Images of

ANTARCTICA

Palmer Station

Photos © 2004 Seth White

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It's Monday June 7 and I'm riding along in the LM Gould, in the middle of our voyage back to Punta Arenas. I'm sitting here typing away at the laptop while "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" plays here in the lounge. Early on, we were staring a full-on catastrophe when the ship's DVD player gave out. Fortunately, Holly's laptop was able to play DVD's, but we were lacking the appropriate cables to hook up to the TV. Eventually, he and Kevin (the ship's ET) came up with a cobble-job cable that did the trick, and Video Hell was back in business. My boss mentioned to me right before we set sail to Palmer that day 1 on the ship is pretty interesting, day 2 less so, and then day 3 onward is "video hell". That's about right. Anyway, some of today's features: "When We Were Soldiers" (incredible, but many brutal warfare scenes), "The Core" (not bad, actually, and a hell of a lot better than most sci-fi blockbusters made with much bigger actors), "The Last Samurai" (good, but gets old after the 9th showing...I mean, this movie seems to be everywhere: cable, airlines, boats...), and "Bend It Like Beckham" (crap, but slightly less crappy than most crappified, peppy, feelgood movies...and hey, Kiera Knightley is in it). And this doesn't count the early matinees, which I slept through. Well anyhow, here is a photo of the first view we had of Palmer Station as we rounded Bonaparte Point. It was foggy enough we couldn't see the station until we were right on top of it.

As we were pulling in, a zodiac came along side on its way back to station. An interesting tidbit is that you can actually take a zodiac over to our nearest neighbor, the Ukrainian Vernadsky station. Well, I should say that it is physically possible to do this...the Ukraines have visited Palmer this way and if I recall right it should be about 5-6 hours one-way. But taking out a zodiac to Vernadsky is verboten, and is about the most reliable way to get shipped off station...never to return. Vernadsky is the old British Faraday station, which they handed over to the Ukraine about 8 years ago. Our next closest neighbor is, I believe, the British Rothera station, which is ways farther south. The Gould, on its way back to PA after dropping us off, stopped at both stations. There was a medevac from Vernadsky, and the Rothera stop was to pick up some airplanes parts left by some Germans... or so I'm told (how did we get roped into picking that stuff up, and how did it get there in the first place?) And on its way back down, they stopped off at Vernadsky again, to drop off a zodiac I think. So I just missed seeing other countries' Antarctic stations, twice. Rats. It would have been nice if we had to stop at another station when I was coming or going, but then again I am perfectly happy with as short a crossing as possible.

Getting closer.

All the passengers, mostly first-timers to Palmer like me, were gathered on board as we came in. Here's me.

The station itself.

Here's a panorama of the scene as we arrived, of Palmer Station and the tip of Gamage Point.

Palmer, with the ship's crane.

A picture of the line handlers mooring the ship.

The cargo operations continued into the night after we arrived. Here is a nighttime photo of the Gould being unloaded.

Another one.

...and in the lounge of the Laurence M. Gould, ARSV, tonight's midnight matinee: Solaris, starring George Clooney. Never seen this, but I've heard it's pretty good. We're 15 minutes into it and I have no idea where it's going. In the land of formulaic, overdone, and generally mediocre cinema that is foisted upon the eagerly awaiting American moviegoer, this is a good thing. But anyhow, this is a picture of the station's Biolab building. And indeed the first floor is dedicated to laboratories and the aquarium. The second floor is the galley, pantry, dining room, and an assortment of offices. The third floor is berthing. It is generally thought that the GWR building has the more posh rooms, and I tend to agree. GWR was recently remodeled, and now Biolab, which used to be the chic dorm, is second best. Or so they say. I had a room in Bio 202, and I was perfectly happy with it. Well, one reason surely was that I had a solo room...one of the benefits of being a "grantee" I guess. But it was fine by me, especially since you can walk to the galley in your stocking feet.

