by Chris Turney
* * *
The Shokalskiy’s voyage to the Auckland Islands is considerably easier than the one taken seven centuries ago. We suffer no major storms or wild seas, and the archipelago appears on the horizon just twenty-four hours after we depart Bluff. A few hours later, we weigh anchor in the sheltered northern waters of Port Ross, near a double bay affectionately called Sarah’s Bosom by the British explorers. The New Zealand Department of Conservation are careful over the numbers and timing of visitors to protect the struggling wildlife, so we have the islands to ourselves. To make sure we don’t unwittingly introduce any pests, the team are busy brushing, scrubbing, and cleaning every pocket, strap, and crevice in their gear. Tomorrow we aim to go onshore, and the smallest seed could have a devastating impact on this pristine environment.
I leave the sound of laughter and vacuum-cleaning behind and climb the ladder to the top deck. The moon casts an eerie light over the ship and surrounding slopes, the dense vegetation ending abruptly a couple of hundred feet above. White and gray clouds scud over the windswept peaks. The wind is forecast to strengthen from the west but for now it’s surprisingly calm. I can even hear the waves lapping gently against the hull. It’s the perfect place to shelter for the night.
I turn on the satellite phone and make sure the antenna is pointing toward the sky.
One moment please, the phone declares.
The handset starts ringing and a moment later I hear Annette: “Hi, love, how’s it going?”
It’s wonderful to hear her voice.
Annette and I met in our final year at university in the U.K. and fell in love. Within a year, we were engaged. Annette is a brilliant teacher but, amazingly, has always linked her career to mine, often to the detriment of her own. Travel is one of our great shared passions, though. We’ve lived in many different parts of the world, moving from one academic position to another, driven by a love of experiencing new places and meeting new people. We’ve had two gorgeous kids; after Cara was born in New Zealand, Robert joined the family a few years later when we were living in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Over this time, most of our family and friends have struggled to understand my job. It’s not nine to five. It demands much more. As an Earth scientist, you have to get into the field and find the sites that will help answer the big science questions. Over the years, the kids have grown up with visits by brilliant, often eccentric characters who drop in en route to some exotic destination. Travel is a necessary part of the job, and I really do enjoy it, but I’d be lying if I said I have no regrets. I’ve missed a lot of the children growing up, which is something I’ll never get back. We made a decision early on that if I was going to support the family with a career in science, Annette would be a stay-at-home mum. On the whole, it’s worked out well. Science has looked after us, but it’s only been possible because Annette’s a wonderful friend, wife, and mother.
“Great, darling, great. We’ve made it to the Auckland Islands. It’s everything I hoped for and more. The place feels like the edge of the known world. The islands just rise out of nothing but are covered in bogs and trees. We’ve even seen lots of crazy sea lions. It’s brilliant to have made it. How are the kids?”
We speak about everything and nothing. Even when I’m away in the depths of fieldwork, I’ll ring the family every day. On occasion, I’ve walked miles to call Annette and the children; I sleep better knowing they’re all safe. When I return home, the best I can do is recount stories of where I’ve been and who I’ve met. This time, though, it’s going to be different. This time, they’ll be sharing the adventure with me on the second leg, a chance for me to make up for the last year and to share something special in a part of the world I love. It will be a family experience few have ever undertaken, and the trip of a lifetime. The children are just the right age too. Cara is fifteen years old and Rob twelve, old enough to appreciate where we’re going and follow instructions if the need arises.
In the build-up to the expedition, Annette has been working on a major project for the website: “A History of Antarctic Exploration in 30 Objects.” Collaborating with museums and art galleries around the world, she has written the equivalent of a book in just two months, helping to raise the profile of the expedition. On the second leg, she’ll be working with the scientists to develop lesson plans for schoolchildren back home. Robert is an enthusiastic writer and Cara a keen photographer; rather than any ham-fisted effort I might make to communicate with teenagers and kids, they will be posting blogs and images on the voyage.
I can’t wait to see them when we get back to Bluff.
* * *
Four seasons in one day, I mutter to myself.
I’m kneeling on a grassy knoll beside a golden sandy beach. We woke to find the cloud base had fallen overnight. The wind has picked up, and the air is now thick with mist and rain. I keep my head down in front of a small tent sheltering our satellite hook-up from the elements. This rain is like nowhere else on Earth. It just seems to hang in the air, working its way through any weak point in my clothing. I’ve only been out for a few hours and I’m soaking wet.
I look anxiously behind me. A 200-pound male sea lion is nearby, its snorts and barks directed toward me. My backside is drawing more attention than I’d like, a tempting target for aggressive males during the start of mating season, who are only too keen for an opportunity to show off their prowess. They may be at risk of extinction, but medic and Ph.D. student Ben Fisk stands by with an umbrella ready to tap them on a nose if they get too close. He can’t help but look bemused. I’m just nervous.
