Miller: “It’s like we’re driving a giant Tonka truck!”). Loose porthole covers creaking. The bow thrusters, which sound exactly like a rocket launching, and are conveniently located just below my bunk (least favorite wake-up call ever: “GADOOOOSHHHS HSHKSKKSKS KSKSKSSSSSH HHHHHHHHHH!! KSSSHRRRRRSSSSSSSOOOOOOOSHSHHHHHH!!!!!”). The hydraulics on the several-ton crane on the back deck. The sonar ping every two seconds (nicknamed “The Chirp,” it sounds like a cross between a faucet dripping and a bird).
When I’m not on the boat, I suddenly realize how quiet it seems. Where’s the electronics-buzz? Isn’t the engine running?
Today I got off the boat for the first time in about three weeks. We’ve left Ocean Station Obama (which turned out to be a big hit with the press), and circled back to pick up the birders. Five days ago we left the birders (two people who study penguins) to stay in a minivan-sized, leaky makeshift hut on Avian Island. The island is home to something like 80,000 breeding pairs of penguins, along with elephant seals, fur seals, and a few other birds. Avian is beautiful. It also smells like a thousand port-a-johns shoved into a bad seafood restaurant.
Before picking up the birders, we indulged in a little tourism with the Zodiacs. We lowered the Zodiacs into the water with the crane, and motored out to a nearby rocky beach at the foot of a glacier, where we found an old british airplane wreck, and an abandoned Chilean Antarctic base. Now overrun with angry elephant seals and a handful of Weddell seals, the base consisted of a few old wooden shacks perched high on the rocks. “Rustic” might be generous. Most of the paint had peeled off the buildings, and the wood was beginning to rot away. Eerily, though, the interior of the buildings seemed untouched. Old bedding was still on the cots, skis were still leaning against the wall, pots and pans were left sitting on the counters, and photos of naked women were still stuck on the walls. Oh, Antarctica.
Tomorrow we’ll make a stop at Rothera, a British Antarctic base, before steaming 20 hours to Charcot Island, which will be the farthest south the Gould has ever been.