Walking in the main entrance of the Biolab building, you have this foyer filled with float coats and float suits. These are orange outfits that you put on when you're going anywhere in a zodiac. Here's a rack of 'em.

Exiting the float coat room, there's a placque of Mary Alice McWhinnie, a prominent scientist after whom the laboratories were named.

Some tanks in the aquarium area, in the back of the bio building.

Heading upstairs around 12:30 on any given day, here's what you'll see: the crew milling around eating their vittles. The sunlight washes out the view, but it is a nice sight looking out the dining room windows. A well-chosen location.

Another photo of the dining room, this time later at night...and with the fireplace going. Nice.

Walking toward the windows and turning right, there is this comfortable little spot with a table, stereo, puzzles, games, telescope, guitars, books, etc.

Looking back the other way from the dining room is the kitchen, here manned by our excellent chef Dani. I ate better at Palmer Station than anywhere else on the ice...by far. And as if that wasn't enough, you can saunter down to the refrigerator/freezer any time and help yourself to whatever you like...and...

...go to the pantry and check out a box of crackers or cookies or whatever else you find. Just be sure to write down the Mapcon stock number of the item you took on the clipboard. Got Mapcon? The USAP does.

This is a very mundane photo of the bathroom cubby holes upstairs in the Bio building. The point is: you can put your stuff in here and guess what...nobody will steal it. By the way, Solaris is turning out to be an interesting movie. Very few characters, absolutely zero action, no gore, and no gimmicks. The story, dialog, and acting are carrying the movie. Imagine that.

Going out of the biolab building to the rear, there is the start of some wooden walkways which lead you around to most of the important places on station. In a lot of ways, Palmer Station reminded me of Scott Base. It is small, comfortable, and relatively good-looking...at least compared to McMurdo or Pole. Palmer is even color-coordinated. All the buildings here are blue, while Scott Base is green.

The wooden walkways were a nice and useful touch, although they'd get very slick after a rain and a quick freeze. Here, Biolab is on the right and the Trades (FMC) building is on the left.

More of the walkways, with the Trades building in the back and the sauna hut (with a little patio) in the front.

The FMC/Trades building, mostly consumed by the carpenter shop space and offices.

You walk around the upper walkway level, across from the Trades building, and find a stairway which leads down to the sauna hut. Yep, a sauna hut, with that little krill weathervane on top. Not too bad?

If you go down the stairs, past the sauna hut, down a few more stairs, and back around the bio building, you will find the hot tub. It is always sitting at around 103 F, just waiting for you to jump in. This is especially good after a polar plunge (see below).

An array of pipes and conduit running from Biolab (middle of this photo) to the GWR building (directly behind me in this picture).

Here's a photo of Nick, a fellow I came down with on the boat. He has been coming to the ice since the early 80's, but like me, hadn't been to Palmer yet. He was here on a 4-week contract to do some sheet metal work. Very nice guy, and in fact he's got a little side business making patches, pins, etc which he sells to the USAP for the station stores (good quality stuff). When he got to station, he found that not nearly enough material had been shipped to station to complete the job (!). So the decision was made that he'd partially finish the job and then come home in 2 weeks. But naturally, a day after the ship had already arrived back on station, word came in that no, he was going to stay and continue the work and someone else would add the missing parts in later. This was such a last minute decision that they literally had to pull some of his stuff off the boat. But Nick didn't seem to mind - he struck me as a real professional. He's been around the program a long time and will no doubt do some good work on the remainder of the project. Personally, I would have been a little irate if careless supplying and cavalier decision making kept screwing with my plans. Mmmm, well anyway, I will keep this rant short and end it here. I had an overwhelmingly positive experience at Palmer Station, so back to that. It is easy, actually, to focus on the things that are done the right way at Palmer Station.

Here is a vehicle that is unique to Palmer: a Skytrak. At least I hadn't noticed any of these at the other stations.

Continuing on the walkway, you get to the GWR building. From the platform on top of the building, this is the view looking back over Biolab and the rest of the station.

