Climate Controversy!

The expedition guides are all grad students and/or researchers who are either between research gigs in the Antarctic and are looking to earn some spending money, or who have finished their work there but have not wanted to leave. (I share the latter sentiment myself.) Throughout the week they have been giving us presentations on their areas of expertise: ornithology, whale migration patterns, etc. On our disembarkation day it was announced that our plane was slightly delayed leaving from Chile and so we would remain on the ship for a few hours more, but to fill the time one of the meteorological researchers would give a talk on climate change.

Now, recall the oft-repeated factoid that the debate about climate change is political, not scientific, since 97% of climate scientists are in agreement. Also recall from a previous post that fully half the passengers are Stanford students and invited lecturers whose careers involve economic policies that can aid in addressing the climate crisis. As the presentation to this audience progressed, it became clear that the researcher was among the 3% dissenters and he was arguing that climate change may be real but is not caused by human activity and therefore there is nothing we can or should do about it. Given he knew the nature of the audience, you could have knocked me over with a penguin feather!

(At this point it is very tempting to turn this into a very long post addressing some of the arguments he made that appeared specious to me. It will be even more temping when I next get internet access to put this post online since I'll be able to look up some rebuttals. However, I shall resist. The purpose of this blog is not to debate climate change; the purpose of this blog is to make cynical jokes about foreign cultures.)

The Q&A after the talk was contentious and very entertaining, but after twenty minutes the announcement came that it was time to disembark. It was obvious why this guy saved his talk until the end of the cruise; had he done it earlier in the week he probably would not have gotten a moment of peace as the students were eager for a debate. Needless to say, chins were wagging on the boat ride back to shore.

While we awaited the plane's arrival at Chile's Frei Station on King George's Island, we had some time to explore the neighbouring Russian station. (When Chile built the airstrip here, other countries built their own research stations right next door, with Russia on one side and China (a.k.a. "Great Wall") on the other.) The Russians have built a little church on the hill overlooking their station:

The plane landed and we all trudged up the hill to board. With everyone wearing their parkas and all the layers they had been hiking in all week, not to mention boots coated in penguin guano, it was one of the more odourific flights I've been on. Or it might have been, I couldn't tell over my own cloud of stink.

(Written on Dec 23.)

Penguins of the Antarctic, Redux

Before departing Antarctica, I've realized that this blog has done a poor job of representing the sheer number of penguins we have encountered this week. Time to fix that:

I can now state without fear of contradiction that I am a man who has had a pair of pants ruined by an excess of penguin guano.

(Written on Dec 23.)

Deception Island

On day five of our Antarctic cruise we awake to find we have started working our way north again and arrive at Deception Island early in the morning. This volcanic atoll features the first sign of civilization we've seen in a week, a 100-year-old abandoned Norwegian whaling station. (We also encountered our second sign of civilization in a week there in the form of an Australian sailing boat who had just been battered crossing the Drake so they were taking a rest in the atoll.) Since it was first discovered, Deception Island has suffered several dangerous eruptions but today it is calm, with the volcano warming the waters enough for them to steam slightly with the faint odour of sulphur.

This warmed water gives Whaler's Bay the nickname of the "Antarctic Hot Springs" and we are invited to swim. "Hot" in this sense means it is still cold enough that it takes a full minute after you are submerged to wish you had never been born, rather than the standard three seconds. Nobody took them up on the offer.

(Written on Dec 22.)

Taking the Plunge

(If you're reading this then the world didn't end on Dec 21.)

For centuries Antarctic explorers have brought home tales of cold weather that drove them to the brink of madness. Our tour company warned us to go out and buy survival gear rated for extreme cold conditions, dress in numerous layers, and be prepared to change plans at a moment's notice if the weather turns dire.

These people are wimps. The weather has been sunny and calm every day we've been here. On today's hike everyone had to strip off their jackets and sweaters just to keep their temperature down.

In fact, it was so nice today I decided to go for a refreshing swim:

Sadly, it's so sunny and bright that it doesn't look all that cold. Note the parkas being worn by the guides, as well as the chunks of ice floating in the water.

(Written on Dec 21.)

Party at the End of the World during the End of the World.

