Anyway, here I am! After nearly 30 hours of flights and layovers, I have made it to Punta Arenas, Chile.  At the Santiago airport, representatives from Raytheon (the company that oversees many US polar deployments) met our group of researchers and breezed us through customs.  I totally felt like a VIP celebrity … if celebrities ever arrive at airports wearing enormous backpacks and hiking boots.

I have been told that Punta Arenas is home to the southernmost beer brewery and southernmost grapevines in the world.

Time for me to go to bed. Early tomorrow morning I will head to a giant warehouse overlooking the Strait of Magellan, where I will be issued my cold weather gear, and then move onto the LM Gould.

With so much left to say about my time at sea, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been home for a month already, and that I’m leaving so soon for Antarctica.  I fly out on December 27th, and will arrive 26 hours later in Punta Arenas, Chile.  From there, it’s another four or five days by ship across the Drake Passage before I reach the Antarctic.

This time last year I was just beginning the first of my adventures, and I’m about to embark on my last–for a little while, anyway.  Thank you to all those who have shared these experiences with me.  Stay tuned for stories from the deep, deep, deep south…

Prologue

Our ship must appear, to some birds, like the only truck stop along an ocean highway stretching for hundreds of empty miles in any direction.  Throughout our voyage, a strange assortment of birds—from sparrows to owls—found their way to the SSV Seamans.

Most of our avian guests paused to rest for just a few hours before heading on their way.  Others stayed for days at a time.  One such bird was a baby egret we found cowering in the scuppers.  We named him Henry.  Though he was clearly starving, we were forbidden by the ship’s authority to feed him, which of course only made us love him more.  A few of us formed an underground coalition to sneak Henry scraps of fish.

Henry looks longingly through a porthole

Chapter I, in which the enemy arrives

Two weeks after Henry presumably took off for home, a plague of nearly fifty boobies set upon the ship.  While Henry was a loveable bird eliciting much sympathy, the boobies were quite the opposite.  They established their stronghold high in the ship’s rigging.  Singing out with cacophonous gurgles and squawks, the boobies began to launch a barrage of fecal missiles.

Boobies on the courseyard

Chapter II, in which I become a casualty of warfare

We did what we could to stand our ground.  Late one evening, just after midnight, I was on bow watch.  I was alone.  I was harnessed to the bow of the ship, and had nowhere to run. I was thus was acutely aware of the boobies crowing overhead.  Listening to the little splats landing on deck behind me, I was beginning to think that putting on my foul weather gear might not be a bad idea.  All of a sudden, I saw a falling guano-bomb out of the corner of my eye.  With lightning-fast reflexes, I managed to lean to the side just in time to avoid being pooped upon.

This must have been exactly what the boobies wanted me to do.  Yes!  Yes!  She’s leaning this way now … wait for it, wait for it … fire away! And as I leaned, a second booby released a massive shit.  I saw it coming, but was too far off-balance.  There was nothing I could do.  It was…

(should I say it?)

…it was a booby trap.

Chapter III, in which we launch our counteroffensive

Days passed.  We were forced to retreat.  The foredeck was plastered in bird droppings despite our daily deck washes, and the ship reeked.  It was time to do something. Viva la resistance!  Our first method of attack was potato gun, a sizeable air rifle fashioned by the ship’s engineers from an old bilge pipe, capable of shooting chunks of potatoes and small carrots.  High-speed vegetable proved to be difficult ammunition, but finally we hit a booby. Cheers erupted from the onlookers below as brown feathers were sent flying from the topyard, but the example of one unfortunate booby was apparently not enough to ward off its cronies.

