23.01.2013 - Seasick

23.01.2013 (Wednesday). Sky cloudy. Sea wavy. In the morning, the Polarstern navigates along the west side of the Tierra del Fuego. Objective: reaching Joinville Island in three or four days. The ship is seriously pitching and I get seasick. My colleague of cabin too. Marie seems to have no such problems. For many scientists, seasickness is a very unpleasant fatality of oceanographic cruises. It can be very debilitating. Normally in a few days, I should be OK (the Polarstern is a very stable ship). The good point is that most of the installation of the lab was done before I get seasick, when the ship was moored in Punta Arenas. Only minor things still have to be modified in our installation. After discussion by e-mail with colleagues in Belgium, I inform Olaf Ziemann that his team may saw and re-solder the lander. They tell me that they intend to do this tomorrow. At 16:15, we have a an appointment concerning the chemicals. Two of our bottles of absolute alcohol are removed from the container of dangerous goods (located outside, at the top of the ship) and brought to our dry lab. The rest of our alcohol stays in the container for the time being. At 18:00 we have a meeting with Dorte Janussen and Julian Gutt concerning the sorting of the benthos sample from the Agassiz trawl. We will work at the NW of the Antarctic Peninsula. For each benthic core station, all gears for benthos studies will be deployed and samples will be collected at two depths. For each station, a subsample of 50 kg will be thoroughly examined for a study of biocoenoses, with identifications of organisms as detailed as possible. The rest of the sample will be studied by individual scientists at their best personal convenience. In the evening we enter into the Drake passage. I continue the installation of our dry lab (one big box has to be moved from the big wet lab to the small dry lab). At that time I am already less suffering from seasickness than a few hours ago. Let's hope it will continue to improve.

At sea, everything has to be fastened.

(Cédric)

I go out on the deck in the morning. The weather is still sunny, very pleasant. We are still west of South Patagonia, but we can’t see land anymore. Everything’s opaque dark blue. We can see impressive birds flying around from time to time, such as the huge albatross. And some people already spotted whales from far away, but I missed them. 

I go on my computer to work, hoping to not get seasick from concentrating too long with this movement of the boat, but I don’t feel any symptoms for now. Many people are showing up with the patch medicine behind the ear, or not showing up at all …

In the afternoon, we have a meeting with all the benthos people to organize the use of the Agassiz Trawl. There is some planning to do beforehand to make sure that every group gets its samples in good conditions for the particular studies he intends to do. We first will take photographs of the whole catch, then a subsample of 50kg will be taken randomly for a biocoenose’s study. We will estimate the proportional biomass of every class of organisms and then each group will collect its samples of interest.  

In the evening, we have the traditional scientists meeting with the presentation of the weather forecast by the meteorologist and the planning of the scientific work. The sea will probably get rougher by Friday. In the meantime, we entered the Drake Passage and truly began our crossing towards the Southern Ocean. We should get to the west of Joinville Island, at the top of the Antarctic peninsula, by Friday evening. 

(Marie)

 

22.01.2013 – The wild west side of the Strait of Magellan

22.01.2013 (Tuesday). As a consequence of my sunburns, I am loosing the skin of my face like a snake. At 08:00, The Polarstern is finally leaving Punta Arenas. Just the time to take some last pictures, and the great adventure on the southern seas is starting... Exceptionnally the Polartsern crosses the Strait of magellan by the west side. We have fantastic views of moutains with patches of snow. It is a bit windy;  large clouds are drifting across a blue sky. At 09:00, we have a briefing concerning the helicopters in the conference room (unfortunately this will probably concern neither me nor Marie). 10:00 : we have an informal discussion in the blue saloon (the room for important meetings), concerning the area to explore. Indeed it is now definitely clear that it will be absolutely impossible to access the Larsen area due to the important ice coverage of the Western Weddell Sea. No plan is fixed at this stage, but it seems that we will sample somewhere around the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Maybe near Joinville island or a bit farther west. 13:00 :  I have an appointment to see if it is possible to saw the lander in two parts and to solder it afterwards without compromising its functioning. After examination and discussion with the chief engineer Olaf Zieman, this seems possible. However I send an e-mail to Belgian colleagues, to have their approbation. 15:00 : we have an exercice with the life jacket on the helideck (i.e. the helicopter deck). In the afternoon, the landscapes of the Strait of Magellan are becoming wilder and wilder, as we enter its narrowest part. Absolutely no trace of man. Savage mountains, sometimes almost totally rocky with scarce vegetation, sometimes with dense woods of the subantarctic beech Nothofagus antarcticus, often with snow at their top. 18:30 : we are approaching the open sea and I can see quite a number of albatrosses from the window of my cabin. In the night, as we are leaving the coast, the ship starts to pitch. 

