Bouncing through the Drake Passage

Hi Friends,

We’re presently bouncing along in what we all think are enormous waves through the Drake Passage.   Listening to the crew however, they tell us this is “nothing”. . .not even as bad as “normal.”  Normal must be pretty exciting.  Right now as I look out the portal window in my cabin the boat is going up and down about 15 to 20 feet, maybe more, from the ocean at times.

As I look out into the ocean as far as I can see into a fog layer, it looks so angry. The waves today are not coming from one direction – it’s more like these huge swells just appear out of no where and we ride up over them.

We’ve been listening to lectures on whales, seals, penguins, and ice.  I thought I’d list a couple of the surprising statistics that I’ve picked up so far:

Antarctic accounts for 10 percent of the Earth’s land surface.  In summer it is roughly twice the size of Australia and 1 and a half times the size of the USA.   In the winter, the size of the continent doubles.

Ninety-nine percent of Antarctica is covered in an icecap.  That ice cap is more than three miles deep at parts and the Antarctic icecap contains over 70 percent of the earth’s fresh water supply.  If it melted, the sea level around the world would rise
by 200 feet.

Antarctica is the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent on earth.

I think we are all a little melancholy right now as we leave Antarctica.  It is unlikely that we’ll ever be back here. . .not impossible, I suppose, but certainly unlikely.   I think we’ve done a pretty good job on spreading the word about neurofibromatosis while we were here on board the ship.  Thom let me address all the participants during the post race meeting, and he has told me he’d find time to show our NF Endurance video at the final meeting.

I’ve gotten reports from several of our runners that this blog is getting some good readership…I thank you all for following along with us on this adventure.

Cheers,

Steve

And a note from Jose…

Dear Jill,

Happy Anniversary! Thanks for 21 great years.

Love,
Jose

Vistas of a Whitescape

This morning the ship crew gave out the Polar Plunge certificates.

They read as follows:  This certifies that on the 9th day of March in the year 2010, (Steve K, Jose D, Chad L, Carl P, Tim B, George F) plunged (by choice) into the frigid and icy waters of Paradise Harbor, in the Southern Ocean, watched by 53 courageous fellow plungers & 63 gutless shipmates, at Lat 64 45S and Long 62 48W, when the observed temperature of the ocean registered 1 degree on the Celsius scale.  We do solemnly acknowledge this act of outright courageousness/stupidity in participating in the hardcore plunge.

John Steinberg did get issued a certificate of nonparticipation suitable for framing.  I will not quote it directly.  There was verbiage about not “manning up. “It will look nice in his office!” said Jose Dominguez.

A comment from John Steinberg – I use iced saline to stop a heart when I perform surgery.  There were two defibrillators present during this activity.  I was reminded of the famous Missouri saying “Here, hold my beer and watch this.”

Without question, today was the most spectacular day visually for us.  We started by traveling down and then up the Lemaire Channel also known as Kodak Channel, or the Fuji Funnel because it is so photographed.  The channel had lots of ice chunks and some areas that were lined with ice. Pretty much the entire channel, which is no more than 300 meters wide, is surrounded by glaciers that calve into the channel.

From there we cruised over to the Palmer Station, which is on Anvers Island Palmer Station is named after Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer, who was one of the people to see the Antarctic Continent.  The view around Palmer Station was fantastic.  It was almost beyond description. The sun came out for the first time since we left Ushuaia.  Mountains and glaciers surrounded us.  Mount Francais towers behind the station, and at nearly 10,000 feet tall, it is the largest mountain on the Antarctic Peninsula.

In the “it’s a small world” category, I met a good friend of Dr. Bruce Korf at the station.  Bruce is probably the world’s foremost authority on neurofibromatosis.  In fact, he did write the book we all use as a guideline.

We are now comfortably cruising into the Drake Passage and are working our way back to the Beagle Channel and ultimately home.  I think I can speak for the rest of the team when I say we are missing our families very much at this point and are anxious to be home.

Tomorrow will be our last blog entry until we arrive in Ushuaia.

Cheers,

Steve

The Antarctic Polar Plunge

Well, we didn’t get to swim in the center of the volcano where the water was a balmy 37 degrees, but we did get to jump in off the gangway in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean.  The water was somewhere in the vicinity of 32 – 34 degrees, it was snowing nicely, and before I could jump I had to wait for a huge block of ice to float out of my way.  You’ll enjoy the pictures.

Certificates will be issued to the bold:  Jose Dominguez, George Franke, Chad Leathers, Tim Billharz, Carl Price, and yours truly.

It was odd to see such a line of people in bathrobes waiting to jump in.  A friend of mine made the comment one time at the start of the Chicago marathon that sort of rang true for me here;  “Look at that, 40,000 people and you could put all their brains in a coffee cup and still have room for cream.”  Yup, it was like that.  A new boat record was set with a total of 54 people plunging into the sea… somehow that makes sense considering these are people who had just run a marathon here in Antarctica.

This morning we all did a Zodiac landing at Danco Island where we climbed up 590 feet to see. . .well, if it were a nice day, we would have seen the spectacular view the top of the mountain had to offer of the harbor.   The penguins and seals made the trip worthwhile, however.  On the Zodiac ride back to the ship we got to play with a Leopard seal for a while.   Some also got to see a Crabeater and Weddell seal as well.

We’re cruising now to the to the Neko Harbor so we can walk  on the actual continent of Antarctica.  Tomorrow we will hopefully visit the U.S. Palmer Research Center.

Despite the marginal weather, larger than usual waves, and poor visibility, we are all having fun.

See you soon.

Steve