Where's Vince?

2005-12-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

For those who are still keeping track I thought I would let you know what I have been up to since I left the ice.

After we were delayed with weather and mechanical failures for five days we finally made it back to Christchurch on Dec 17. I then set off from there with bike and trailer on the Dec 18 heading west. Check out the map link below to follow along. I headed west over Arthurs Pass to Greymouth. From there I headed south and spent Christmas at Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Headed to Haast and then back over the mountains again to Wanaka where I am currently resting while gearing up for an extended backpacking trip in the mountains for my birthday. The trip has been incredible so far despite all the rain and wind on the west coast. I have covered over 400 miles and hope to reach my goal of a thousand before I am done in mid February. Stay Tuned...........

Happy New Years!

http://www.backpack-newzealand.com/mapofsouthisland.html

2005-12-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

More pics from the end of the earth

Big Razorback Camp with 12,500ft Mt. Erebus in the background

Our primary mode of transportation for those hard to get to places

Overhead camera used for mass estimation

Mom is deciding if her pup is worth the hassle of being weighed

2005-11-29T01:36:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We enjoyed steak and salmon on the grill at camp. We also took a trip into town for a very nice traditional Thanksgiving dinner as well. The end of our season is fast approaching. Time went by way too fast as it usually does when you are enjoying yourself. Our work now consists mostly of weighing and photographing the mom and pups. The weighing process has changed dramatically since those first days. We our now faced with the challenge of shoving 250+lbs of dead weight into a large duffel bag. It is entertaining to observe the different personalities of the pups. Some hardly wake up from their sleep and others want nothing more than to sink their teeth in any piece of flesh that lends itself vulnerable. The moms on the other hand do not appear to be as aggressive as they were in the beginning and seem quite happy to have us babysit the pup for awhile.

As you will see from the pictures our weather is getting much warmer these days and with that comes deteriorating ice conditions. Cracks are getting wider and new ones are appearing. Ice around camp is extremely slick right now and moving from hut to hut is a challenge on its own. December 5th is the tentative date for pulling camp and after that happens we will be commuting to the colonies from McMurdo. Nobody is ready to leave but some of us are excited about eating the great food in town and not having to cook after a long day in the field.

Enjoy some pictures from the field!!!

Pup showing its displeasure after being stuffed into a bag for weighing

Shane and I weighing pup 6146A. It was 288lbs after 35 days.

Vince restraining a seal for re-tagging with active Mt Erebus in the background

2005-11-15T23:32:00.000-08:00

Check out The Antarctic Sun for all our local news. Watch for a story about Weddell Seals.

2005-11-12T01:26:00.000-08:00

Hello once again. It seems that I won't be able to post anymore pictures until I return to New Zealand. I did however want to pass on the website of our chief engineer and resident professional photographer, Steen Mogensen. If that name sounds Danish that because it is. He has done a great job in solving all of our technological problems. He also takes very nice pictures. Enjoy!

www.viking-photography.com

2005-11-07T02:37:00.000-08:00

Hello Sarah and the 3rd graders of New Britton Elementary,

I should first apologize for my lack of updates on this blog. As you can imagine, work has definitely picked up since the last post. We have just finished weathering our second big storm of the season and everything at camp has managed to stay in its proper place.

The end of our pup tagging is in sight and our count to date is approx. 200 pups. Now that this process has become second nature, our next challenge is to weigh these pups at 20, 30 and 40 days after birth. We are doing this to figure out how much mom loses and how much pup gains before pup and mom head there separate ways. It will be no easy task to stuff a 150-250lb crying seal pup into a duffel bag but I am sure we will manage. To find out moms weight at birth is fairly straight forward. We actually pull a weight sled around on the ice and with a little coercing we get a really accurate measurement. Of course it is more difficult than it sounds but I find it one of the most enjoyable activities of the research. Another way of arriving at a weight which we are developing is taking pictures of the seals in specific positions so that we can correlate these measurements on the photos to the actual weights we get from the scale. The hope is that we can eventually do away with the cumbersome scale and just take photos to find out masses. In looking at the big picture, we hope to link moms mass with survival and fitness of the seal pups as well as environmental conditions in the area.