Our second main activity after looking at penguins is hiking on glaciers:

According to nutbars on the internet the world will end tomorrow, Dec 21. On the cruise we are preparing by having an End of the World Party, starting with a BBQ on the deck of the ship:

If the world ends tomorrow we won't have to worry about hangovers, so the BBQ was followed with drinks, music, drinks, games, and general merriment (i.e. more drinks) in one of the lounges. There is a real art to "buzz maintenance" when it doesn't get dark outside to tell you when it's about time to call it a night. It's also odd watching college students engaging in drunken revelry when it's bright daylight outside - oh wait a minute, no it's not. We gave up about midnight, when it was as dark as it was going to get:

The Stanford students were largely unrepresented at breakfast the next morning. Lightweights.


(Written on Dec 20.)

A Whale of a Tale

This photo might not look like much, but it's actually a crappy photo of one of the most awesome things ever:

First some background: the sea water around Antarctica is amazingly clear, allowing you to see 10 to 15 metres below the surface of the water. This is useful in watching the penguins swim underwater and also for seeing just how far down the icebergs really go.

On the morning of day two we were cruising around the waters below a glacier in a ten-person Zodiac raft. Mostly we were watching for chunks calving off the glacier and also keeping an eye out for clear pieces of ancient ice to take back to the boat for scotch on the rocks in the afternoon. On the way back to the ship the call came on the radio that a minke whale had been spotted nearby so we cruised over to have a look. We saw it surface a few times from the middle distance and then lost it. Suddenly,
Really Cool Whale Experience #1 happened: the whale swam almost directly under our boat, just beside us from aft to bow only a few meters below the surface. With the clear water we were able to see its entire length (about 8 meters) as it darted below the waves. I'm pretty sure there were polar bears in northern Canada who were able to hear the reaction of the eight of us on the boat.

Sadly, everyone's rushed attempts to photograph the event ended up focused on the surface of the water or poorly aimed, resulting in photos like the one above. (You can somewhat make out a bit of the whale in the top-left corner.) That evening I found one of the Standford students who had one of the more professional-looking cameras to see if he captured anything. He showed me that he got a blurry photo of its tail but nothing great, and we lamented that we'd just have to burn the memory into our brains since we had no good photographic evidence of such a cool encounter with a whale.

The bite of this "First World Problem" was largely soothed later when Really Cool Whale Experience #2 happened: two adult humpback whales decided to use the bow of our ship as a scratching post for half an hour. Everyone on board, both passenger and staff, was on the deck of the ship with their camera running back and forth making these two possibly the most photographed whales in history. (The head of the expedition team noted that you know this is an unusual experience when all the staff our out their with their own personal cameras.) With the clear water we didn't even need to wait for them to surface to take a shot, since we could see their entire bodies beneath the surface. I didn't bother taking many pics with my dinky little point-and-click pocket camera since there will be a photo exchange later, but here's one of the few I did take:

They spent about half an hour rubbing against the ship, roaring, and blowing seawater on deck. It was somewhat odd that eventually you're not sure how much longer you should watch the whales versus when you should go in to the bar to get a cocktail. The whales cooperating by staying around long enough for me to go get a rum and coke, warm up for a few minutes, then head back outside to watch them some more.

I hereby decree Dec 20, 2012 as Whale Day in all time zones intersecting Antarctica.

(Written on Dec 20.)

Shipmates.

Our passenger list is dominated by Americans, along with five Russians, five Japanese, and one or two other nationalities. Jessica and I are the only Canucks, other than one member of staff. Notable passengers are the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the UN, a Russian concert pianist, and great-great-nephew of Earnest Shackleton - let's hope it's not a family curse.

The largest single group, at about half of the 70 or so on board, is business students from Stanford University: they consist of around 15-20 students and the rest are invited lecturers and their families. They are here studying and discussing responsible economic opportunities that would help to address the climate change. We are downplaying the fact that we are from an oil & gas town; I think I'm going to start saying I'm from Saskatoon.

With this academic and scientific group on board, there is no talk about the "debate" on climate change, but this was not clear to me when we first met them. Some of them are from "The Center for Social Innovation", a name that to my ear initially sounded like it was one the American right-wing think tanks ("The Freedom & Liberty Foundation", "People for American Awesomeness", etc.), which mostly seem to busy themselves with spreading misinformation but certainly not thinking. At the welcome dinner, when we found out there was a large group of grad students in economics (not science) combined with what I suspected was a right-wing lobby group, I imagined they were on the cruise to see how much ice there was in Antarctica and how this proved that global warming was a sham. I spoke with one of the student leaders at dinner and cautiously asked her what their group's position on the validity of climate change was; the look on her face would have been equally appropriate if I had asked her what their group's position was on the validity of the Earth orbiting the Sun.