The Polarstern in the western part of the Strait of Magellan.

The western side of the Strait of Magellan.

Testing life jackets.

(Cédric)

That's it : the Polarstern is heading to Antarctica with a whole bunch of enthusiastic scientists on board. The floating giant is moving faster than I expected. Everyone is gathering on the deck for most of the day because the landscapes are indeed very spectacular in the Strait. Long stretches of untouched mountains and islands, sometimes green, sometimes rocky, sometimes so high that a cap of snow is covering the top. It seems a bit unreal to me, it looks like synthetic  images in an animation movie. We all take a lot of pictures of course. Tonight, we should leave the protected channel of the Magellan Strait to enter the rougher open-waters. 

We have a security briefing about helicopter safety for those who will get the chance to fly over the Southern Ocean with the whale watchers. During the afternoon, an evacuation training is organized. The loud emergency alarm is heard in every part of the boat. It means that we have to dress warmly, put our lifejackets on and gather on the helideck for counting of the people. Somebody has to put on the survival suit for demonstration: a thick, waterproof suit which covers the entire body and is designed for surviving about 8h in 2°C water. Then we head towards our designed lifeboats. 

Many discussions concern also the planning of the expedition. The Larsen areas where we were initially planning to go are indeed completely inaccessible due to the ice condition. We’ll have to concert and reach a compromise about a B-plan. Some propositions are made: to the border of the ice on the east side, or on the west side of the peninsula which is ice-free. 

In the evening, the movement of the boat is clearly getting more intense: we reached open-water! I need some time to adjust to this perpetual movement and sometimes wish it would stop for a while, but I finally find it quite nice to fall asleep, gently balanced by the waves. 

(Marie)

21.01.2013 - Opening our boxes and installing the labs

21.01.2013 (Monday). Weather cooler, with a very light rain in the morning. It is only at 10:30 that the ship will leave Cabo Negro for Punta Arenas. Meeting in the conference room at 09:00: it seems that the ship will have stay at Punta Arenas for days in order to close the opening above the hold. This would be a terrible waste of time. Fortunately a solution is found later on, and the hold is closed. We could not say exactly how because we were extremely busy at that time. Julian Gutt just told me that the crew used a technique of the good old days, which is transmitted from mouth of sailor to ear of sailor. At 10:30, the dry labs are attributed to the scientists. Marie and I gets the lab E-530 (left side of the ship), which is the same as I used with Henri Robert six years ago. A good point is that we do not have to share it with a third person. So we will have no problems of place restriction. However the development of spontaneous disorder is a phenomenon, which we will have to keep under control. In the afternoon, we have to remove all our boxes and gear out of the container in the deepest part of the hold, transport them through a narrow and steep staircase and bring them either in our small dry lab or in the big wet lab. Our boxes are opened and with some exceptions their content is removed and arranged in our dry lab. The empty boxes are put in a container for storage. I check if our plastic barrels for transporting our samples by World Courrier have their UN marking. They have them! I am relieved. At the same time, some colleagues mount tables in the big wet lab, to be used by all scientists. Everything has to be fastened with ropes, because the ship will be moving (we expect a small storm when we will leave the Strait of Magellan). Our work is quite a hard, because we have many things to do in very little time. The empty boxes are put into an empty containers.  We finish to work around 23:30 but the job is done. Both of us have done his/her best.