Adam fires the potato gun

Chapter IV, featuring a giant slingshot

While one contingent of our crew stayed in the rigging with the potato gun, another team attacked the boobies from on top of the doghouse.  This time the weapon of choice was an enormous slingshot.  Created from surgical tubing and a large plastic cup, the slingshot required three men to operate.  We had a few more successes launching cabbages, apples, and potatoes, but this still was not enough.  The boobies had gained a lamentable sense of impudence and fearlessness.

loading the slingshot

Chapter V, in which we get desperate

The battle raged on like this for several more days.  Finally it was decided that serious weaponry should be employed.  Our solution: fire hose.  Up into the rigging went Dave, the chief engineer.  Up into the rigging went the fire hose.  And up into the rigging spewed a six-million-pounds-per-square-inch torrent of seawater.  Dave valiantly faced many gooey white counterattacks as he sprayed down every last cursed booby.  Soon, they were all confusedly flying around behind the boat.  Back on deck, we commenced our victory celebrations, and considered erecting a small commemorative arch on the quarterdeck.

Dave with the fire hose

Epilogue

The next day, the boobies had returned, no doubt with vengeance in their tiny, evil hearts and excremental ammunition in their tiny, evil intestines.  We were shocked.  We were crushed.  We had been soundly defeated by boobies.

the boobies return

]]> http://sevencontinents.chronicleblogs.com/2008/12/21/battling-the-boobies/feed/ http://sevencontinents.chronicleblogs.com/2008/12/16/december-30th-on-pbs/ http://sevencontinents.chronicleblogs.com/2008/12/16/december-30th-on-pbs/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:42:15 +0000 Zena Cardman http://sevencontinents.chronicleblogs.com/?p=556

Some high-definition footage I shot in the Arctic will be part of an episode of the PBS series NOVA, to be aired nationally at 8pm on December 30th, two weeks from today.  You can read more here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/

You will also be able to watch the episode online anytime after December 30th.

When things are going well on the helm, it’s incredible.  It’s powerful.    You can feel the force of the water pressing against the helm in your hands.  You are in a position of ultimate control.  You know where you’re going and how to get there.  The boat does as you say.

This rarely happened.

You might think that steering would be less difficult than, say, hoisting up several hundred pounds of sail.  Or finding your location in the world from just the declination of a star.  Or calculating at exactly what time the sun will be at its zenith.  But you would be wrong on all accounts.

Unlike a bicycle or car, a ship does not respond immediately to turning the wheel, which means you must sense when to stop turning the wheel before you get on the desired course.  Assuming you don’t over-correct (I usually did), you must then hold this desired course for any number of hours.  This means paying attention to the true direction of the wind (which is tricky when there is an apparent wind due to the motion of the boat).  This means paying attention to changes in weather.  This means paying attention to how full the sails are.  This means paying attention to how much right rudder or left rudder you might need to use.  This means … I sucked at steering.

Observe:

I notice one night, around 4:00am, that I am having more and more difficulty maintaining the course ordered, and have to constantly change my steering.  Eventually, all actions become useless. I decide to inform the chief mate, attempting to mask all terror in my voice.

Hey … Chief Mate? I squeak.  Something’s wrong with the helm.

Wrong with the helm? says Chief Mate.  I don’t think so.

Yes, there is! I say, a little indignant.

Well … what’s the ship doing? asks Chief Mate.

Absolutely nothing I tell it to do.  The helm is useless. By now, I am panicking, because the boat seems to be doing exactly the opposite of what I am steering.

Be more specific, says Chief Mate.  What is the ship doing?

Well … [painfully long pause] … It goes left when I steer right, and right when I steer left!  Something is terribly, horribly wrong! I say, imagining that some gear has gotten itself reversed and–horror–I have broken the helm.

Chief Mate looks up at the sails.  Chief Mate goes over to the railing and looks at the water.  Chief Mate begins to laugh at me. Chief Mate informs me: the ship is going backwards.

Apparently, with my supreme lack of talent on the helm, I had steered the bow of the ship directly into the wind.  Nice work, dumbass.  I wish I could say that this were the only time I put a 135-foot brigantine into reverse, but, as it turns out, it happened to me again… three more times.

Climb out the ladder from the doghouse and you will find yourself on the quarterdeck of the Robert C. Seamans.  The quarterdeck is a raised deck in the back of the ship, and–between the helm, compasses, and proximity to the doghouse–is essentially the center of the ship’s command.

Pictured above is the quarterdeck, as seen from aloft.  The giant white triangle is the mainstays’l (main-stay-sail).  Below that white rectangle on the deck is the doghouse.  Just aft of the entrance to the doghouse is the helm:  the bane of my sailing existence.  More on that later.

