I have now been here in Antarctica for about a year. I am a member on the LTER Team. LTER stands for Long-Term Ecological Research. We are working on a project that has to do with where penguins go when they are mature.
I had to wake up at six in the morning. I had to get dressed, go down to the cafeteria, eat breakfast and be in the team meeting room by seven. We meet early so we can get a good start on whatever we plan to do. Right now we are putting transmitters on penguins to track where they go. We normaly leave Palmer Station about 8:00 am. It normally takes us an hour to get everything ready to go.
First we put in the transmitters and all of our equipment into the duffle bag. Then we put on a wind suite and a heavy snow suite over it. We also put on our heavy red coat and we always wear or carry a hat. You must wear safety glasses or goggles to protect your eyes from snow blindness. Whoever goes outside or anywhere has to carry a water bottle. It is very important to drink plenty of water in Antarctica. Water is very precious and you have to conserve it. You are only allowed two to three showers a week. When you do take your shower, you have to take a three to four minute one. Laundry is limited to one load per week.
It takes us about one to two hours to put transmitters on about twenty-five penguins and write down the information we need. The information consists of measuring the beaks' width and length, how much it weighs, and the height. When we get back to Palmer Station the data we collected is transferred into the computer. After lunch we go back out and continue to put transmitters on penguins. That only lasts an hour. The rest of the day is then free.
I normally go and exercise in the gym for about thirty minutes. I go to bed at eight o'clock p.m. You don't really know what time it is in Antarctica because there are so many different time zones. So we all just have to guess what time it is. That is basically how my day goes as a member of the LTER team.