January 10, 2000

Adelie penguins on an iceberg in Arthur Harbor.

At lunchtime, Ross Hein spotted a pod of humpback whales off Bonaparte Point. Steve came and rustled me from my afternoon siesta: this was not a drill, but the Whale Sighting Quick Response team in action! We were joined by Karen McCrery and made for Janus Island in the zodiac. There was a fair swell and the sun broke through the clouds. As swiftly as the whales came, they vanished. We bobbed about and listened underwater with hydrophones. Nothing...not even a leopard seal. Oh well, perhaps before we leave at the end of the month, we will get lucky.

We meandered around Arthur Harbor, stopping by the wreck of the Bahia Paraiso and then across to a different face of the Marr Ice Piedmont. We put ashore in a sheltered cove, not unlike Loudwater, but with a very different acoustic quality. A tremendous amount of brash filled the waters, muting the sound somewhat. There were deep scallops carved out of the ice, just above the water line, revealing rock and traces of coastline. We listened... An elephant seal surfaced occasionally--its exhalations sounding in counterpoint to the swell of the brash. Gull calls pealed and a few highflying terns circled above. It was another fabulous day as the sky cleared. One tower of ice balanced precariously and we waited the afternoon in anticipation of its calving. The ice was very active, sending booming bass rumbles in every direction and large waves bouncing off the walls. A whole cliff face dropped into the inlet, sending a powerful surge right at us. Karen and I were ashore, while Steve deftly handled the boat, making sure that it did not get beached or swamped--a little white water adventure that we had not planned on! The afternoon wore on and we headed for home. Karen had to return to Station to continue her bacteria and UV sampling, and I had tape logging to do. We passed a group of Adelie penguins lounging on one of the neighbourhood icebergs...

Glacier face of the Marr Ice Piedmont.

Palmer Station hosted another port call by the Discoverer today. Nearly 100 folks paid us a visit and enjoyed coffee and brownies after a Station tour and shopping. The galley was rearranged to welcome everyone and then put back together again just in time for lunch. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on the food situation here. The chef, Dawn Biddison, and her colleague, Sue Deyoe, are among the hardest working people on Station. Both are seasoned cooks, with extensive field experience in remote camp situations in Alaska. Meal times are an important aspect of the community fabric, a time to share more than just food. Contrary to popular myth, we do rather well in the cuisine department. Before coming down to the ice, many of my friends taunted me with the notion of canned beans and freeze dried food. Dawn and Sue are quite talented and surprise us with a wide variety of cooking. The Christmas menu was one of the more extraordinary culinary highlights of this trip!

Sue Deyoe prepares a salad for dinner.

I had the chance to chat with Dawn about life here as a cook. While her educational background and life experience are quite varied, cooking is a transportable and marketable skill--one which brought her to Antarctica. She shared some impressions with me. "Its definitely true that an army marches on its stomach. And in a small community, like here, one of the freedoms that you lose is your freedom to chose your food. One thing that is really important, in order to fill that gap, is to make sure that you're cooking good food. As a cook, you get frustrated because, down here, you are limited by the short amount of time you have in order to prepare your food, what the ingredients are, and the fact that you have to put things in a steam table. Its a very personal thing that you're doing: you're judged with every single meal, every day...You're given an opportunity, with every meal, to bring a little bit of home and warm things in someone's tummy and to put a smile on their face and to please them. People are often very easily pleased and appreciate even the small things that you do to try to make things nice."

From chocolate truffles to hummus, I count myself among the appreciative!

Dawn notes, with some humor, "Because there is a diverse population, with diverse tastes and diverse backgrounds and diverse life experiences, you really see how people react to what you cook. So, you have both ends of the spectrum. You have people that couldn't be happier when they see that have I made cheeseburgers with Monterey Jack cheese... And then you have people that couldn't be happier than when I cooked a big Indian feast with all these dishes and everything, chutneys and chapati, and thought that was fantastic. And those same people that liked the hamburgers--on the Indian food night, they are making peanut and jelly sandwiches. People down here get exposed to things they might not ordinarily have had..."