Don
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Index Ever OnwardsMargie and I are starting to feel that we are here "Together Alone." The "Spirit of Sydney" has been gone for six weeks and we have put marks on the wall to count off the weeks. We have made up a few things that we are going to tell you each week. One is the best thing that happened this week: We went for a big walk wearing on crampons on Wednesday. We went up to the edge of the plateau behind Cape Denison. There is line of rocks that come out from the ice up there called the moraine line (an accumulation of boulders, rocks and debris carried and deposited by a glacier). We were hunting for meteorites. Any meteorite that falls on the ice of the plateau is slowly pushed down to the moraine line as the ice moves. We didn't find any but it was good fun having a look. Wednesday was fantastic after the blizzard on Monday and Tuesday. By 6 a.m. (we have kept our clock on Sydney Time--we just turned it back because Sydney went off daylight saving time last weekend) the sun was shining and wind had stopped. The sea started to freeze over. It was interesting to watch it, it doesn't take long but it only lasts while the wind is calm.
QUESTIONS FROM STUDENTS ABOUT ROCKS AND FOSSILS.
Students from Pahoia School in Tauranga, New Zealand asked
questions this week about fossils in the rocks and about why
Antarctica is now cold since they have been told that it was once
warm. We haven't seen any fossils yet but we'll let you know if we
find any in the rocks. The other question is an interesting one. I
wanted to pack lots and lots of books but there was limited space
and weight restrictions to consider when we packed our gear for
Expedition Ice-Bound. The best answer I can give you is that
Antarctica, the land buried under the ice was once part of
Gondwanaland. Antarctica today is made up of two distinctly
different natural areas. One is West Antarctica that is
geologically known as the Andean Province and Greater Antarctica
known as the Gondwana Province. I'll bet your teachers can help you
find information about this subject in your school library or
through the resources on your computer network which are
unreal.
WHAT WE ARE EATING - A WORLD WIDE INTEREST IN FOOD
Margie and I spoke to a school in Japan this week on our satphone
and they wanted to know about what we are eating just like students
from Pemberton High School in Australia and Pahoia School in N.Z.
One student even mentioned "fat." They knew that penguins, seals
and whales living in the cold waters of Antarctica have a thick
layer of fat and wanted to know if we were planning to gain one
too! We don't plan to get fat but we lost weight on the voyage down
and during the setting up of Expedition Ice-Bound. We aren't as
active now and we will probably gain weight since our favorite food
is pizza. We had pizza again this week. It's not like pizza you
might make at home. We use BUTTERCUP Oven Bake Rolls for pizza
bases and tins of EDGELL'S peeled tomatoes which we smash up and
EDGELL'S champignons (mushrooms) in pieces and stems, some herbs,
and grated cheese on top. We bake them in the kerosene oven. We
forgot the pepper grind so we are smashing peppercorns in a tea
towel with a hammer. When the hot pizzas come out of the oven they
get a sprinkle of this fresh pepper. They are the best pizzas for
more than 100 kilometres. (Our nearest neighbours are the folks at
the French base Dumont d'Urville. Maybe some day we will ring them
and ask if they make pizzas.) We don't want to start eating our
winter breakfast which is going to be porridge just yet so we have
made a combination of oats, cut up dried fruit, nuts and dried
coconut--homemade Antarctic muesli. continued next message We have
frozen meat that we were keeping buried in the snow but we're
afraid of losing it. This week we brought it into the "cold porch"
which is inside the hut. We had steak and frozen broccoli one night
and another night this week we had a "Shelf Stable Meal" of satay
chicken. "Shelf Stable Meals" are prepared meals that haven't been
frozen or freeze dried. We heard about them on television on the
Beyond 2000 program. They are kept fresh by a new technique that
uses cycles of intense flash heat. This technique uses no
preservatives or additives and the nutritional content is the same
as freshly cooked food. After we learned about "Shelf Stable Foods"
we analysed the fuel consumption and volume of taking 'basics' and
cooking like the early explorers versus the newer way of microwave
and "Shelf Stable Foods." We figured out that the newer way would
save on fuel so the bulk of our provisions is an assortment of
precooked, just heat and eat "Shelf Stable" meals.
SPEAKING OF FUEL -- SUNSHINE HOURS DECREASE
How about these facts for hours of sunshine per month. You might
compare them with where you live. In Antarctica we can expect
sunshine, not daylight we're talking about the sun shining. Some
days are cloudy or blizzards! Sunshine hours in - February 244;
March 154; April 65; May 57; June 10; July 35; August 50; September
226' October 251; November 310 and December 370. So you can see
that we are going to be running the diesel generator from the end
of this month. Remember I told you about making electricity (24
February).
ANIMAL LIFE
Students from New Zealand asked about baby seals, penguins and
whales. So far we have only seen baby penguins but that is one of
the reasons we are here. We want to observe the seasonal cycle of
life in Antarctica. We have seen small seals but they didn't look
like babies, maybe next spring. Whales- -we saw killer whales from
"Spirit of Sydney." They followed our boat. If you happened to see
the Today Show last Monday, 6 March in Australia they showed the
killer whales that we filmed! Killer whales eat meat, seals, other
whales and penguins... There are now eleven moulting penguin
hanging around near a rocky outcrop about 8 metres away from the
hut. We wonder if they will survive their moult since they seem out
of phase with the rest of the penguin community. All the other
penguins are gone from this area. We will miss them when they go,
they are fun to watch. That reminds me about fat. I didn't finish
what I started to say about fat keeping animals warm down here in
Antarctica. We plan to keep warm with clothes instead of an
internal layer of fat. We have some really good, modern protection
from the cold. One of the best thing we have with us is our
thermals. They are EVERWARM thermals from New Zealand. They are
fantastic. Margie laughed after she washed hers and left them to
dry when we went out one day. When we came back they were standing
up, more than a metre high, all by themselves, frozen stiff inside
our hut. We are also wearing modern sailing and mountaineering
clothes that are very comfortable. I think of Mawson and his men.
They had reindeer hide sleeping bags. I'll tell you more about our
clothing next week.
Keep warm,
Don
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