Facing forward on the quarterdeck, you get a view like this:

Moving forward up the port side of the ship is the science deck, where most scientific equipment is deployed.  That big white thing controls a monster coil of wire, which sends equipment down as deep as 3,000 meters.

Continuing to walk forward, you will pass under the topyard and courseyard, where the square sails are set.  Pictured here is Pete, perched on the topyard, while I lay aloft on the port shrouds:

All the way forward is the foredeck:

Those red and white cone things–called “tubas” because of their shape–are for ventilation.  Every hour they get turned so that they face into the wind, bringing much-needed cool breezes down to the living quarters below decks.

The bow was one of my favorite places on the ship. At the risk of calling to mind Titanic: standing at the bow of a ship, you really do feel like you’re flying.   It’s even better out on the bowsprit.  On the bowsprit, there is no deck beneath you.  You’re floating about twenty feet above the water.  During the daytime, you can catch dolphins racing the ship.  At night, if you don’t mind the terrifying feeling of flying through pitch black, you can sometimes see glowing green bioluminescence being churned up as the ship slices through the water.

From the bowsprit, you get another good view of the ship, and all its rigging.  There are 93 pieces of running rigging (we counted once, during a slow dawn watch).  Learning every single line was one of our first–and most important–tasks on the ship.  It was also one of the most difficult.  Take a look at all these lines coiled and hung around the foremast:

…now imagine  me, never having set foot on a sailing vessel before, staring at these coils in utter confusion.  Seriously?  You guys think I need to know what all of those ropes do?  Seriously??

Terrifying.  But eventually we learned every line.  Eventually we learned how to set every sail using those lines.  And voila:

We continue our tour of the SSV Seamans with an anecdote of claustrophobia.  All of your belongings must sleep with you in your bunk, making for a fun game of Human Tetris any time you’re hoping for a nap.  Most of my time asleep was spent spooning with my large hiking backpack, while also trying desperately to wedge my feet in between a pile of books and a pile of dirty laundry.

Bunks are clustered throughout the ship, arranged in “neighborhoods” with names like Sixteenth Street, Sleepy Hollow, Shellback Alley, and the fo’c’sle.  I lived in Shellback Alley, which was just foreward of midships.  The fo’c’sle, historically, was the shittiest place to live on a ship, as it was usually the most crowded, and packed with the most racial tension.  It’s still a pretty shitty place to sleep, since the effects of seasickness are amplified by the bouncing bow.

In the middle of the ship are the galley and salon, where food is made and eaten, respectively, six times a day.  The rocking motion of a ship makes cooking and eating complicated.  You must be very careful with knives.  You must be just as careful with forks (the chief engineer regaled us with the tale of Captain Jeremy Law, who once had the tines of a mate’s fork accidentally buried in his back when the ship took a roll).

In the salon, all the tables are gimbaled.  A gimbaled table is weighted at the bottom and is free to pivot, so that it stays perfectly horizontal even as the ship rocks back and forth.  The boat is essentially rotating around the tables.  Sometimes, in heavy seas, our plates would be practically at our shoulders as the boat rocked one way, and then in our laps as it rocked the other way.

Depending how much the ship is rocking, you can often see the ocean sloshing up against the glass.  If the ship takes a big roll, you can see underwater, as if through a giant pair of goggles.

Also below deck are the heads, or bathrooms.  Heads got their name from the headrig, a net-like construction underneath the bowsprit (pictured below) at the bow of a ship.  It was through the holes in the headrig that sailors of old did their business.

There is not much else to note about the heads except that our toilets were marine toilets, and were thus prone to clogging by anything from particularly firm turds to the notorious ladies’ “cotton torpedo.”  To our chief engineer and assistant engineer: on behalf of my shipmates, I offer my sincerest, sincerest apologies…

Farthest back below decks is the aft cabin, where the captain and chief scientist sleep.

