the sunny side of one of the vans. Shortly after the group photo we all headed for the hot tub. Yes, they have a hot tub here at Palmer Station. It was really nice to get in that nice warm water and sit there for a while watching the icebergs and the sunset. It was great fun, and a memorable Antarctic experience. Next time I won’t hold my nose when I jump!
Besides the jump, not much else happened today. The tour boat Ushuaia came back to visit the station today, but I didn’t get involved because I was busy in the lab. One good thing is that the Ushuaia brought us some fresh vegetables and salad stuff. That was good.
Yesterday morning as I looked out at the pump house that pumps the seawater into the wet lab, I was surprised to see a young elephant seal laying on the walkway. He was very cute and he kept his eyes on me the whole time. I guess that was a nice smooth spot to snooze. Later on he moved down to the rocks to be with his bigger buddies.
