Today, as always, started out in total darkness at 7:30 A.M. The wind was still howling throughout the morning. In fact, the wind was so strong that it pushed the icebergs in the inlet even closer to the ship. The ship's departure for our first fishing trip was delayed until 1:30 P.M. when the winds were to die down. Had they tried to leave with the high speed winds, the ship likely would have been pushed into the ice. Had that happened, we would have ended up with a sinking boat. You would think that they'd make these boats iceberg-proof after the Titanic.
Until near noon I got some time to study for my ecology and physics finals. I made a lot of progress, but I still would like a few more hours to go through everything again. I'm scheduled to sit for my physics final some time when the ship comes back to the station. My professor would like the exam back by Friday at 3 P.M., so I guess I'll have completed physics 2 by then. The winds started to end as we approached lunch time, and the sun came out. I saw on my weather app on my phone that Wakefield reached 77˚ today. Palmer Station must have hit above freezing, so there's our warm front.
After noon, Urjeet and I suited up in our lovely rubber outfits to go clean the fish tanks outside. We hopped in them and started off with a saltwater rinse, followed by scrubbing with 0.5% bleach in water solution, finally ending with a freshwater rinse. We had to do a final rinse with freshwater to avoid any kind of reaction between the saltwater and the bleach. The bleach is in low concentrations, but it's very strong and can react easily. After scrubbing down one tank, we stopped so that he and a few others from another research team could go and jump in the water. I didn't participate. Even with long underwear, regular clothing, fleece clothing, and an extra fleece sweatshirt under my yellow suit, I felt chilly. It was because, even though I was dry, I was wading in ice cold seawater. Everybody wanted me to join in because, you know, how many people can say they swam in Antarctica? I think that just being able to say that I spent nearly seven months in Antarctica is enough for me. Plus one time in a past there was a diver in the water who was taken by a leopard seal. Also, not too far from the jumping site they dump all of the human waste. It may be separated, but just knowing that is reason enough for me to say no. Nevertheless, they did it and thought it was a lot of fun. After you jump in the water, you have to head to the hot tub to warm up. The doctor on station actually followed us all as we left the jump site to head towards the hot tub. I decided to remain on the side and just take pictures with my waterproof camera. Not worth damaging my DSLR camera, especially since I was already covered in that bleach solution.
When everybody had enough, we all went back to work. Urjeet and I cleaned another two outdoor tanks, and then we headed inside to clean the environmental room. That room is where we plan to house our fish embryos when we get some. Everything has to be spotless and scrubbed with bleach to prevent any germs from getting into our tanks. We want to avoid ill fish as much as possible. We're in an isolated location for human medical assistance as well as fish medical assistance after all.
Eventually it came close to dinner time, and we all stopped working. Dinner was meatloaf, so I just ate a salad and then some ice cream. I had to participate in GASH, meaning that I had to help clean up the kitchen for an hour after dinner. I wasn't too thrilled to be doing that since I was tired and had a lot of other things to do both for my finals and pertaining to the project, but at 7:30 I could finally call it quits. Now I'm trying to alternate studying for my exams and reading through old inventories to see if we have any more of a specific chemical at the station. Tomorrow is a day off for all of the personnel on station, but that absolutely doesn't apply to us scientists/grantees on station. We have too much to do before our fish arrive. We'll be back to cleaning and setting up the environmental room, and then I have to go and try to start a new inventory of all of our supplies on station, hopefully figuring out why we have 4 large boxes of 200uL pipette tips as I do so.
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