In the distance, I can hear the purr of one of the outboard motors on a Zodiac inflatable. On board are marine biologists Emma Johnson and broad-shouldered Graeme Clark, zipping across Ross Harbour in scuba gear and dry suits. For a moment, I can just make them out through the fog, and then they’re gone. They’re about to start a full survey of life on the island’s sea floor using a piece of kit called a Baited Remote Underwater Video, or BRUV for short. Basically, it’s a metal frame holding a GoPro underwater camera that is pointed toward a tin of tuna on a pole. Left on the seabed for an hour, the camera captures footage of any crabs and fish attracted to the bait. Conditions permitting, Graeme and Emma plan to drop several BRUVs each day and examine the movies back on board, giving them a detailed picture of life below the waves. No one has ever done such a survey of the Aucklands, and the great thing is that the BRUVs cause no damage to the seabed. It’s also ridiculously efficient, accomplishing in days what a scuba survey would take weeks to do.
It’s nearly time for our first scheduled Hangout on Air. Advertised by Google, over a thousand people have said they’ll be joining us from around the world. I’m excited by the possibility. You don’t need to be a television broadcaster to go on air anymore. With a camera connected to a computer, I can share ideas and places live through a Google+ account, viewers can ask questions, and as soon as the broadcast is finished, the footage is loaded onto YouTube. Hangouts are perfect for sharing an expedition with the rest of the world, and we’ve scheduled eight across the next six weeks.
That said, I’m starting to realize why no one has ever tried anything like this before. I promised a Hangout from the Auckland Islands, but the technology is struggling to oblige. The satellite hook-up just isn’t happening.
Shit, I hope this works.
Kneeling calmly beside me is Leticia, a bubbly and enthusiastic Google employee. Without Leticia we wouldn’t be here. She’s supported us from the start, negotiating the funds that helped make the expedition a reality. Google wants to show what’s possible with social media, and I don’t want to disappoint. Leticia is really keen for this to work, but there’s not a trace of concern on her face.
The Inmarsat satellite we’re using lies over the tropics, so I try turning the antenna panel a little more to the north. A high-pitched screech suddenly erupts from the device. There are whoops of excitement around me.
That’s a relief. I try not to show i
t on my face. We’ve practised lots of times before, but Murphy’s Law seemed intent on ruining my best efforts.
As part of the Doodle4Google prize, two teachers are with us, Kerrie from New Zealand and Nicole from Australia. They’re both friendly, smiley people who only found out they were on the expedition a few weeks ago. Now they’re on a subantarctic island dressed in supposedly waterproof gear readying themselves to answer questions on the wildlife of the Auckland Islands. I hope the rain isn’t going to screw up the picture too badly.
The Intrepid Science Google+ page appears on my laptop.
We’re connected. Thank Christ for that.
A young sea lion comes up too close, threatening to bite me, and Ben steps in. With a pained bellow, it waddles back to the beach, nursing a sore nose.
Kerrie’s and Nicole’s students appear on the screen: more than twenty smiling faces from the winning New Zealand and Australian schools, their voices crystal clear.
This is so cool.
“Hi, guys,” Nicole greets her class. They wave back.
I’ve seen the technology at work before, but it still blows me away. We’re hundreds of miles from anywhere, we have a colony of barking sea lions behind us and we’re talking to the world.
* * *
Five days later, I’m scrambling through the undergrowth of Campbell Island with one of my best mates, Jonathan Palmer, just in front of me. I can hear Jonathan cursing under his breath as he struggles to get a grip underfoot. The ground is completely sodden, its surface treacherous. We slip and slide our way through the mud.
“Sssh,” Jonathan hisses nervously.
I crouch down. Just minutes ago, we came nose to nose with a sea lion dozing in a grove of Dracophyllum, almost perfectly camouflaged against the tree’s needle-like leaves. With a roar of surprise and a twitch of its whiskers, the sea lion struggled upright and made its displeasure all too clear. I’ve never seen Jonathan move so fast. Turning tail, we fled, the sea lion’s bellows and snorts ringing in our ears as it made to give chase. I think we’ve lost the offended beast, but there could easily be more around. It feels like a scene from the movie Predator. We’re climbing a small hill, following a well-worn track that looks suspiciously like it’s been used by sea lions—they’ve been known to make their way far up hillsides. Neither of us is in a rush to meet a few hundred pounds of blubber hurtling down the slope.
We step off the track and look around apprehensively.
All clear.
I catch my breath.
We spent four days on the Auckland Islands and soon had our routine down pat. Each evening, I went over the following day’s science program with Chris and Greg, then let Igor know our plans. By six the next morning, we’d checked the conditions and confirmed with the bridge what we were doing. Breakfast was at eight, followed by my briefing and then off into the field. If a team needed to stay on shore all day, they picked up lunch from the kitchen, along with sleeping gear and supplies from the stores in case they had to remain longer—a precaution if conditions forced the Shokalskiy to make for open water. The biggest loss of time was in shuttling everyone between the ship and shore on the Zodiacs, but we still managed to get eight teams out each day. That’s the equivalent of eight days’ work for every day in the field. Peaks were climbed, cores of peat and ocean mud taken, the sea floor scanned with sonar, BRUVs dropped to the seabed. We’re on track to get the equivalent of a month’s fieldwork done in a week—far more than I dared hope. The Hangouts have all worked and the expedition students have been posting lots of great articles and photos online. The science is reaching an audience, and the feedback has been good. Leticia seems genuinely pleased with the international response. And all this has been achieved in the craziest weather. We’ve had summer snow quickly followed by storms, blazing sunshine followed by yet more snow and, if we’re lucky, a squall.
