Antarctic Team Answers Questions
Whale migration Whales are migrating down to the south to eat. Krill numbers are starting to decrease as the daylight hours get shorter, so whales will migrate north.
Research stations - close to water. There are tides, meter or 3 feet. Stations are near water for easy access.
Does Antarctica benefit from all the tourism? Increased awareness is a benefit. Tourists leave this place as ambassadors. There are not landing fees. IATO manages. Become an Antarctica Member yourself. Happy whales - pictures can be donated. South Georgia does have a landing fee. Governance is under the Antarctic treaty system. Apply for permit to come to Antarctic. 20,000 tourists in 2015? Now up to 54,000. About 18,000 are cruise only. Challenge is to prove there is an impact. We don’t have data before tourism started. IATO manages ship tourism. In July, opens up website. Covid protocols have changed the rules completely. This season no visits to many of the research stations. Covid has not gone away. Palmer station - Apply for a visit. Chile and Brazil called our ship and invited us to visit. Ukraine email a couple weeks before, asking for permission to visit???
Ice Pilot - How does your job work? Not exact science. Traveled over 16 years. Ice navigator, etc. Oceania hired an experienced professional to navigate ice. Look and stay in charted area. Observe the ice. React to what we find. Plan A Impacted by wind, currents, other ships, etc.
This ship not built like an ice breaker. Need ship’s integrity to stay in tact. Ice is always swimming. See 10-15% of ice berg. Take into accounts winds and currents. Observe and react. Can go 10-20 feet away from ice berg under water. No sonar on this ship. Satellite navigation? Look and download information. There is no more sea ice. Satellite used early in season. What we saw was glacial ice, not sea ice. Satellite picture is old as soon as you look at it. Entrance to Paradise Harbor, blocked by several layers of ice. Our 200M ship is heavily affected by winds. Several layers involved in decision making. 30 knots of wind from side, going through narrow channel. Not a reinforced ship. Would have taken a lot of time. May have pushed through and ended up in a worse situation. Gall??? Bay stunning scenery. Fish encounter. Decisions based on experience of decision makers.
Global warming/climate change. Massive pieces of ice break off and satellites track. Breaking up in ways we haven’t seen before. Greenland ice shelf has some commonalities with Antarctica.
Drake Passage - Antarctic convergence. Heading south, 60 degrees latitude air temp much colder. Sea temp drops, you know you crossed Antarctic convergence. Convergence just before Falklands when going north.
Andy (photo) overexpose a 1/3 to 1/2 stop in cloudy, gray environments. Then can adjust during post development.
Instinct on migrations - monitor length of day, know it is instinctive. Day length changes trigger changes. Hormones change. Some whales use sonar to help with migration. Birds will migrate in small groups. Other birds will go on their own. Birds seem to have a built in compass. Wind patterns impact the path bird choices.
How long ago was commercial whaling limited? After WWII, companies cut back.. Reaction due to natural resources changed. Fossil fuels were made available. Japanese scientifically whaling.
Fishing is managed through treaties and CAMLAR. Russian, Japan, China have to reach consensus.
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