Planes, Pity and Penguins

Penguins lining up for a C17 flight last Saturday.  Unfortunately, the plane was full so no luck.
 Maybe they through the stone that broke the windshield!  (Not my shot.  Don't share.)
Current conditions:  Con3.  Temperature 10ºF!!! (with windchill 10ºF!!!).  Mostly Cloudy.  Population = 596

Planes:  Today, a C17 heading to McMurdo with 85 passengers on board developed a cracked windshield fifteen minutes before landing.  The plane had to abort the landing, turn around and head back to Christchurch.  Why, you may ask, would it fly five hours back to Christchurch rather than simply land here?  A landing is a landing whether on ice or on tarmac. Well, Phoenix Airfield in McMurdo simply doesn't have the equipment, the parts or the crew to fix airplanes.  If the C17 landed, it might be a long time before it could head back.  So the plane does a "bounce" and returns to New Zealand.   Luckily, a C17 carries enough fuel to make the round trip.  Were it a Boeing 757, which has a much shorter ranger, it would need to land.  Last year, a 757 had a mechanical problem right before landing.  The passengers prepared for a crash landing and the base prepared for a mass casualty.  The landing ended up being smooth as silk--not a scratch on the ice--but agonizing tales have lived on.

Pity:  So pity two sets of people:  those on the plane who had been waiting in Christchurch for days to get to the ice only to be turned back (and to be frightened in the process), and those at McMurdo who have been in Antarctica for the winter and were stoked to see the four F's (family, friends, furry things and freshies).  Beth, our PT, was among that sad cohort.  The damaged C17 is the only one currently available in Christchurch (757s and airbuses are reserved months ahead of time) and the weather later this week is iffy so who knows when the next flight (and the planned freshies) will arrive.



A full house for penguin lecture (1/3 of the room)
Penguins:  Last night, we had our second science lecture, given by Peter Ponganis, a PhD marine biologist who also doubles as an MD anesthesiologist in Southern California.  He studies the physiology of diving in mammals and birds.  Right now, he is focusing on penguins.   I learned some nifty emperor penguin facts (some of which, I may have gotten wrong). Nevertheless, here are a few things I gleaned:
Image result for penguin ranch antarctica
The Penguin Ranch at Cape Washington with dive hole.
  • Emperor penguins remain relatively plentiful.  The area around McMurdo has some of the largest emperor penguin colonies in the world.  One of these colonies alone has about 17,000 baby chicks each season.  The colony is large enough to be seen on satellite images.
  • To catch an emperor penguin--which can weigh as much as 80 pounds--you have to sneak up behind it on your knees and hug it while it's standing.  If it gets on its belly and starts to "toboggan", all hope is lost.
  • Emperor penguins can carry a lot of oxygen and consume much more than humans (up to 68 ml/kg/min compare to about 22 ml/kg/min in humans).  They carry the oxygen disproportionately (36%) in their muscles' myoglobin because, when they dive, the air is compressed out of their lungs and air sacs.
  • At rest, the emperor penguin's heart rate is about 60 beats per minute  Before they dive, it spikes up to the 200's.  Then, when it dives (it can dive down to 500 meters!), its heart rate drops as low as 10 bpm.
  • Emperor penguins virtually never miss a fish they target for lunch, much like Dean with the soft ice cream machine.

Ponganis also showed us a sweet video from National Geographic (the link is not quite the right one).

I don't know if we'll see any emperors during our stay--they live 25 miles away--but I know we'll see Adelie penguins like the ones in the picture at the top.  They like to hike through the base on occasion during the summer.  

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