By 3 December, we’d made it to Campbell Island, a cluster of uninhabited rocks at 52 degrees, a day’s sailing south of the Auckland Islands. The climate here is worse than in the Auckland Islands, and that’s saying something. On average, only forty days each year are drizzle-free and most of those are gray. Perversely, it’s the reason we’re here, but that seems of little comfort at the moment. Campbell Island sits right in the path of the westerly winds as they track across the Southern Ocean.
The problem is, as I mentioned earlier, that we have little idea what the climate was doing in these latitudes before the mid-twentieth century. The weather station here has the longest continuous record in the region, but it only goes back to the 1940s. We need to get back a whole heap further if we’re to understand the scale of the changes happening today and what might be driving them. This is where Dracophyllum comes in. Two species are found on Campbell, making them the most southerly living tree in the southwest Pacific. Their importance for understanding the changing weather is thanks to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. In the fifteenth century, the Italian polymath realized there was a link between the thickness of tree rings and the growing conditions. Thick rings, he reasoned, must have been when it was a good season for tree growth; narrow rings, terrible. Although we have more sophisticated methods than those available to da Vinci, the principle is still the same. By measuring the ring thickness, we can get a handle on changing climate. Dracophyllum is one of nature’s weather stations, putting down a ring of growth each year.
Jonathan stops at a tree. It’s about ten feet high and must be twenty inches across. He runs his hands up and down its trunk, feeling for rot. Fragments of dark peeling bark fall to the ground. He pauses to consider for a moment.
“This looks like a good one,” he suddenly declares, slapping the tree and dropping his rucksack. We glance around. Not a sea lion in sight.
Pulling out a long metal barrel, Jonathan checks the drill bit is at right angles to the trunk and slowly turns the barrel into the tree. There’s a sharp squeak as the corer bites and rotates. Soon he’s reached the center and is pulling out a delicate straw-like section of wood. Jonathan has worked on trees most of his professional life, and he’s been like a man possessed on the subantarctics. Drilling into the center of as many trees as we’re allowed by the Department of Conservation, Jonathan has taken scores of samples from across the islands. I look at the core he’s cradling and try to eyeball the number of rings. The wood will need to be dried out and sanded down before it can be properly measured in the laboratory, but it looks like we have over a hundred years, more than double the length of the weather-station record. I’m thrilled.
Jonathan drops the core into a plastic straw and stows the precious sample carefully away in his pack.
“That’s our lot, Chris,” he proclaims. “Now let’s get out of here before that bloody sea lion turns up.”
* * *
During our preparations, there was one large hole in the science program I was particularly worried about filling: We didn’t have anyone to work on seabirds. It’s an area of research I know very little about, and I was loath to cold-call someone I didn’t know. Out of the blue, Jonathan dropped by my office.
“Chris, are you still looking for a seabird specialist?” he asked. “If so, I think I have just the person you need. Kerry-Jayne Wilson is brilliant. We used to work together at Lincoln University. She’s got more than forty years in the business, and I know she’ll bite your hand off if you offer her a place on the expedition. You’ll love her.”
A day later, we had our seabird expert. Jonathan was absolutely right. Kerry-Jayne is wild-haired, self-assured, wonderfully upbeat, and the owner of a wickedly dry sense of humor. Without hesitation, she volunteered for both legs of the expedition and hasn’t stopped working since. Each day, Kerry-Jayne has led the charge onshore with a group of Ph.D., students who have struggled to keep up. Using a burrow scope made up of a small camera at one end and a monitor at the other, Kerry-Jayne has been getting population counts of different nesting species across the island, adding to data she and others have collected since the
1970s. But it’s our last destination on this first leg she’s most excited about.
Snares is a small promontory of rocks that time seems to have forgotten; it’s something like Campbell Island on steroids. Over the centuries, people have made occasional visits to hunt mutton-birds but never settled, with the practical upshot that there have never been any introduced pests. The result is that a staggering fifty-seven bird species inhabit an area the size of New York’s Central Park. Four species of albatrosses, five species of petrels, three species of prions, and six species of penguins, to name but a few. Throw in skuas, cormorants, terns, and gulls, and it’s an island that’s gone crazy for birds.
It’s our final day of work on the first leg. The morning mist is burning off. Snares’ jagged, sheer cliffs rise out of the ocean, and the sky is almost dark with the amount of wildlife in the air. I’ve never seen anything like it. The New Zealand Department of Conservation, which looks after Snares, don’t normally allow visitors, but today an exception has been made for a few select teams from the expedition. Kerry-Jayne is at the front of the queue, anxious to be off. With Leticia, Kerrie, and Nicole, I’m hosting a Hangout on Air on the island.
