Dawn in Antarctica

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time exploring.  In addition to shopping for dried fruit and spices for Antarctica, I went to Sea Point and spent an hour exploring tidal pools.  There are so many organisms that I don't know anything about! Highrise apartments and hotels with the backdrop of mountains frame one side of the beach, with metamorphosed sandstones framing the ocean side. Large swells lift kelp and are broken by the rocks at low tide.  The rocks hold the water for the pools. The orange is a sponge, the same color as chert veins in the sandstone.  What are the deep red slime domes? The large limpets, like the one above which is about 7 cm in diameter, host many other organisms, in this case mini green starfish. Other, smaller limpets are iridescent, but other small ones host sea weed. The purple ridge on this organism overlies a muscle that lifts the gas-filled bag of its body up out of the water, or relaxes to let it lie flat.  It has scallope

In honor of Halloween, I've decided to post my photos of Permian-aged fossils from the Karoo dressed up as real beasts.  I love these creatures from the Iziko South Africa Museum. The skin knobs on the cadaver are amazing.  The vegetarian is a really sloppy eater, although I guess the carnivore is worse.  The gore puts any haunted house I've seen to shame.   Why do the top two beasties have glassy, cat-like eyes, but the vegetarian has cloudy brown eyes?  That difference can't be preserved in the fossils.  The cadaver's eyes are out of sight, but his tongue is hanging out.  He's dead.

It's Sunday in Cape Town and raining. Table Mountain is socked in, and most museums are closed. Thus, I'm spending the day inside working. I've caught up on some back e-mails, worked on a form for recording observations of bacteria in the field, and am about to tackle a paper on microbial communities in Lake Vanda that needs some serious rewriting. It's a good use of time. The view out my window toward Devil's Peak: This was also a test of posting a blog via e-mail.  It mostly worked.  I had to change the position of the photo and add labels, but the technique will work for low band width from Antarctica!  (I also added this paragraph.)

Lower body clothing is essential for keeping your legs and feet warm, particularly when standing around dive tending.  My innermost layers are Pategonia travel underwear, which are comfortable and easy to clean with little water (or alcohol cleaner).  I’m brining two pairs of thin silk long underwear and 4 pairs of SmartWool mid-weight wool long underwear.  I can wear the silk ones under the wool ones.   As a mid layer, I’m brining several choices.  I have black pile pants, which I wasn’t very fond of the last two trips, a pair of pile ski pants with a grey wind proof shell, and a new pair of black Mont Blanc insulated pants.  These new pants are lightweight, silky and warm.  They have 3/4 length zippers.  My dad bought them for me in size extra large (the only size available), so they are too long, but they are soft and compressible enough that I can wear them under my Burton snowboarding pants, which I really like, or my bib overalls.  I’m also brining my blue wind pants.  Th

Ian, Dale, and I arrived in Cape Town within a few hours of each other yesterday morning.  I was the last in at 11:30.  I had enough bags to require two luggage carts.  However, to move them you have to push down the handle.  It turned out to be almost impossible to wheel both at the same time.  Luckily, a generous security guard helped with the carts through customs.  I had no problem getting through.  I showed the agent my detailed packing lists and said it was equipment for work in Antarctica, and he waved me though.   Outside, Dale, Ian, and I consolidated the luggage onto 3 carts and went to wait outside for our ride from Oleg of ALCI  (Antarctic Logistics Center International), the contractor who is providing our travel logistics.  We were ready early, so had a bit of a wait.  Once Oleg showed up, we went to the warehouse where most of our gear for heading south is being stored.  We repacked some of the things we brought, and left much of our luggage there.   Making a lis

I'm sitting in the Dubai International Airport with 5 hours until my flight boards. I started the trip at home with 5 giant bags weighing about 45-50 pounds each, plus 2 carry-ons.  I'm flying Air Emirates, and they let you pay for 3 extra bags up to 75 pounds each for much less than the cost of sending them air freight.  Thus, I'm taking all my science equipment with me on the flights.  I'll paste a list of the gear at the end of the blog. Tyler picked me up at my house with his truck at noon.  We drove to San Francisco International Airport, where I checked my bags and hung out for a couple of hours.  We boarded and left San Francisco to the west, and I was struck yet again at how beautiful the California coast is.  I had a beautiful view from Stimson Beach up into Point Reyes and Tomales Bay.  I need to spend more time on the coast. The flight to Dubai wasn't completely full, and Air Emirates deserves its good reputation.  Dinner (curried prawns for me)

In my "Upper Body Clothing" post, I forgot my head! Hats and hoods are really important, and I have some great ones.  My favorite hat is a SmartWool thin wool hat with stripes.  It is warm, but I don't even feel it on my head.  I can pull it down over my eyes while I sleep to make it dark, and it doesn't squish my nose.  The rest of my hats are mostly extras.  The soft red Mountain Hardware fleece hat is nice, but just doesn't compete with my wool one.  I'll take two billed hats, but I tend not to wear them.  I prefer to see the sky.  The off-white one is from John Abelson's birthday party a few years ago.  I'll try to remember to take a self portrait of me wearing it to send to him.  He's one of the discoverers of the first HIV antiretroviral drugs and an amazing scientist. I will wear my blue neck gator almost all day every day, switching occassionally to my scarf.  When it's really cold, I'll wear my dad's Helly Hanson, cust

I've been frantically packing for Lake Untersee .  I got most of the science equipment together a week ago, and I'll write about that soon.  Today, I finished pulling my clothing together.  This trip, we have to bring all of our own clothing, so I'll provide a detailed list and my motivations.  This blog will focus on my upper body, and we'll move down with future posts. My past experience has shown that I like wearing bikini tops or Patagonia sports tops more than bras, so I'm bringing two of the first and three of the second.  These provide some extra insulation for the most cold-sensitive part of my body. On top of these, silk or wool long underwear will be great.  This year, I'm taking one very thin silk top, two lightweight Icebreaker wool tops with baseball shirt type sleeves, and two mid-weight SmartWool tops with collars and short zippers.  With this combination, I can wear up to three tops at once going from silk to lightweight to midweight.  T