Removing the boxes from the container.

Our boxes in our lab.

(Cédric)

We get up every morning around 7h-7h30 for breakfast. Some good news are quickly spreading among us: we’ll leave tomorrow around 8h and we’ll leave towards the west, inside the Magellan Strait, which is unusual. Some people tell me the landscapes are much more beautiful this way and everyone’s quite excited about this decision. During the afternoon, we are busy with some physical exercise: we have to bring our equipment boxes from the deep container to our wet and dry labs. The boxes are heavy, but we are a lot of people cooperating. When every boxes have been moved upstairs, every group can take care of its own. We open them and try to put the pieces in a practical spot, in our assigned lab. We have a dry lab for the 2 of us, quite close from the common wet lab where all the benthos groups will gather to sort the samples out.  

Then we have to tie everything up because the meteorologist is announcing a rougher sea in the coming days, and a non attached object could fall and break with the movement of the boat. The dissecting microscope and the lamps, but also the centrifuge, vortex and incubator for the DNA extractions are fixed on the lab table with ropes. As much pieces as possible are put in the drawers and the remaining boxes are fixed on the ground. This work keeps us busy until late in the evening, but we go to bed happy from the perspective of departure and ready to sail the moody ocean!

(Marie)

20.01.2013 - First day on the Polarstern

20.01.2013 (Sunday). Today is the day. After the breakfast, I do my packing and leave my nice little hotel. I still have some time to loose. I go to the sea front, seat on a concrete chair and stares at the sea for a long time: it is not everyday that you are facing the Strait of Magellan! The weather is still very nice but not as hot as yesterday: 18 to 20°C, as far as I can judge. This is sunday morning and there are very few people in town. After an hour of relaxing at the sight of the sea, I say goobdbye to the black and white cormorants crowding the two old wood jetties close to the harbour and I go to the tall building of the Diego Almagro hotel, which is the meeting point. Several colleagues are welcoming me, and more and more are coming: both familiar heads and people, which I meet for the first time. Marie is the last one to arrive: just in time. At 12:00, we sit in an autocar and have a long drive to the harbour of Cabo Negro where the Polarstern is moored. This is kilometers away from Punta Arenas, in a north-east direction. Cabo Negro is actually a raffinery and/or a gaz terminal. The Polarstern is moored at the tip of a long concrete pier. Everybody is supposed to wear a helmet on this pier and there are only 15 helmets available. So we have to move by groups of 15 and one member of the crew has to go back with the helmets in a plastic bag for the next group. This is a non-sense comedy but we don't care. 

 

My room is number C-344 on the left (port) side of the ship. I will share it with Marc Eleaume of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (a specialist of crinoids ore sea lilies). I will occupy the upper bed. Marie will share her cabin with Freija Hauquier of the University of Ghent. All our passports are checked and conserved for the cruise by one of the officers of the ship. 

I realize that in six years I have forgotten many things concerning the structure of the ship but this is fast coming back. Actually, I pay a visit to most parts of the ships and systematically photographs everything. During my first Polarstern cruise, six years ago, I forgot to take pictures of many things, which I regretted this afterwards. So I have decided to make a complete photographic catalogue of the ship and activities on board. And now this is the right moment for completing my documentation, as we have some time to waste. 