The GWR building. I never did ask what these intials stand for, and from the LM Gould there is no internet connection to look it up. And most everyone else has gone to bed...so I guess I'll just leave it at that.

Another view of the front of GWR.

And another view, with the walkways. Inside GWR are garage spaces, the power plant, cargo and logistics offices, storage areas, the store, the bar, the lounge, the medical office, and berthing.

This is the station's bar. A nice area, with all sorts of Palmer memorabilia as well as trinkets from other stations. The bar itself has been around the station for a long time. It was scheduled for removal during the GWR renovation, but some kindly soul stuck up for it. He refurbished it and it is now the centerpiece of the new watering hole.

Another one of the bar. In the top left is a whale vertebra, which has also been around a long time. The bar is BYOB, on the honor system, and yep, it does work. There is a good popcorn machine in the corner too.

The dartboard. Every Saturday, most of Palmer congregates here for the Antarctic darts league. Each winter different stations will play each other in darts, but the number of stations playing depends on the year. This year, I think it's just us, Scott Base, McMurdo, and South Pole. Last year, I know Neumayer and Rothera were also involved. It used to be radio darts, with stations playing in more-or-less real time via HF radio. But it has become an email thing now, where the stations keep track of their results and then email them off on Monday morning. More convenient that way, I guess, with the time differences.

Some thrilling darts league action. The first week, my team won all three games. However, we did not throw well enough to beat Scott Base or South Pole, who both seem to have some ringers on their teams.

Yet more darts, with Tonya throwing (she's pretty good).

The game is 301, double in and double out. The second week my team only won one game, but again none of the Palmer teams were able to take a win from Pole or Scott Base. Still a good time though. To keep score, Chuck hooked up a laptop to a projector, focused on a white sheet hanging from the ceiling, thusly.

Hanging in the bar is the propeller of the Hero. This is the supply ship which served Palmer Station up until the early 1980's, when the Polar Duke took over. The Hero was a wooden ship (!), and from the looks of this screw didn't have a hell of a lot of power. This ship was named after Nathaniel B. Palmer's original ship Hero. Above it, and continuing farther along the wall, are some penants from various Antarctic things that, one would guess, Palmer station or its personnel were involved with in some way.

Here is another pair of photos hanging in the bar - one of the Hero and one of the Gould. For many years there was a little lifeboat at Palmer. This was the Heroine, which was aboard Palmer's Hero. This boat was then taken over to McMurdo somewhere, and nobody here knows what ultimately happened to it. It figures. I hope this boat is somewhere still in safe keeping, but I wouldn't bet on it.

This is a nearby photo of the Polar Duke, predecessor to the Gould as the primary ship serving Palmer. It was a Norwegian boat, and I understand it is still in service up north somewhere.

More bar stuff. This is a bottle of the world-famous Bass Ale. Why this stuff is world famous, I don't know. Personally, I think it is a perfectly average beer...a very generic British ale, which incidentally, does not keep very well. So it's not that great to begin with, and by the time it gets down here it has gone down a notch. I really think that Bass, like Guinness, has been made by its marketing more than anything. But, that's not the reason I took this picture. I noticed that on the back of this bottle it says that Bass was taken to the South Pole by Shackleton. When exactly did he reach the Pole? I guess the esteemed marketing department at Bass knows something we don't...

This is the Palmer Station store, aka Pal-Mart, on the first floor of GWR. The desk is being manned by the ever gracious and cheerful Ildi, whom I met last summer at McMurdo.

And in the store you can find one heck of a liquor selection.

A desk in the cargo area, with a wide assortment of labels for your parcel-identification needs.

Just a random picture of the moon rising over the mountains.

There is a milvan outside Biolab called the Batcave, complete with the Bat-symbol stenciled on the door. This is actually the waste office, which occasionally does double duty as beer storage. A ton of beer came down on the ship with us, and among the brands was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. This, however, continues to languish in the Batcave whilst the Austral, Imperial, Cristal, and Bass are sold in the stores. I lament this, but am loath to complain further. The people handling the store do this in addition to their normal jobs, so they get stuff out on the shelves as fast as they can. And, we did have Guinness (draught cans, not the nasty bottled stuff) to drink, so that wasn't too bad at all.

