Tuesday, June 18, 2013

How to Pack



How to Pack for Antarctica. Scientifically and Personally.

I’ve been asked multiple times “How does one even pack for Antarctica?!” First and foremost you will have to make sure you look inside your luggage and remove the handful of stowaway friends, family and colleagues hiding in the depths claiming their skills as photographers, porters, and helpers eager to accompany on the journey to Antarctica. In my case I had to also think about how to pack for 1. living on a ship, 2. backpacking/camping around New Zealand and 3. Looking pretty. Because scientists are overly concerned about their flare and looking good ;-P In all honesty, packing for this trip has probably been one of the most challenging and stressful tasks I’ve ever accomplished. It has been the heaviest packing I’ve ever done for an international get-a-way.

These are the items I packed: scientific supplies (cardboard box in upper right), science binder, pleasure reading books, (should have bought a kindle!), wordsearch, Hiking boots, sandals, running shoes, sparkle shoes, night-life clothes, summer dresses, outdoor clothes, workout clothes, warm/rain clothes, Cards Against Humanity, sunscreen, backpacking/camping gear, St. Patrick’s day socks, sparkly shoelaces and a banana costume. For a detailed list, you can email me.







In comparison, the earlier explorers of the 1900s had to pack for years at sea.
 
They seem to have packed similar items: nothing sparkly, but they did pack musical instruments, board games, cards, etc. We have musical instruments on board The Palmer.  

 


SCIENTIFICALLY
The ship is designed to be a research vessel. This means it has counter space, sinks, gas lines, refrigerators and freezers. This does not mean that it is set up and ready to go. It starts off as a skeleton lab space with no supplies or equipment in it. It is up to us to fill it to our liking. Unlike some cruises, we were fortunate enough to be given lists of items that were available to use (that we did not have to buy and ship down on our own dime): compressed gases, ice and cryogens, analytical instruments and equipment, stocked chemicals, and other basic supplied materials, etc. The USAP provides these items for us through NSF (are you remembering all your acronyms from my earlier blogs?!). I requested these items through a website called POLAR ICE: The Participant On-Line Antarctic Resource Information Coordination Environment http://www.usap.gov/scienceSupport/POLARICE/  This is the web-based software application used to assist in deployment preparation, and coordinate and facilitate support for Antarctic research missions.

This was such a huge help because I had to rack my brain for every possible lab item I think I might use and could possibly need over the course of 53 days on the ship. How many Ziplock bags? How many bottles? How many pipette tips? Do I take the exact amount or do I bring a whole extra box in case they spill? I sat at my desk envisioning what I use on a daily basis in the lab at Seattle. In order to know what types of materials I would need, I needed to know exactly what I would actually be doing aboard.  I went through the very detailed descriptions Monica and I wrote up of the experiments I’ll be conducting to envision all the other items I would need. I had to think of all the possible chemicals I would need, the jars I would need to mix them up in. The stir bar, the mixing boats, the scale, the scoopula (it’s a scoop and a spatula in one!) EVERYTHING! Are you feeling exhausted yet? I was too.

Ok, awesome. These will all appear on the Palmer when I arrive in McMurdo. I have a rough idea of what I need, but not everything I need is listed on the POLAR ICE web-site! Items that were not provided by the USAP were our responsibility to mail to the ship (which was located in California at the time) no later than October 2012.

I spent a couple weeks ordering supplies and gathering anything I thought we may need.  These items were shipped to Port Hueneme in California and loaded on to the ship. I originally packed all of these items in cardboard boxes. Fed Ex sends me packages in cardboard all the time, so I didn’t think there would be an issue! What was the problem?! The problem was, THESE cargo items were going to spend the next couple of months living in temperature and weather extremes, exposed to the elements where cardboard would liquefy in no time! I had to pack all of my gear in sturdy plastic boxes with straps holding everything together. [I’m sorry I don’t have a photo!]

We still had 2 months until the cruise so any items I realized I had forgotten I needed to pack with me and check-in on my flights from Seattle to Christchurch. Talk about NOT packing light. Not to mention I had booked some vacation time to backpack/camp around which was a whole different set of personal items. There was the “cruise” bag and the “camping” bag. I have always traveled as light as I possibly could and having to keep track of THREE different bags each weighing 35lbs, plus a fancy digital SLR and a laptop loaned to me by my institute (Institute for Systems Biology) was frazzling.


PERSONALLY
Over the holidays I received buckets of hand and foot warmers, glowing light sticks, guides to Antarctica, chocolate bars, warm socks, a compass watch (sadly its set to the northern hemisphere’s magnetic pole and won’t work in the southern hemisphere), as well as signaling mirror that can shine up to 30 miles away!  I think my family and friends were under the impression that I’d be lost cold and naked and alone in the middle of the continent. What they didn’t realize is that the Nathaniel B Palmer has a workout room, sauna, library, a millionaire’s-worthy theater room with a vast collection of DVDs and popcorn, and an espresso machine (we have Italians on board who NEED their cappuccinos!) Such a comfy life it seems, that talk of the “Palmer Pounds” may not be just rumor. Palmer Pounds is the weight you will gain while on the ship. This brings back the nostalgia of the college “Freshman Fifteen” (which I never experienced, thankfully). Nearly everyone is already talking about their fitness goals and frequency of gym use they plan to do while on ship. Some of us girls want to be able to do at least 1 pull-up by the end of the cruise (shoot high!). I want to do at least 30 pushups in a row, and as a newly founded marathon runner I have clear visions of maintaining my marathon mileage baseline…with only a treadmill? We’ll see how long I last. This could be tricky if the treadmill craps out after 3 miles and I’m battling the rocking motion of the ship.

I hadn’t even thought of what type of creature comforts to pack. I figured, what is the big deal going without something for 2 months?! I knew I couldn’t go without chocolate so I packed a lot of Theo chocolate bars (and ate nearly half of my rations before actually flying out of Seattle). I packed books (I SO wish I had a Kindle or a Nook because some of my literature is thick and heavy!) There was talk amongst fellow colleagues about what they packed and I’ve heard their necessary items they couldn’t live without consist of hangers (don’t want wrinkly clothes!), a head tingling massager (its only $3.50 and feels sooo tingly on the scalp!), a onsie, fuzzy bunny slippers, a pillow, sheets and pictures framed of mom, dad and the family dog.

The “necessary items” that I packed were The Ultimate Guide to being a Ninja, Valentines Day & St Patties Day Green Themed clothes, action figures, sparkly shoelaces, hipster sunglasses and a banana costume (why the heck would I need that, you ask? Stay tuned to find out why in a future post….)  For next time, I’d pack a camelback to stay hydrated. You do a lot of running back and forth and up and down the stairs and you have to make a concerted effort to leave the lab to go get a drink of water.  

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