Oden Antarctic Expedition 08 Journals

Exploring McMurdo For me, the reoccurring theme of this 2 month adventure has been, “Just when you thought it could not get better….”.  As we walked off the Oden on Jan 12 we were told that our flight home would be delayed for one more day and we would not leave until the 14th.  This meant that we had an extra day to explore the historic and interesting area around McMurdo.  Our first stop was our dorm room.  Although I was suddenly sharing a room with 4 others, the beds were fine and the food was great.  On our first evening we had a chance to tour Scott’s Discovery Hut which was built over 100 years ago by Robert F. Scott and later it was used by some of the other early Antarctic explorers.  The most fascinating thing about he hut is that because the climate is so cold and dry, decay is...

Oden News Flash!Before we get to today's topics I need to make 2 announcements.... 1. We crossed the International Date Line Today! If you check the longitude for this journal post you will see that for the first time we are located in the Eastern Hemisphere. For the last 5 weeks we have been traveling west and we crossed the 180˚ of longitude this afternoon. This also means that we have gained a day on the calendar. For example, when we speak with all of you during the Live From IPY webinar on Wed Jan 7th at 1pm Eastern time, we will be on New Zealand time and our clocks will tell us it is 7am on Thurs Jan 8th. It's a big, round world out there! 2. I can see Ross Island! After spending almost 3 days crossing the 500 mile length of the Ross Sea Polynya, we are nearing the western...

I Discovered That Adelie Penguins Can Fly!! The Oden was parked at an ice station in McMurdo Sound, about 6 miles off the coast of Cape Bird on the North end of Ross Island. The icebreaker had created the only pool of open water as far as the eye could see and about 100 Adelie penguins were happy to take advantage of it. I shot this video by lowering my underwater camera over the bow of the Oden into the pool of open water in front of the ship. Enjoy! Flying Penguins [video] Making memories on the ice, Jeff Peneston  

Note: We are running a few days behind with these journals due to communications issues with the Oden. Thank you for your patience. Oden News Flash! Before we get to today's topics I need to make a few announcements.... 1. Mark Your Calendars and Register for this week's Live From IPY Webinar from the Oden. Go to the PolarTREC.com homepage and sign-up to participate in the one hour live event that will start at 1pm Eastern time this Wednesday, January 7th. I created a document that helps teachers understand how to prepare their classes for a webinar and it is posted on my Dec 13th journal. 2. New videos are coming soon. I am interviewing some of the scientists on board plus I have I am working on videos titled "Krill Safari" and "I Picked a Seal's Nose for Science"....

My Day With The Seal Research Team Yesterday was a life-changing day for me that I will never forget. The seal research team had invited me to spend the day helping them haul their equipment and they had asked me to help them capture video of their work. First, we searched the rapidly melting sea ice for two days until we found thick floes with seals on them. Yesterday as the Oden's big crane lowered the team's inflatable Zodiac over the side, loaded with nets and skis and biological sampling equipment I was so excited that I could barely control myself. A few weeks ago I had walked out from the ship to video the team as they worked with a seal but today I was welcomed as a member of the group. My job was to help carry equipment and to shoot video of the capture process. I also was needed...

Ice Research Team Each day as we reach a new ice research station, the ship's crew ties the Icebreaker Oden to the floe with huge ropes and steel stakes. Then the ice research teams dress in floatation suits, waterproof boots, hats, gloves, sunscreen and polar sunglasses. Before we carry our equipment down the gangway, the team leaders radio the officer on the bridge to announce who is going onto the ice. Once on the floe, the drill location is selected. The first task is to measure the snow depth and then shovel up to 1 meter of it away to reach the surface of the ice. The first core removed is measured and photographed, then small holes are drilled into it every 10cm so that a temperature probe can measure the sea ice temperature profile. Additional cores are cut into sections so that...

Christmas Eve is the day for Swedish celebration with gift exchanges and a traditional banquet. Every person on the Oden is unusual. No one was chosen at random to spend months traveling to the beautiful frozen seas of Antarctica. Some are the best scientists and hardest working students in the world. Others have invested years becoming so skilled as sailors and technicians that they were chosen over many others for this international expedition. No one on board has just let life happen to them. No one is here because they were lucky. Everyone has worked hard and sacrificed to become part of this important team. We all know that the work we do here is important to people across the world but we also know that part of the cost is personal and family sacrifice. All of us are thinking of our...

Oden News Flash! Before we get to today's topic I need to make an announcement.... It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas aboard Oden. Check my upcoming journal posts for photos and descriptions of how the international members of our expedition are preparing for the holidays. Fika, the Swedish Word of the Day An Experiment: Going to the bottom of the Amundsen Sea Everyone knows that if you dive to the bottom of a deep pool you can feel the pressure build on your ears. This is because the weight of the water above you puts pressure on the small air space behind your eardrums. Imagine the gigantic pressure of seawater if you were over a mile beneath the sea. Actually, it is so great that most of our biggest submarines would be crushed if they tried to go a mile below the surface and...