Bridging the gap between on deck and below decks is the dog house, the ships hub of navigation.  The nautical almanacs, sextants, charts, radar, and radio all live in the dog house.  Pictured below is a view of the dog house at night.  All the lights are red, since red light pollutes your vision the least.  Night vision is crucial, since there are no white lights on deck.

Thanks to a few principles of physics, ships are taller than they are wide.  The world on board a ship is a vertically-stacked world, like a layer cake of labyrinths.  Allow me to take you on a tour of the brigantine I called home.  This will be a multi-part post.  We will begin our tour at the very bottom of the ship.

“What is an engine doing on a sailboat?” you ask.  Well, kids, sometimes there’s no wind.  And moreover, there are plenty of things besides a propellor on board that are in need of power.  And so, behold: the engine room.  Farthest aft (back) in the bottom of the ship is the realm of engineers, a three-compartment space.  Largest, hottest, and loudest is the main engine room, which houses an enormous diesel beast, about as tall as I am.  The main engine room is, incidentally, the ideal place to hang laundry on the ship, since it’s about the only place where they’ll dry.  Pictured above is the passageway leading to the machinery space.  Even I have to duck to get through that door.  Visible through that door is the machinery space.  The rectangular thing with multi-colored buttons is the Marine Sanitation Device, fondly called The Poop … you can probably guess what it does.  Of note:  you must turn off The Poop before making any scientific deployments, lest you catch a school of turds in your plankton net.

Farther forward is the friendly village of Dry Stores.  There, you will find more rice, canned goods, pasta, and other sundry edibles than you have probably seen in one place.  Pictured above is the main salon during “provisioning,” a multi-day process during which the ship is packed with enough food to feed 40 people for six months.  I can’t even begin to describe the collection of hot sauces we have on board.

Moving even farther forward is the science hold, the storage space for all things oceanography-related, from buoys to petri dishes.  It smells terrible in the science hold.  There are two more main storage spaces on the ship:  the forepeak and the laz.  The forepeak is at the very front of the ship.  The laz (short for lazarette) is aft, and holds extra sails and enormous ropes, among other things.

Coming soon: The fo’c’sle, Shellback Alley, Sixteenth Street, galley, head, and other exciting locations on the SSV Seamans.

When it first occurred to me that I didn’t know how to say “awkward” in my new language, I went straight to WordReference.com (a site that is a true godsend). I’ve tried to make a habit of this. I look up “useful” words and phrases I don’t know and write them on little green post-its and stick them on the wall next to my bed, so I can look up at my growing vocabulary before I go to sleep each night.

Among my collection are:

en avoir assez = to have had enough (for when my host mom tries to put more food on my plate)

fétard(e) = party animal (to explain why I went out almost every night the first two weeks I was here)

louper = to mess up (should be obvious why I as a foreign exchange student would need this one)

And then the day came — not very long after my arrival, not surprisingly — that I decided to add “awkward” to my little word collection. As every college student knows, this adjective is vital in everyday conversation.

Here is what the site suggested:

maladroit(e) = clumsy

gênant = embarrassing

périlleux = delicate, requiring care

But that’s not it! I thought as I read this vastly insufficient answer. “Embarrassing” just doesn’t quite get at what it means to be truly awkward. Getting-caught-picking-your-nose awkward. Being-overheard-by-the-person-you’re-talking-about awkward. Walking-in-on-a-busy-couple awkward.

Then I got to thinking about what I had been learning in my linguistics class: some languages don’t have certain words because the concept does not exist in that culture.

Could it be that the French don’t have a word for “awkward” because they quite simply never feel that way?

I joked with friends that there weren’t any awkward situations in France because they could always prevent them by keeping the wine flowing and the spirits high.

But anthropologically speaking, I have observed enough French-French interaction to think that maybe there is something in this idea of awkward being non-existent.

For example, my host mother had her ex-boyfriend from Brazil stay with us in the apartment for three weeks while he worked on a documentary project. Had I only heard about this situation, I would have been quick to cry “awkward!” But in fact, it wasn’t. At all. The ex even interrupted a dinner conversation to remark to me, “Isn’t this great? We’re exes. But we get along just fine as friends. The French, huh?”