Suddenly, Julian Gutt enters into my cabin and tells me to go to his own. I go there  with several other people. There is a serious problem. The front crane of the ship is badly damaged and cannot be repared (one piece is completely broken). No container can be removed from the front hold of the ship and at this stage it seems impossible to close the front deck of the ship: we can see the blue sky from the hold. We will have to go to Punta Arenas in order to have access to another crane, in order to close the front deck and moving some of the containers, which are not in the hold. There is another problem, which cannot be solved (that is the reason why I was called). The container containing our lander system (i.e. the frame for our baited traps) is located in the deepest part of the hold. In the current situation, that container cannot be moved and items stored in it will have to be removed one by one by a narrow trap. This is impossible for the lander (a cubic structure of with sides larger than 1 m) because the passage is too narrow. Either we will not use the trap system, or... we will have to saw the frame and re-solder it afterwards. We will inspect it later to see if this is possible. 

We are dining at 17:30-18:30. The scientists and the marine officers eat in a cantine on deck C. The marine officers have their own table. The crew eats at another cantine on deck D. The number of scientists is twice the number of places in the cantine. So, the first coming scientists are eating first. The others have to wait in the adjacent 'red saloon'. As soon as somebody has finished, his/her place is clean up and somebody else is called for eating by the staff of the cantine. 

Actually the timing of the meals on board is:

07:30-08:30 - breakfast (2 shifts)
11:30-12:30 - lunch (2 shifts)
15:30-15:50 - coffee and cake
17:30-18:30 - dinner (2 shifts)

Some food is kept in a fridge for the people who could not attend the meal because they were at work.

Today at 19:30, a small shop does open at the lowest level of the ship, where it is possible to buy something to drink or to eat. This shop is opening twice a week.

At 20:30, we have a meeting in the conference room. Every scientists, the helicopter crew, and the two journalists of the German television, who will stay on board, briefly presents himself/herself. On board there are people from many different nationalities. Julian Gutt explains to everybody the worrying situation, which we are facing. He says that it is possible that we will have to wait three days at Punta Arenas to have access to a pier with a crane. Another possibility would be to have to use the crane from another ship, but this would be a risky operation. Anyway, the ship is supposed to leave Cabo Negro tomorrow at 06:00 to go to Punta Arenas. At this stage, we have no idea when the expedition itself will start. 

Meeting point at Diego Almagro hotel.

Ready to go on the Polarstern.

Seeing the blue sky from the hold.

(Cédric)

Today is D-day. I take a good breakfast in my hostel in Punta Arenas, make some last minute skype-calls to friends and family and take my luggages. I’m a bit nervous but mostly exited. This expedition was planned for months, I need some time to realize it’s finally happening. I’m leaving by foot to the meeting point, it’s a few hundred meters from my hotel and at last meet all the other participants. The bus travel to the boat takes a good half an hour, plus the waiting time at the entrance. We enter the boat by groups of 15, wearing protective helmets according to the regulations. 

The ice-breaking vessel is huge. I guess it’s always impressive to see it and mostly to visit it for the first time. It’s a real maze inside, all small corridors leading to similar rooms. I will need some time not to get lost anymore. The cabins are bigger than I expected, with a sofa and table, enough place to work, and a nice little bathroom. I share mine with the other Belgian PhD student. The ship has 6 levels, I’m trying at least to remember the useful paths, to the mess, the lecture room, the labs, the computers room, the fitness and the laundry room.

At 15h30 it’s coffee-time. We are informed of the situation. The trip will be delayed by an unknown amount of time due to technical problem. For the moment, we wait for more informations, gather on the deck and enjoy the exceptionally good weather in Patagonia. We take this opportunity to learn to know the other scientists with whom we’ll soon share 2 months of an incredible scientific and personal experience … 

(Marie)

 