Spring has arrived in Antarctica. The sun shines 24hrs a day, the temperatures are warming to above zero and Adelie penguins are seen on a daily basis. It is a lot of fun to watch the curious behavior of these animals. They seem to be very interested in our research but are much more reluctant to participate than the helpless seals. Camp life is still quite comfortable and such luxuries as communication with the outside world and a warm bathroom seem to go unnoticed. Aside from family and friends, there are some things that I am starting to miss. Running, football and darkness are probably my top three at the moment. Notice I still don’t miss the heat. Time seems to be flying by but I am certainly getting the most out of this experience.

I hope everyone is doing well and pictures are on the way.

GO COLTS!

2005-10-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

We have finally made it to our camp. We were delayed a few days because of some minor issues with cracks in the ice. Sea ice dynamics is a totally new area that I am learning about and appears to be a very complex system. All I know at the present is that every night I am lulled to sleep by the sound of cracking and grinding of ice beneath me. They tell me its nothing to worry about. The work has been slow so far as we are waiting for the seals to pup. I have had the opportunity to tag a few pups and it is much more difficult than I had thought it would be. I have also had the opportunity to restrain a 1000lb+ male seal while its tags were replaced and as you can imagine it was not happy about this at all. Being new on the project means that we are the first ones to initiate these procedures and hopefully by December it should be another day at the "office". As for life off of Big Razorback Island, its pretty cush compared to most jobs I have worked. Our camp is fortunate enough to have one of three grills that are available at McMurdo Station. Our meals consist of steak, halibut, shrimp and a variety of other high end meats and as long as you aren't on grill duty its a fairly pleasant dining experience. Since our work is slow at the moment we keep ourselves entertained in a variety of ways. Today we watched our outhouse blow around on the ice during a storm. Luckily no one was in there at the time. From what I have heard it sounds like we can expect to spend 3-4 days hut bound during a bad storm so I am sure there will be more interesting stories to come. Although we have a phone at camp, we are still waiting for internet access. I hope to have pictures of camp on the next blog. Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful autumn season.

I would encourage everyone to check out www.kellyproffitt.blogspot.com for more pictures and information.

2005-10-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hello from Antarctica!!!!

As most or all of you know I will be spending the next two and a half months working in Antarctica. Unlike the North Pole, Antarctica is a continent and is home to penguins, not polar bears.

I am currently living at McMurdo station (pop. 1100) which is the main support body for all science operations in the area and is the largest of the three main stations in Antarctica. There are approximately 10 support personnel per scienctist, which makes this program one of the top supported stations in the world. Once I start posting pictures on this site you will see why it takes so many people to conduct research in this environment. I was fortunate enough to land a position on the Weddell Seal project based out of Montana State University under Dr. Robert Garrott as the principal investigator. I will explain more of the technical and science issues once we start working in the field. At the present moment our crew is spending most of its time in training courses which will prepare us for life on the ice. One such course I have successfully completed was our survival course, also know as "happy camper school".

"Happy Camper School"

The goal of this course is to prepare everyone that works outside of the station for the harsh environment that you will be working in. The main event of this course is setting up your own camp and spending the night. Our weather was less than ideal for this excercise (high winds and cold temperatures = -67F) , however it did earn the respect of everyone in our group and I am certain that nobody will ever leave camp without all their proper clothing and gear. Other trainings have included, pisten bully orientation ( this is the equivalent to a snow groomer which will use on a daily basis) , recycling orientation( McMurdo station has an incredibly extensive recycling program since all waste is transported off the contintent), and what to do if your helicopter crashes. Everyone is very anxious to set up camp and begin the work. If all goes well, we will be spending our first night out on the ice Tuesday. It promises to be a very exciting season and I look forward to giving you the "play by play" as it unfolds.