Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/20/2007 - 08:42

Group 7,6:  Is it really so cold that when you take the water out of the sea it freezes?

Have you seen any polar bears (coca cola bear) yet?

 Group 5:  Any Leopard seals?

Group 4:  Have you been in the gym yet?

Where does the stuff in the toilet go on the boat (relevant to polution I guess; they think it goes off the side of the boatYell)

Group 3:  Any seals yet?  What have you found most interesting so far?

Group 2: About how many people are on the boat?

Group 1:  What is the lowest temp of all the days you have been there?  with wind chill...

Emily Davenport

Hi everyone in period 1!! 
The past couple of days it has been warmer, but it IS cold enough that when we pull the water out of the sea it freezes almost immediately...brr!!  A lot of our equipment has been freezing up too, because there is water on it and it sits out on the deck of the ship and everything freezes together.  
 
I personally have not seen a polar bear, but the helicopter team DID see one, and I will post a picture of that soon.  I don't know if we'll see anymore, they seemed to think we wouldn't see any at all...so who knows!
 
There have been some seals- but not leopard seals- they only live in Anarctica, just like penguins only live in Anaractica.  We do have spotted seals here, as well as many other types, such as fur seals which get very BIG.
 
I HAVE gone to the gym- though just once, and it was at 4:30 in the morning.  I did my laundry while I worked out, because they are right next to each other :)  It was a little strange to work out while the ship was moving, and you could hear the ice scraping by the hull of the ship.  They have all sorts of things to work out on- treadmill (though I don't think I'm coordinated to run while the ship is moving!), eliptical machine, weight machines, stair stepper, etc etc :)
 
Well, when we are at a station (the boat is stopped and the scientists are sampling) the sewage from the boat is contained.  When we are underway (moving, traveling to the next stage), the sewage does get dumped into the ocean.  Unfortunately there is no way around this- there are too many people on the ship to not dump the sewage.  They are very strict about what goes in the toilet- it has to either come out of you or be the toilet paper the ship provides.  Anything else clogs up the sewer system and then they have to shut down the ENTIRE system to de-clog it.  Gross...and they could shut it down for HOURS!!  Eeek.  So far that hasn't happened yet.
 
There are approximately 100-120 people on the ship, this includes the crew and all the scientists.  That seems like a lot, and the ship seems like a BIG ship...but it gets very close quarters after being here for a couple weeks!
 
Hmmm, I think the lowest air temperature we have seen has been something like -12 degrees Celsius...that's 10 degrees Fahrenheit- with wind chill it could be around 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below.  Brr!!  No wonder things are freezing so quickly!!  We actually haven't had much wind yet, just one day of real wind and the rest of the time it's been fairly pleasant!
 
Thanks for the questions everyone!!
Emily