19.01.2013 - Punta Arenas : serolids in rockpools

19.01.2013 is even warmer than the day before: temperatures skyrocketing up to 25 or 27 °C. This is absolutely unbelievable, or at least very abnormal for Punta Arenas. The sun is also shining very hard and I got serious sunburns. I explore the same beach as the day before. I found again the large crab Peltarion spinosulum, but only dead ones. I go farther east and cross a bridge above a small river. A bit farther, I find a real rocky shore, consisting of muddy rocks with few red algae, beds of mussels and rockpools. It is not very extended as the tide amplitude is small: 2 or 3 m. I start to look between algae and below boulders. There are a lot of specimens of the small crab Halicarcinus planatus. I find large limpets and again the large sphaeromatid isopods and the gastropod similar to the European dogwhelk. Amphipods dwell between seaweeds but they only consist of small species of less than 10 mm. The real attraction of this shores are the living serolids. These large isopods (up to 35 mm) occur everywhere in rock pools, creeping on the sandy mud and sometimes burying in it. These are fascinating crustaceans because they really look like trilobites. They are one of the most remarkable example of evolutionary convergence known to me. When they feel a danger, these broad and completely flattened crustaceans can disappear in a few seconds in the sediment. I took some good pictures of them and even short films. To summarize the situation, the fauna of this rocky shore is not rich, but truly amazing for a foreign naturalist.

In the afternoon, I do a very long excursion through the town. In a street, I suddenly meet Julian Gutt, who inform me that the meeting point for tomorrow will be at 12:00 at his hotel. In Punta Arenas, the houses are small and in wood, often with a small garden, which is often protected by a metallic fence. A lot of flowers in the gardens, but of very few species. Some houses looks in poor condition. As said yesterday they are often painted in vivid colours. The walls of some houses or buildings are decorated by original wall paintings, made with very vivid colours.

In the evening, I meet my French-speaking colleagues (except Marie who was in an excursion far away, in a natural park). In a restaurant we eat santollas (Lithodes santolla), which is a big spiny lithodid crab, very superficially looking like European spider crabs but not realted to them. A bit disappointing as it as they were not as fresh as they should have been.

The next entrance of this blog will not be uploaded before several days because all or laptops will have to be checked for viruses by the IT expert of the ship. Indeed a virus spreading in the intranet of the Polarstern could be a real issue.

Serolid in rockpool.

Patagonian sphaeromatid isopod.

The king crab Lithodes santolla is a local delicatesse in Patagonia.

(Cédric)

18-01-2013 - Re-discovering Punta Arenas

18.01.2013 (Friday). After a travel of about 30h and various problems, I  thought I would have slept 12h non stop. However, I did not slept that well, because my biological clock is not yet adjusted to the time shift and because it is much too warm in my room. The radiator is fully open as if it was the heart of winter, whilst it is mid summer in this part of the world. No way: it is impossible to close the radiator myself (it is controlled from below by the guys of the hotel)! I get out of my bed around 7:30. I take a shower and had the disappointment to see that 25% of my bottle of sun cream has been released within my toilet bag, which I have to clean.

After the breakfast, I make a long walk in the town and on the shore. The main element of the Magellanic landscape is the wind. The first time I came here, 6 years ago (end January beginning of February), it was icy (maximum 13°C) and half of the time we had winds over 100 km/h. However today there is nothing like this. There is just a very light and rather pleasant wind. The temperature is also high for the area: around 18°C. Finally the sun is shining brightly, at least in the morning. The sun is actually so strong that I got light sun burns.

In Punta Arenas, Houses are often painted in vivid colours, just as in Scandinavia, probably for the same reason: as a compensation against the harsh climate with little sun in winter. However they have a very different architectural style, which is not unpleasant. Almost every place has a bronze statue of one or another hero of Chilean history. Electric cables form incredible spider webs above the streets. This is very unaesthetic but at the same time  really funny for the foreign visitor.

