2004-2005 Expedition Luke Sandro Luke Sandro teaches high school biology at Springboro High School in Ohio. He has collaborated with Dr. Lee several times in the past, including helping to write the educational outreach portion of the grant proposal for this trip. DECEMBER 2004 December 16, 2004 - Springboro, Ohio (39° N Latitude): Ten days until we leave. I have to admit I'm a little nervous...I still have so much to do to prepare! I'm writing lesson plans for my substitute teacher, making sure she knows how to teach my classes — buying some supplies (a warm hat, waterproof boots, sunglasses) — also finding more and more teachers to put on our mailing list. I hope that a lot of teachers and students read our updates and go to our website. The other teachers are having a going-away party for me after school today, with cake for everyone! Our plane leaves on the day after Christmas. My friends keep asking me if I'll bring them home a penguin, and I have to tell them that even if I was allowed, I don't think a penguin would fit very well in my luggage. December 27, 2004 - Punta Arenas, Chile (52° S Latitude): I got on a plane yesterday at 5 pm in Cincinnati, flew to Dallas, Texas, and then took a 9-hour flight to Santiago, Chile. I slept a little bit on the plane. Also, I sat next to somebody famous. Peter Yarrow, from the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary, who wrote and sang "Puff the Magic Dragon". Very nice guy. Then we had to go through customs, where our passports and bags were inspected. Then, we got on another plane that flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas, Chile, near the southern tip of South America. There were about 20 people on this plane that will also be on our ship to Antarctica — some of them are scientists, others will help run the ship. Now we're in Punta Arenas, Chile. The first thing I noticed here is that the trees and bushes are all leaning quite a bit to one side. This is because the wind is very strong, and usually blows in the same direction. It’s amazing how the environment an organism lives in really shapes how it looks. It’s 10:00 at night and it's still light out! In the Southern Hemisphere, they have summer in the months that are winter where I live in the Northern Hemisphere — because the way the earth is tilted on its axis aims the Southern Hemisphere more directly at the sun during these months. That means the days are long here right now, and it’s pretty warm, about 60°F. As we go south, the days will get longer, but it will also get colder (even though it's summer) because we’ll be moving further away from the equator. December 28, 2004 - Punta Arenas, Chile: We're getting worried. One of the chemicals we need to do our research in Antarctica hasn't arrived at the ship yet. We leave tomorrow at 8:00 pm, so if it doesn't get here by then, we may have to do without it. The chemical is called Trizol, and we need to use it to preserve and extract the RNA of the insect larvae we’re studying before we can study the genes and proteins they use to survive all the extreme conditions they live in. Without it, a big part of our research will be impossible. We have also been able to talk by phone with the people that are living at Palmer Station right now, and they tell us that we may have another problem. A lot of what's called brash ice — floating chunks of melting Antarctic ice that can be up to two meters long — has been blown by the wind into the harbor and pushed tightly together, blocking the harbor. This isn't a problem for our ship, which is an icebreaker — but it means that once we're there, and the icebreaker is gone, we may have trouble piloting the small motorboats, called Zodiacs, out of the station's harbor to get to the islands where we want to collect the insect larvae. This could delay our research until the ice moves out.Before we get on the ship, they give us a big duffel bag with ECW gear — ECW stands for extreme cold weather. Some of the things in the duffel bag are: a heavy coat and snow pants, long underwear, a hat and mittens, and some really cool sunglasses. If you want to see what else was in it, look at the lesson plan called “Getting Ready to Go!” (click here). Also, before we leave Punta Arenas for good, we make sure to go to the center of town, and touch the statue’s toe for luck on our journey.December 29, 2004, 9:55 pm - R.M.V. Laurence M. Gould, in the Strait of Magellan, bearing northwest: I'm on the ship now. It's called the R.M.V. Laurence M. Gould. R.M.V. stands for Research Motor Vessel, which means this ship is used only for scientific expeditions. It’s a really big ship, 230 feet long, painted orange on the bottom and yellow on the top. It is an icebreaker, too, which means that it can make it through many types of ice without being damaged. The chemical we needed got here just in time! It was flown to Punta Arenas and got here at 6:00 pm today, two hours before we left. The ship used a crane to load our luggage, and the food and supplies for our trip, onto the boat. Scott and I helped them load the fruits and vegetables this morning. All the fruits, vegetables, and other new food for the trip are called freshies, and these will be not only for us, but also for the people who are already in Antarctica at Palmer Station — they'll be glad to see fresh food! I sleep in a big metal box on the bottom level of the ship called the berthing van. It holds 5 people, and can be moved on and off the ship when there are more people on board than will fit in the ship's normal cabins (45). There are 51 people on board now, which leaves six of us without normal cabins, which means we needed two berthing vans for the trip.The captain taught us today about what to do if there is an emergency on the ship. He showed us how to get to the lifeboats, and how to put on our immersion suits, which keep you warm and dry if you have to jump into the cold water. Tomorrow we're going to have something like a fire drill, where bells and alarms ring, and everyone has to grab their life jacket and immersion suits and run to the lifeboats. December 30, 2004 - Strait of Magellan, almost to the Atlantic Ocean: I woke up in the berthing van at 3:30 this morning and couldn't sleep because I was so excited about our trip. I got up and watched from the deck outside the ship as the sun rose from 4:30-5:30 am. It was really beautiful. …