Full disclosure: at the time of this writing I have no idea what the Center for Social Innovation is all about, whether it is part of Stanford or an independent group, or what their official positions are. (I would look it up online but internet and cell phone coverage in Antarctica is appalling.) All I do know is that it is definitely American since they don't know how to spell the word "centre".

(Written on Dec 19.)

Penguins of the Antarctic

There are three types of penguins that make their colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Gentoo penguins have a red beak and a splash of white on the top of their head:

Adelie penguins can be identified by their entirely black heads with just a ring of white around their eyes:

Chinstrap penguins have a white face with a distinctive dark line running under their beaks and are strict adherents to Russian Orthodoxy:

(Written on Dec 19.)

Antarctica!!!

(Written on Dec 18.)

First!

In hindsight getting to Punta Arenas on a red-eye was not a great plan: LAN Express planes have the least legroom of any we can remember, and as a result we arrived at Punta Arena at 5AM sore and on very little sleep; the pick-up from our tour company got us to our hotel at 6AM, a scant SEVEN HOURS before they would have a room available for us.

We killed some time on the lobby wifi then headed out in search of caffeine and food at 7AM. Nothing was open. Nothing. Nada.

We tried again at 9AM but unfortunately the Chileans, like a few cultures we've encountered, don't seem to drink coffee in the morning when you brain needs it most. After passing about a dozen closed coffee shops we finally found one that was open near our hotel. The waiter seemed nervous and confused, and they didn't seem to have any of the food items listed on the menus. We settled for a couple of cappuccinos and a few biscuits to get us through to an early lunch. When the waiter brought the bill he was accompanied by the proprietor who proudly told us that they had just opened, this was their first day, we were their first customers, and thus we were getting ticket #0001:

P

A totally forgettable day for us but a memorable one for them, I suppose.

Tomorrow: Antarctica!

Vina del Mar & Valparaiso.

It turned out the climate in Antarctica was not as inhospitable as we expected:

Actually, that's Vina del Mar on the central coast of Chile, which we visited on our two day layover in Santiago. This was pretty much a standard resort town; its sister city of Valparaiso was older and more historic, though a bit run down.

Now we're snoozing at Santiago airport waiting for our 2AM red-eye down to Punta Arenas.

That is all.

A Slow Start

Congratulations to Benitez International Airport in Santiago, Chile for winning the award for the Most Disorganized Airport for any we have ever visited!

It was a tough competition:

• Home town favourite Calgary International Airport was an early front runner with their decision not to have travellers form lines when they arrive at customs, but they lost their edge when partially fixed this situation in recent years.

• Frankfurt Airport made a weak entry by staffing their information booth with an unhelpful, grumpy hag who seemed annoyed that tourists from overseas didn't have a deep, insightful understanding of the inner workings of every airport they've ever landed at.

• London Heathrow made a solid attempt a while back when it took them three hours to unload our baggage from the plane, but they lost points since they were dealing with a workers' strike at the time.

However, Benitez blows the competition away. Their efforts looked promising early when we connected through Santiago a few years ago and they made our entire flight wait in line at security for an hour so we could get back on the very same plane we had just gotten off of. However, the victory was sealed with their efforts upon our arrival today. It was a bold choice to only have two cashiers on hand to process the reciprocity fees when three fully-loaded 777's landed within 20 minutes of each other. Furthermore, necessitating 3.5 hours to clear the airport after landing as part of "business as usual" with no extenuating circumstances was a masterpiece! Well done!

A Little Ditty 'bout Sam and Diane.

(Posted by Andrew)

Last month's travels started with a week for me in Japan on business before heading on to Korea; this time I'm doing a few days in Boston before flying back to Toronto to meet Jessica and then we head to Chile. The logistics of these back-to-back trips, making my way around the world, has taken everything I've got. I'll be glad when we're on vacation because with all these worries, taking a break from them sure would help a lot. Also, I would like to just get away...

Right now, I need a drink. Somewhere with some familiar friends who know my name, are always glad to see me, know my troubles are not unique and that deep down we're all the same. If only I could think of a place...