The ice floes are getting bigger and thicker every day as the Oden works its way toward the coast. Although we are still over 100 miles from land, most of the sea is covered by rugged expanses of ice and snow. As summer comes to the Antarctic, this covering of sea ice begins to break into pieces called floes. The floes outside today cover over 90% of the sea in floating slabs that are 2 meters thick and many miles across. Between the flows are leads of open water that range in size from cracks to small lakes. For the last few days it has felt like we were navigating the canals through Upstate New York. Except that when the Oden can't find a canal-like pathway through the floes...it makes one. The mighty ship pushes floes the size of 3 football fields out of the way and turns over blocks...

Today's journal contains 2 things that many people have asked for. I have a photo below of a man in a penguin hat on skis. Actually, I had just skied about a kilometer from the Oden to check out an iceberg that is frozen into the massive ice floe that the ship is moored to. The snow is dry and granular with a thin crust on top. I spent several hours today walking and working on it and I also spent a great deal of time breaking through the crust with every third step and sinking in up to my waist. This photo was taken about 10pm when I borrowed a pair of cross country skis from the crew and went out to explore. The uneven, snow covered landscape is buried in a meter of snow and is sculpted by the wind. It looks like I am skiing on top of a giant pie covered in whipped cream! None of the...

As one of the first to step onto the ice, I felt like a lunar explorer who didn't know what the surface would feel like under my feet! And, I knew that with every step I was standing where no human had ever stood before. On Friday the Oden was tied to an ice floe and for the first time, teams were able to stand on the ice and collect samples as we floated on the ocean that was almost 2 miles deep beneath us. And, then we were visited by seals and penguins and whales, oh my! Student Experiment is a Huge Success! Congratulations to Eric and Jon! Yesterday offered me the first chance to test the underwater video camera system that was designed and created by two ninth grade students at Liverpool High School. Check out my Oct 8th journal for a complete description and a short video in...

We have officially crossed the Antarctic Circle! For a few nights we knew we were getting farther south because it really didn't get dark at night. Last evening we crossed the Antarctic Circle at 66˚ 37' S. At the peak of summer, all points south of here will have 24 hours of daylight. We will not see a sunset until we fly to New Zealand at the end of the expedition in mid January. Many people have asked me to help them visualize where we were so I took a photo of one of the navigation computers on the bridge.   Some folks have also asked about the safety of the ship as we travel through the ice. I include a photo of the steel that is used on the icebreaking front of the ship. On the sides of the Oden is and iceskirt of steel about half as thick as this. The Oden is a very heavily...

Oden News Flash!Before we get to today's topic I need to make a few announcements.... Rough Seas in the Drake Passage!!! The truth is that the Drake is much wilder than what I captured in yesterday's video. The officers of the Oden have been able to avoid any serious storms so far but even an "ordinary early summer day" in this part of the Southern Ocean has changed almost everything about life on board. We are all tired, not from overwork but from lack of sleep. Last night every 10˚-30˚ roll of the ship made me slide 3-10 inches across the mattress of my bunk and then a few seconds later I would slide back. My body adjusted to the roll and slide but I woke up frequently to the enormous jolt of the pounding of a giant wave as it struck the flat bow of the mighty ship at just...

Oden News Flash! Before we get to today's topic I need to make a few announcements.... Penguins!!! This morning while I was on the bridge, I looked out and saw 2 black and white birds floating on the surface about 100 meters in front of the ship. As we approached them I grabbed the binoculars and I could clearly watch my first wild penguins. Magellanic penguins nest on the Southern tip of South America and spend much of the year out at sea where they dive for fish. From 100 feet above them there was no way for me to take a picture so I have "borrowed" one from a field guide. Check out the Swedish teacher's blog. Marja Andersson is the Swedish teacher aboard the Oden and she has a blog too. She works for the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and she instructs teachers all...

Since my selection as a PolarTREC teacher over 9 months ago, people have kept asking me if I was getting "excited". I have been so busy with the details of preparing for the trip that I could not let myself get caught up in the excitement. Today the excitement is real. I can feel it in the roll of the mighty Oden, I can hear it in the sounds of the waves against the ship, the constant hum of the engine and the rhythm of the Swedish language that half of the folks on the ship speak. I am excited to taste the new foods that the ship's cook has prepared and I almost lost control when I saw dusky dolphins "flying" through the air as the a pack of them exploded above the waves and raced toward the bow of the ship. Excited? I am loving this. The mouth of the Rio de la Platas...