After doing 4 polar plunges at McMurdo last year, with the last one at -42 F with 10 knot winds, I told myself I was not going to do it again...unless I got to Palmer Station. I had been procrastinating about this since I arrived, but finally decided to do it on Memorial Day. Johan, the science tech, has done the plunge dozens of times and will jump in every time the ship leaves. So he was game to go for a swim, and so were Henry and Tonya. So we went down to the pier. Johan went first, then my turn. To psych myself up for something I really don't want to do, I usually stall and curse. So that's what I am doing in this picture.

Then, in the water. I never get used to how damn cold the water is. The head sticking up from the water in the background may or may not belong to Johan, who may or may not hold the Palmer cold-water endurance record (something absurd like 9 minutes).

The boathouse, where the zodiacs are maintained and repaired. This is also the muster point if you hear the fire alarm.

A wall inside the boathouse.

Here is Palmer Station, from a zodiac on the way back from the bird-weighing excursion.

Same view, only closer in.

On the way up the hill from the station, toward the glacier, sits the T5 hut. Inside here are various instruments and other hardware, similar to the Arrival Heights hut at McMurdo. One of the systems is Terascan. I am not very familiar with it, but there are a variety of satellites with different earth-observing sensors whose data is downloaded and processed by the Terascan system. Various useful data products can be output, including views of the weather in the vicinity of the southern part of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula. The radome on the left is the Terascan antenna, while the main comms antenna is inside the radome on the right.

The T5 hut. This buildling is due to be replaced next winter by the new T6 hut, which incidentally, will be triangular in shape. Not the most space-efficient design, the triangle, but that's what they're doing.

The main room of the T5 hut, with boxes of my crap scattered everywhere. I was sitting here one day when Dr. Betty Carlisle came in. For years, it has been the doctor's job to take air samples with the equipment in the VLF/Clean Air hut, and she was here to move some crates of sample flasks. She has been with the USAP for quite a while, and has been the station doctor at all three stations. In fact, she was the person brought in to relieve Dr. Ron Shemensky during the mid-winter South Pole medevac a few years ago. I hadn't met her before, so I couldn't resist asking her about her flight to Pole that year. She was glad to oblige, and ended up telling me the whole thing. I sat there fascinated. They left from Punta Arenas and flew to the British Rothera station to await good weather at Pole. Rothera, unlike Palmer, has a runway, and it can be used year-round. Before leaving Punta Arenas, she talked about the pilots getting their send-off from the other guys, and how it was a somewhat quiet moment where they wished the crew good luck. The sight of experienced, grizzled veterans of Antarctic flying giving the flight crew their best wishes was a little sobering, she says, and it was at that moment when it really hit her how dangerous this unprecedented flight was going to be. The flight was made by a Twin Otter, with a crew of three plus Doc Betty. When plans were being made, the 119th wing of the ANG was bound and determined to perform the mission using a C-131. There were over 200 of them all gung-ho to do the flight, and in fact there were planes in Hawaii when the decision was finally made to use the Twin Otter. The ANG guys were not happy about this and in fact an order from on high was necessary to get them to return home. It was amazing for me to learn this, since everyone on the ice knows that the cold-temperature limits for C-131's are around -60 F. This is why they never fly missions to South Pole after mid-February. It's the cold, not the sunlight. And here they were, raring to go, to do a flight to South Pole in the middle of winter, at -90 to -100 F. This is certainly brave, but at the same time my suspicion is that these sorts of daring missions are the kind of things that one gets medals and commendations for. The fact is that the Twin Otter aircraft are much more suited to the extreme cold than the C-131's, and the Twin Otter operation would be much more straightforward (logistically) and much safer...if one can use the word "safe" to describe this type of thing. In the end, better sense prevailed and Kenn Borek air pulled off the Twin Otter mission with 6 total personnel, as opposed to the hundreds of ANG people that were on their way. Another thing that was interesting for me to hear was that she actually fell asleep on the plane during the flight. Yes, she has been around a while. And it was warm enough on the plane that she'd actually stripped down to some light clothes...and then had to scurry like mad after the landing to get into her ECW so she could walk out in the -92 F or so air (a landing which, by the way, was incredibly smooth - a testimony to the pilot's skill). The plane was on the ground for about 12 hours (which was 12 hours longer than the C-131 was planning to stay) and when they were ready to go, people had to dislodge the plane's skis which had frozen to the ground. This took quite a while but finally the plane got free and taxied down the runway. The plane actually went off the far end of the runway and turned around, to get as much room as they possibly could for takeoff. They barely managed to get the plane back on the runway and started their takeoff. Overheard during this moment by radios tuned to the plane's channel: "Get us back on the runway - I don't want to stay the winter here!" Usually, Twin Otters can take off very quickly. They just power up and they're off the ground. Not this time, says Doc Betty. The thing barely inched its way down the runway and was only able to get airborne at the very end...good thing they had 100% of the runway to use! The people watching this from the station had no idea what the plane was doing when it was dithering around off the end of the runway...but the pilots did. Betty only found out what they were doing a year later, when she met up again with the plane's pilot. Another thing... the people on the ground couldn't free one of the trim flaps which had iced up. And after starting the engines plane couldn't wait around any longer before takeoff, so they ended up flying home with one of the flaps iced up...and the medevac patient who has recovered fully. And yes, the story about the salt is true. South Pole station had indeed run out of salt earlier in the winter, and so they stuffed as much as they could into the plane (including some in Doc Betty's pockets!). The famous salt was purchased at a Punta Arenas supermarket, where a guy went in late at night and literally bought the store out of their supplies (to the amazement of the locals...que gringo loco, no?).

