Friday, October 26, 2012

Well Done, Team!

Way to go, Shackleton Crossing Team! As planned the well-rested team embarked on their final descent and made the final 1.25 miles to Fortuna Bay where they rendezvoused with the Plancius at 9 AM. Tent camping is quite comfy, especially with a hot drink in your mug and a something tasty on the stove, but I'm sure everyone will enjoy the soft sheets and extra elbow room of the Plancius cabins.

Yesterday the Plancius team got to visit a king penguin colony. You'll notice that the chicks and juveniles have brown, downy coats that in no way resemble adults' coats. When explorers first ventured into the sub-Antarctic, they thought that the juveniles were an entirely different species, and named them the woolly penguin.

100,000 King Penguins


The Plancius team also got see albatross chicks and their parents. They report that even the chicks' wingspan exceeded 9 feet!

King Penguins; Juvenile in Foreground, Adults in Background


Thank you, Seven Arrows Elementary, for sending us some really great questions! Find the questions and our answers below:

1) How do you get internet when you are out there?

This is a great question. To answer it, we'll explain how we publish blog entries everyday. Our team in the on South Georgia Island calls the PolarExplorers office after they set up their tents at the end of the day. They have a special kind of phone (satellite phone) that transmits signals by using satellite networks, rather than cell towers or landlines. When they call us, they tell us about their day: what they did, what the weather was like, etc. We use this information to write our blog entries at our office outside of Chicago.

So, the team does not have internet access on the trail, but they can talk to us and send us pictures using their satellite phone. However, there is internet access on board the Plancius.

2) Why is it you don't want to bring any foreign entities with you on the island?

This is another great question, and a very important matter. We don't want to introduce any foreign species to South Georgia, because doing so could harm the environment. It could bring about the extinction of native species.

Here's an example. In 1911 Norwegian whalers brought reindeer with them to the island, so that they could have a source of fresh meat, and also so that they could hunt the reindeer for sport. Even though the whalers only brought ten reindeer to the island, the population grew very quickly. In fact, today there are over 2,600 reindeer on the island! Reindeer are herbivores, and they can eat 12 lbs. of grass in a day. As a result, the reindeer have greatly reduced the amount of plant life on the island, plant life that native species depend on to live. This plant life depletion also hastens soil erosion.

Reindeer are obviously very big, but size doesn't matter when it comes to foreign species. If there were some mice or foreign insects or even a bit of algae in someone's uncleaned gear, that species could cause big environmental problems on South Georgia.

3) Do your food items freeze when you're out hiking?

If it's cold enough, yes, but temperature is often above freezing this time of year on South Georgia. The team cooks breakfast and dinner inside their tents, so they don't have to worry about frozen food for those two meals. Lunch is a different story. They don't take a break for a full meal in the middle of the day, but rather each person carries snack food (candy bars, trail mix, dried fruit, beef jerky, etc) that they munch throughout the day.

So their lunches could freeze as they travel, but, if they want to keep their candy bars from freezing, they can carry them in a pocket or pouch that's tucked in close to their body. This way, their body heat keeps the candy bar from freezing solid.

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