11/28/2008 Happy Thanksgiving!  Here in Uruguay, there was no Thanksgiving holiday yesterday and although it was my first day in South America, it was hard to completely enjoy the experience. Although I had flown down on the Wed night flight from Miami, my luggage had not.  We arrived here at about 11am on Thursday and I was told that my duffle bag filled with clothes and my crate full of equipment would be flown down and delivered to my hotel by today at 1pm.  At 2:30 this afternoon the head of the entire expedition made a call and arranged for a car to drive me 30 minutes back to the airport. As soon as I walked into the baggage area I spotted my stuff and there was no evidence that it was about to be taken to my hotel so I was very glad I had gone to get it.  The first thing I did was...

Most of the famous polar explorers of the last century carried expedition flags with them. Historic photographs from the age of exploration recorded those adventures and often include the tattered expedition flag tied to a pole, tent, sled or emergency shelter. When I was selected to be the PolarTREC teacher aboard the Oden for 2008 one of my first thoughts was that I would need a flag too. Then I quickly realized that a better idea was for me to be the "flag bearer" for kids across the country. With the help of the folks at ARCUS and the American Camp Association as well as several other media outlets, I invited schools and summer camps to create and send me their flags. As of today I have received well over 100 flags from every part of the country! Each flag has a story of the...

At the beginning of last summer I announced a “flag exchange” program.  If a teacher or camp director requested a blank flag, I would send them a kit that included a nylon flag and instructions for creating an original expedition flag that I would take to Antarctica with me.  If they sent me their completed flag, I would send them my blue and white expedition flag.  So far I have shipped over 140 blank flags!I will continue to send flags to classes that email me a request before Oct. 23 to jpeneston [at] polartrec [dot] com.  I must have all flags returned no later than Nov 12.  For more info about the flag exchange see my June 17th journal entry.  The flags are starting to pour back in and they are great.  Many of them arrived with notes that explained the design and the students that...

On August 11th the theme of the day at Camp Talooli was “Polar Day” so all day I worked with groups of campers to describe the PolarTREC program and the importance of polar science. We also talked about Arctic people and culture and I shared the video I had shot of Sean Topkok who shared an Iñupiaq dance with the PolarTREC teachers. This 2-minute video starts out in Fairbanks Alaska at the PolarTREC training in March when the teachers learned the Igloo Dance from Sean. The rest of the video highlights two groups of campers at Camp Fire USA, Camp Talooli last week as they tried to learn the dance. Now the kids at Camp Talooli would like to challenge other camps and schools to learn the Igloo Dance! [video:height=240:width=320] Have fun & make memories!

  Send Your Class or Camp to the Ends of the Earth!Fly your group’s flag over Antarctica and join PolarTREC teachers as they explore science and adventure in the Arctic and Antarctic. I have been the Program Director of Camp Fire USA, Camp Talooli for over 20 years. I also am a 9th grade Earth Science teacher at Liverpool High School (just North of Syracuse). Now, I am inviting camps and classrooms across the country to join my PolarTREC international scientific expedition to Antarctica this year, and you can start by exchanging flags with me.   FLY YOUR FLAG OVER ANTARCTICA! For Free!I created my own expedition flag and I also created a special Camp Talooli Antarctic Expedition flag. I would like to carry YOUR camp’s flag to Antarctica too! If you contact me by email I...

3/23/2008 Ok, let’s start with a polar science riddle to solve. Everyone learns (when they are very young) that you expect to see snow at the tops of mountains and at the far northern and southern ends of the Earth. In my 9th grade class I teach that snowfall generally increases with latitude and altitude and our school is actually closer to the equator than it is to the poles. Today’s question is:Can you explain the following data which shows latitude and annual average snowfall amounts for 6 locations? All of the cities are less than 1000 feet above sea level, except for the South Polar Station. So, how can you explain the fact that Syracuse, NY gets the most snow? Go to the ASK THE TEAM section of my journal and write to me with your explanation. Data:Location...

3/7/2008 I have been crosscountry skiing most of my life and on a number of occasions I have tried to walk my dog on a lead at the same time. I was amazed that my 35 pound dog could pull me down the trail while I was on skis. In Fairbanks I was even more amazed to learn that this type of dog-skiing was a competitive sport called skijoring. At the Alaska Dog Mushers Association we watched skiers being pulled by one to three dogs over a 6 mile course. The fastest teams finished in just over 21 minutes. Skijoring Video [video:height=240:width=320] The dogs are so excited to run that they constantly jump and bark while waiting for the race to begin. Once the race starts they stop barking and are totally focused on running. During the race the only sounds are the zipping of the skis...

Click on the Video link below to watch a short video of Sean Topkok who tried to teach the PolarTREC teachers a traditional Iñupiaq dance. Sean is from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network. Dance Challenge: Watch Sean on the video and practice the “Igloo Dance” with your class or group. Then shoot your own video and email it to me! I would love to see your interpretation! Have fun & Make memories, Jeff Peneston Inupiak Dance Sorry, flash is not available.