Punta Arenas literally means 'sandy cape' and this name is very appropriate. The shore is a sandy beach with local accumulation of small pebbles. When arriving to the shore (east of the harbour),  I first examine clumps of mussels from a jetty. Between them I discover the little (carapace 12 mm across) long-legged circum-subantarctic crab Halicarcinus planatus and a gastropod very similar to the dogwhelk of European coasts. On the beach itself, I had the pleasure to find two washed ashore but still living Peltarion spinosulum. So far I had only seen dead ones. These are rather large crabs (carapace about 60 mm long) with claws modified into shovels to dig in the sandy bottoms, which they affectionate. Big sphaeromatid isopods (25 mm long) hide in crowds below the pebbles. Finally exuviae of a species of serolid isopod unknown to me (up to 35 mm long) are scattered almost everywhere across the beach. It must be noticed that we will see no crabs in Antarctica; Patagonia is the southern limit for these warm- and temperate-water crustaceans. On the other hand, amphipods and isopods are very diverse in the icy Antarctic waters.

In the afternoon I meet Marie, who was about to enter in her appropriately named Youth Hotel  'Al Fin del Mundo Hostal'. She told me that she was about to visit (by boat) the colony of Patagonian pinguins close to Punta Arenas.

Punta Arenas with its spiderweb of electric cables.

The little circum-subantarctic crab Halicarcinus planatus.

The Patagonian crab Peltarion spinosulum.

(Cédric)

16.01.2013-17.01.2013 - Journey to Punta Arenas

2013-01-16 (Wednesday). The morning I am doing my last packing. I am a bit in panick because for an half hour I could no longer locate my small Rollei camera. I finally find it well hidden in the bagpack for camera gear. At the airport, I have another fear, because my hand bagage has apparently not the right dimensions for Iberia airline. However I was again panicking for nothing as the laptop may be removed and considered as a separate item.  When the airplane is taking off, everything is snowy, shining under the sun. I had never seen Zaventem like that. From the air, the white Belgium, looks like on old paintings of Breughel. Above France the snow disappears. Above Spain it becomes cloudy and I land in Madrid in rainy conditions. I have to wait more than 6 hours at the terminal for intercontinental connections. I spends this time in the less bad snack of the terminal (there is no good one). Since this will be a cruise on a German ship, I have to impregnate me a little bit of German culture and I start the reading of the most iconic piece of German literature: Faust of Goethe.

Ready for the journey to the end of the world.

(Cedric)

17.01.2013 (Thursday). At 00:30, the airbus is taking off. Direction Santiago (Chile). More than 13h of flight. The airplane is moving in the same direction as earth rotation. So it is a very, very long night. I would like to sleep immediately, but we first have to eat airplane 'crap food'. The guy on my side (an Italian and obviously a very clever person) is reading a book about Bayesian statistics. Not the kind of things I would read before sleeping... I sleep a little bit, but very badly. Then I wake up because the ladies behind me had put the light on, before sleeping with the lamp... No concerns for the others! I have to turn off myself their own lamp. Later on, small screens start projecting a Walt Disney movie with a Frankenstein dog. Impossible to sleep with that stupidity. At the end of the night, when looking at me in the mirror of the toilet, I looks very very tired. Then we are flying above the Andes. Fantastic view of a mountain desert. At Zaventem, they told me that my luggage, would follow directly to Punta Arenas. This seems very strange to me since the controls for entrance in Chile are very strict. The people of the airplane confirms me that I have to pick up my suitcase at Santiago. In Santiago, my suitcase is one of the last one to arrive. I briefly met Julian Gutt who has just arrived by another plane. I have to declare the importation of 5 external hard disks. This is not a problem. I just have to indicate that on a form. Then I have to take my plane to Punta Arenas. Unfortunately, I have wasted time in waiting my suitcase and filling documents and my plane is already gone. I met other colleagues of the expedition who had the same problem. This is not a big issue. We will take the next plane if there is still place in it ...at the last moment. I eat a Chilean varied salad in the airport. This was the only decent food of the whole journey to Punta Arenas. I come back to the desk. There is still a place but I have just 10 minutes to run to the airplane. I get it in time. It makes a stop at Puerto Montt before Punta Arenas. At Puerto Montt the landscape looks Mediterranean, with shrubs of dry climate. Then we take off again and arrive at Punta Arenas with various colleagues. And then, shit happens. My suitcase has not arrived. My Spanish colleagues Pablo Lopez and Irene are in the same situation. For them, this is even worst as for me, as they haves very important gear for the mission in their suitcase (my stuff were expensive but less important).  We have a very long discussion at the reclamation office. I am more than happy to have the friendly help of Pablo, because I do not speak Spanish and the guys of the airport speak almost no English (and of course no French at all). At first, they could not even locate the luggages in their computer system and it seems that the situation is hopeless. After long discussion by phone, the suitcases of Pablo and Irene are located, but not mine. They should arrive in Punta Arenas around 23:00. Pablo and Irene decide to wait at the airport (they will see if they get more information on my suitcase). I take a cab and go to my hotel, the Oro de Fuegino, which is a nice old-fashioned Chilean hotel. I go to the well-known restaurant 'La Luna', where I hoped to find colleagues, but I find one. I eat and try a local artisanal bear 'Luna'. Quite a good beer in my opinion. Back in my hotel, when I am already in bed, I get a first phone call from Pablo: my suitcase has arrived. A bit later, I get a second phone call telling me that he has brought me the suitcase. I jump out of my bed. The suitcase is in front of my door!!! Unfortunately, Pablo is already away and I cannot say him thank you (he has to wake up early the day after for an excursion far away). I can sleep quietly...

