Susan R. Eaton
February 21, 2010

Antarctica: Dispatch Number Five

On February 20th, we landed on Elephant Island, a rocky, desolate place
with snow-capped mountains and towering glaciers extending to the sea.
Many historical attempts to land on Elephant Island have failed, due to
dense pack ice, rough seas and the absence of a welcoming beach. We
literally jumped from the zodiac onto the rocky outcrops at Wild Point.
During our shore visit, we shared the rocky landing area with a large
colony of Chinstrap penguins and Fur seals. The island is named after
one of its charismatic inhabitants, the Elephant seal.

Shackleton’s men endured harsh conditions on Elephant Island, surviving
for more than four months on a diet of seals and penguins. Shackleton
made several attempts to rescue his men on Elephant Island, but the pack
ice defeated him – however, he was successful, in August 1916, on the
fourth rescue attempt. A commemorative plaque was erected at Wild
Point, in recognition of the key role that Captain Pardo and his Chilean
vessel, the Yelcho, played in the rescue of Shackleton’s men.
We took advantage of the great photographic opportunities at Elephant
Island – Explorers unfurled flags and banners of Poland, Australia,
Ireland, Ocean Geographic, and the Elysium Visual Epic Expedition. The
Expedition also unfurled Flag Number 108, provided by the prestigious
New York-based Explorers’ Club.

As Elephant Island slipped into the mist, we commenced our crossing of
the Scotia Sea, retracing Shackleton’s heroic, 840-mile ocean voyage
from Elephant Island to South Georgia. During our three-day Scotia Sea
crossing, we’ve attended a series of biological, oceanographic and
photographic lectures. Jonathan Shackleton – an Irishman, author, and a
distant cousin of Ernest Shackleton – presented several lectures about
the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. I’m currently preparing a
lecture on the geology and geophysics of Antarctica and South Georgia.

Deploying a plankton net, a holographic camera, and video plankton
recorder, the Expedition’s Scientific Crew is currently conducting
oceanographic research from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
The plankton sampling project is going well – the equipment is working
as designed, and the scientists have already examined two hauls of
zooplankton which included larval krill, a tomopterid worm, copepods,
and amphipods. The Science Crew has observed that salps (or pelagic
tunicates) appear to be increasing in numbers, even as other plankton
and krill decline. Krill form the basis of the marine food chain in
Antarctica and South Georgia; in recent years, scientists have
documented that a reduction in krill numbers has lead to penguin
mortality.

The ship’s bar has been turned into portable science laboratory –
drawing upon my invertebrate zoology background, I’ve been working with
the other members of the Scientific Crew, sorting through buckets of sea
water predominated by the gelatinous cocoons secreted by salps.
Preserved cryogenically and in formalin, the will be sent back to the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute for DNA analysis.

The Scotia Sea crossing has been challenging to say the least – the
Professor Molchanov is pitching at 25 degrees, and is plying through 30
knot winds and seven-
metre-high waves. Accordingly, the passengers have been confined to
inside the ship.
About one-third of the Explorers have succumbed to sea sickness.

Due to rough seas, the plankton sampling project has been put on hold,
until the equipment can be safely deployed into the ocean.

We expect to arrive in South Georgia, in 36 hours’ time.