The Last Two Weeks

You would think that being here in Antarctica, away from all the distractions of typical day-to-day life, I would have plenty of time to work on this blog. But .... we keep pretty busy here. A typical day for me starts at 5:20am when I wake up and start to "Bring It" by working out with Tony Horton's P90X or P90X+.

By 7:30 work starts. What I do all day varies and includes - checking the hot tub to make sure it has the right amount of chemicals, keeping track of the inventory and ordering medications and supplies,

leading the trauma team in skills trainings,

participating on the Glacier SAR team, working the Pal-Mart store,

welcoming visitors (including astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren) from large cruise ships

or from a small sailboat with a family on a 4-year journey around the world,

helping birders do research on penguins,

boating to nearby islands to change out the SAR caches or help with deployment of research equipment, writing and leading monthly fire drills, performing quality control on the medical lab equipment, testing drinking water,

providing medical support to the 2 USAP research vessels (one has a helicopter that brought in a patient), and, of course, providing medical care to station personnel.

The "work day" officially ends at 5:50pm, then I typically work out again, have dinner and maybe go boating to see the wildlife and icebergs ...

... last night ...

or I might rehearse with the band, read, or watch movie.

We work 6 days a week.

Rest day includes working out, boating, hiking in the backyard, watching movies and napping.

In other words, we keep busy.

Leopard Seal

 

This female leopard seal spent the day on an ice floe right off station. At one point the floe bumped into our pier bumpers, then into the zodiacs in the "parking lot", and then so close to a rock I was sitting on that I could almost touch her. She did not seem to mind that we were watching her most of the day and taking pictures. Beautiful creature.

Adelie Penguin Chicks

First we started seeing eggs,

then gray balls of fluff with black heads and tiny flippers,

 

then they were too big to fit under mom and dad.

Another Fabulous Day

It's been a busy few weeks with the holidays, ships visitings and enjoying the surroundings. The local icebergs are spectacular. This one has a group of chinstrap penguins hanging out.

And these bergs form amazing shapes!

This is a picture of the Piedmont Marr (our glacier) as it ends at the ocean.