So what does it say about us Americans that we need a special word to describe that unique feeling of discomfort? Perhaps that we’re more self-conscious. That we spend a little more time worrying about what people think of us. That sometimes we dwell too much on saying the wrong thing.

That’s just a superficial jab at explaining what I think must be a deep-seated cross-cultural difference.

In the mean time, I’ll just keep miming the “clumsy turtle.”

At night though, there is a wildness to the city. The day’s greyness through, the frustrations of indifference and boredom froth up, and there is a violent carelessness in the streets.

It gets dark early, and through these splayed out courtyards, along criss-crossing dirt paths, bands of you men walk with hurried purpose. In the corner a couple whispers and there is something strange in their laugh. Stray dogs are roused and seem to run aimlessly.

Into this world its good to come, for a breath of cold air and to be around to see if anything bubbles over. Sometimes its nice to walk my Muscovite father, Anatoli Ivanovich, and his two daschunds. He dresses simply, finely when he leaves the apartment: a black, wrinkled leather cap with a small brim, a large woolen sweater, worn but without holes, and a new coat with Siberian fur about the neck.

We walk past the kindergarten and elementary school where his son studied. It’s two stories–odd in the midst of this maze of apartment buildings. Around the windows the plaster is peeling off. Nearby is a single street lamp and several birches; blackbirds perch there. Half lit by the lamp, is a small playground with a tall fence. The fence is made of thin vertical bars a couple inches apart. They are painted brightly and in all different colors. The bars are tall, at least ten feet, and they are connected at the top by a horizontal bar.

One night when we came to the playground, Anatoli stopped: “Look” He took me by the arm and pointed a the fence. “See the fence, the missing bars.” Beyond us, where the light was faint, there were indeed half a dozen bars missing. “Our teenagers did that,” he sighs. “This is what our youth does now. They tear down bars from the playground fence.” In fact I had often passed the playground at night, seen Russians my age, drinking, laughing, playing music. Sometimes in the street lamp’s light they breakdance. Couples come there and kiss on the benches. It is pleasant watching them all: to think of home, of friends, of summer.

“This is what our youth does now. They tear down bars from a playground. Under communism it was different; when I was growing up children wanted something. There was still some romance to life. We wanted to be cosmonauts, to write, to progress society in a meaningful way. Now there’s no feeling left; we used to sing when we drank. Now they want money and power without work. They see the oligarchs, their cars, their fashion and they want it all and they will lie and kill to get it. But they’ll do that later; for now they are young and so they drink and tear down playground bars.”

“For what?” I asked

“That’s just the question. Someone designed this playground. Men put up this fence, and painted it all different colors, so that it would be a pleasant place for their wives and children to come to and play. And now those kids tear it down. They’re empty now–our youth. There’s nothing inside of them.”
Somewhere above us, the crows dropped from their perch.

“And your youth–what is it like in America?”

“Yes–we have hooligans too,” I wanted to laugh. “Young people everywhere are like that, I think.”

“I thought it was only in Russia that we have this problem. After all,” he pointed at the fence again, “they tore down the posts.” In the dark it was difficult to see the playground behind the fence. We stood for a moment in silence, staring at the dark playground, the missing bars, the street light.

Then the dogs pulled at Anatoli and we continued walking. That night he showed me two or three Khrushchevkas: 5 story apartment buildings that were built all over Moscow in the 50s. They put an end to the communal living of Stalin’s “barracks.” The Khrushchevkas are falling apart. They want to replace them with new, giant fifteen-story buildings, but there is a world financial crisis now.

Later, after the dogs had pulled us home, out of the cold, and Irina, my Muscovite mother, had welcomed us into the apartment and we had taken off our hats and coats and boots and drank tea; when I was back in the dim gold of my room, and sitting by the window, looking out on the sad courtyard, the dilapidated Khrushchevkas, the lonely kindergarten, the single streetlamp and the dark playground; when I had noticed that it had begun to snow, and sighed deeply and no longer felt the sad longing of a stuffy room; then I wondered how, with which instruments, by what method, had those hooligans managed to remove a half-dozen welded metal posts.