Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 08:49
Forums
Drake Passage Opening

Have you ever seen a striped iceberg?Josh

What do the corals look like that you have seen?Are they colorful?Willa

Were you scared when you saw the whales?Could they attack the ship?Ethan

How long did the whale look?Any more interesting things you can tell us about it?Ramona

What country are you closest to right now?Christiana

Have you seen any sharks,dolphins, or big fish?Stephen

How many miles have you trasveled so far?Maya

What is the time difference from austin to where you are?How many miles away from austin are you?Katya

Thanks for all your answers to our questions. We are looking forward to your safe return! Ms. Brosko

Mon, 05/19/2008 - 09:08

Katie Pena

Hi Mrs. Hardwick's class! Thanks for your questions.
Josh, we have seen many striped and multicolored icebergs. They are very cool! Sometimes they will have a regular white side and a darker blackish green side because it has flipped over, and the dark green side is the one that has been underwater for a long time. Icebergs form their beautiful shapes from wind and water weathering and erosion.
Willa, the living corals that we have seen are beautiful! They are many different colors, orange, pink, yellow, cream, and light green.
Ethan, we were not scared when we saw the whales, we were excited! Our ship is so much larger than they are, so they would not try to attack something that is bigger than they are. Also, humpback whales only eat krill and plankton, so they are not very interested in us.
Ramona, the whale looked about 10 meters long and had a really cool blow hole. Its blow is 2- 3 meters tall, bushy and in a V-shape. It was also active, doing flipper- slapping and lobtailing-- very fun to watch.
Christina, the closest continent to us is Antarctica, which is not owned by any country. We are closest to the country of Chile in South America. The waters here are claimed by Chile and Argentina, so we had to get permission for dredging and trawling from both governments.
Stephen, we have not seen any dolphins or sharks. We have dredged up some big fish, the most common being the Rattail, which is the most common in the deep sea. They are very smooth and almost translucent with huge eyes and mouths. We also got a couple of other deep sea fish that we cannot identify at this time, but they also are very smooth with big mouths. Many of these fish just sit and wait for prey with their big mouths open and ready to attack.
Maya, your mom and dad's friend, Marcy, says hi-- she is my cabinmate and friend. Back to your question that Marcy and Peter helped me answer, we have sailed about 6,000 miles-- that is like traveling east to west across the US and back-- and remember we are traveling at a very slow speed, about 10 miles per hour-- about the same speed that you can ride your bike.
Katya, the time difference is a strange thing because on the ship we keep the eastern time zone, which is 1 hour behind Austin time. The official science time is in GMT-- Greenwich time, which is 5 hours ahead of Austin, TX time. It is all a little confusing sometimes. We are about 12,000 km from Austin, TX. Get Ms. Brosko to help you convert that to miles.
Thanks for all your excellent questions!
I hope you can tune in to the live event on Thursday, the 22nd!
Mrs. Pena