Above the Andes.

(Cedric)

02.01.2013-14.01.2013 - Ultimate preparations before leaving Belgium

02.01.2013 (Wednesday). Julian Gutt informs us that the current ice coverage of the Weddell Sea is very considerable. It is possible that part of the planned stations will be impossible to reach and that our sampling planning will have to be modified. This kind of problems is not uncommon during Antarctic expeditions. That is confirmed by a fairly recent chart of ice distribution in the Weddell Sea (dating from 17.12.2012), which I have downloaded  at: http://www.polarview.aq/images/23_icechart/current/antarctic_icechart_current.jpg

03.01.2013 (Thursday). I buy some US dollars for our transit in Chile. In that country, US dollars are preferred to Euros and Chilean pesos cannot be ordered in Belgium. My hotel booking in Chile is now OK except for my two last nights in late March.

04.01.2013 (Friday). This afternoon, Henri Robert kindly re-explains us the complex process of mounting the lander for the baited traps and the use of the acoustic larger and of the radio beacon. I think this was really useful, since I had already forgotten a lot of things.

09.01.2013 (Wednesday). Julian Gutt sends us the following message:

"Dear participants,

This is probably the last instruction before we meet on Polarstern.
Time of embarkment is 20 January 2013, 13:00 - 14:00 hours. Place: Cabo Negro [Punta Arenas, Chile], which is "behind" the airport of PA and quite distant from the city. Because you are not allowed to enter independently (on your own) this part of the port the only way to get there is to join the bus, organised by our agent (Ultramar). It will leave from the "Diego Almagro Hotel", Colón 1290, city of PA, almost at the beach, 20 January in the morning. Unfortunately I can not provide an exact time. Those who stay in the Diego Almargo Hotel can ask at the reception. Those who stay in a different place have to contact the agent Ultramar; (...)
We will leave PA 20 January in the afternoon.

I wish you all a nice trip to the other hemisphere!

Julian"

Punta Arenas facing the Straits of Magellan. Photograph made by Cédric on 02.02.2007.

14.01.2013 (Monday). In Belgium, the weather is cold and it has been snowing during the weekend. We are expecting more snow later this week. This can be considered as a kind of prelude of our forthcoming journey: our journey on the frozen seas, to the land of eternal winter...
Today is normally my last day at the museum. Tomorrow, I will make my very last packing before my three successive flights (Brussels-Madrid, Madrid-Santiago, Santiago-Punta Arenas, 16-17.01.2013) and try to relax a little bit. Marie will leave Belgium on 15.01.2013 and arrive at Punta Arenas on 16.01.2013.

(Cédric)