This is the back office area of T5. The hand in the window is a little thingy that one of the workmen left on one of the buildling's foundations. It broke off a while back and was brought inside.

This thing is a bird whacker. Yes, the official manufacturer's name of this device is a Bird Whacker. Why is it here? Because some Sheathbills had gotten into the habit of pecking at the collector on the top of the UV radiometer instrument. The idea of this rotating device was to push them out of the way...gently, of course. The term "bird whacker" was not well received (at all) by the NSF when it appeared in a weekly sitrep, and so it was renamed the ADU, or "Avian Deterrent Unit". I'm not making this up.

Next to the T5 hut is the VLF/clean air hut. Inside is the receiving and processing equipment for a VLF antenna, similar to the one inside Second Crater at Arrival Heights. Both instruments are run by Stanford, however this site is much more interesting. The signals received at this location are much cooler and much more numerous than at McMurdo. The whole year at Arrival Heights, I only heard a few whistlers, a few chirps, and lots of crackles. Here, this stuff comes in almost all the time, the main reason being that its geomagnetic conjugate region (in the northern hemisphere) is more active. An especially cool sound is the multipath whistler, which I heard a series of one day.

The VLF antenna itself is up on the glacier, off to the side of the trail.

Another interesting thing inside the T5 hut is the radionuclide sampling station. This station, although not officially certified yet, looks for certain radioactive particles in samples of the ambient air. It is a part of the CTBT worldwide monitoring network, which includes the infrasound and seismic stations near McMurdo.

One last photo here - just some snowmobiles sitting at the base of the glacier trail. And, in case you were wondering, the movie just finishing up in the lounge here is "Starship Troopers". By far the worst movie yet shown here in Gould Theaters, and one of the worst ever (although not even in the same dimension of crappitude as Battlefield Earth). I have a theory, a theory that is mine. I call it the Denise Richards theory. It goes like this: If there is a movie, and Denise Richards appears in it, it will suck. I defy you to disprove this theory with a single counterexample!