She takes another step, peers closer, seemingly overtaken with pure curiosity, taking in my bright orange coat, big boots, funny hat, and the huge orange monstrosity of a vessel behind me. She vocalizes and the others around her join in the chorus, engulfing me in a brash but melodic cacophony of calls. I realize I’ve been holding my breath and force myself to exhale.

We continue our exchange for a moment more, and then she dismisses me, seemingly bored already, turns away, drops to her belly and slides swiftly off on the icy ground, toes and wingtips propelling her forward. A dozen birds follow her into the snowy dusk.

Emperor penguin in front of our icebreaker at Cape Colbeck (Photo by Cassandra Brooks).

We crushed our way into the fast ice at Cape Colbeck in search of Emperor penguins (see photos), but we didn’t need to search: they came to us. Within an hour of arriving, a small group of birds approached the ship, intensely curious about the huge steel intruder. Once we stepped off the boat, they approached us, not with caution, but inquisitively. While in the water they fall prey to leopard seals and killer whales.

Up here on the ice, they have no predators and thus no reason to fear us. They’ve likely never interacted with people before, and unlike so much of the world’s wildlife, they’ve never suffered at our hand.

Emperor penguins on the fast ice at Cape Colbeck (Photo by Cassandra Brooks).

Emperors are the largest of all penguin species, standing three feet upright and weighing as much as 90 pounds. They are strong and magnificent birds. As the best avian divers in the world, they can plunge deeper than 1,500 feet (457 meters) below the surface and stay down for more than 20 minutes. But they are perhaps most famous for enduring the long Antarctic winter on behalf of the next generation.

Mom with baby Emperor penguin (Photo by John B. Weller).

While most Antarctic birds and mammals head north for the long winter, Emperors head south to breed. By next month, the birds will begin their long inland march, traveling as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers) to gather in breeding colonies deep in the fast ice. There, the birds mate, then huddle together to fight the cold as temperatures drop to -40°F (-40°C) and winter winds scream over 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour).

By June, each female lays an egg, which she transfers to her mate before retreating to open water in search of food. At this point, she likely hasn’t eaten in two months. She feasts on krill, fish, and squid, but also stores some of the food in her bolus to feed her newly hatched chick. Once she returns, she stays with the chick as her mate, who has not eaten in almost four months, hastens to open water to feed.

The parents travel back and forth between the colony and open water until December when the chick departs the colony for its first venture into the sea. The parents must then fast again as they molt, standing on the ice for up to a month as new feathers replace the old.

Emperor penguins at the ice edge at Cape Colbeck (Photo by Cassandra Brooks).

Our penguin science team brought us out to Cape Colbeck, one of seven Emperor penguin colonies in the Ross Sea, to put satellite tags on birds that will track their movements over the course of the next year. These tags transmit data about the penguins’ travels and diving behavior, revealing key foraging areas as well as information about when exactly they return to their colonies to breed. Their work builds on decades of research on Emperor penguins in the Ross Sea.

A pair of Emperor penguins tagged by our penguin science team (Photo by Rob Dunbar).

A quarter of the world’s Emperor penguins live in the Ross Sea, a region long protected by distance and ice. The Ross Sea remains one of the last places on Earth that is undamaged by humans – there is no wide-spread pollution, no dead zones or plastic patches, no invasive species and, until recently, no large-scale fishing. Most incredibly, the Ross Sea still has near-virgin abundances of all its top predators. It remains a place where visitors enjoy intimacy with wildlife that does not flee in fear.

In recognition of the incredible scientific and ecological value of this region, the nations that govern the Southern Ocean have identified the Ross Sea as a critical area for marine protection. In the coming year, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to see this protection through. In doing so, we can ensure that there will be at least one great oceanic wilderness set aside where Emperor penguins and other members of their ecosystem can continue to thrive.

Things are getting desperate. The last of the browning lettuce disappeared unannounced weeks ago. The bananas barely made it through the first few meals. Our days of eating fresh mangoes, pineapple, tricolored bell peppers, cucumbers, radishes, and avocado (oh the delicious avocado!) are all gone. The last tomato – a cherry variety that was days past ripe – was not even worth fighting for.

Even the cabbage is gone. The carrots cling on for dear life along with the oranges and grapefruit. Their precious Vitamin C will keep the scurvy at bay, for now.  But we still have a month to go.

Fighting for the last tomato (photo by Kim Goetz).

We’ve sampled more than 100 different locations in the Ross Sea and my hands are cracked, chapped, and leather-like from long days working with the cold and salty water. The temperatures outside have dipped below zero degrees, dropping to -60°F with the wind chill, and the sea continues to ice over. Some of our equipment is beginning to freeze.

Cassandra filtering seawater to measure particulate organic carbon (left) and heading out in the zodiac to retrieve a sediment trap experiment (right; photos by Christina Riesselman).

Perhaps the idea of working thousands of miles from home in one of the coldest environments on Earth sounds miserable, and in the days of Scott, Shackleton, and the other great Antarctic explorers, it surely was. But while I miss having fresh fruits and vegetables to eat, I am hardly suffering or at risk of scurvy. Our vessel has the finest at-sea working and living conditions I’ve yet encountered. (See the recent book South Pole, about Scott’s expedition, by National Geographic writer Christine Dell’Amore.)

We have a state-of-the-art laboratory and field set up at our disposal (despite our gear freezing from time to time). Further, we are outfitted by the National Science Foundation with extreme cold weather gear that keeps us warm even if we have to work outside in the -60°F. And in reality, many of us never have to leave the warmth of the ship.

Historic laboratory at Cape Evans where Edward Atkinson, Antarctic biologist and chief medic for Scott’s South Pole Expedition, spent much of his time (photo by Christina Riesselman).

Rewind one hundred years to the days of wooden boats that were constantly at risk of being crushed in the ice rather than our steel hull that can break through ice 10-feet thick. The early Antarctic explorers were often gone for years rather than months at a time. Sometimes things went smoothly, and the explorers (always with scientists in tow) charted new territory, made new discoveries, and made their home countries proud.

Other times things went awry. On August 1^st, 1914, four days after the start of World War 1, Ernest Shackleton left England in his attempt to lead the first explorers on the 1,800-mile overland journey across the Antarctic continent. He believed that if all went well, he might return to London as soon as April 1916.

Map-plan of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (US Public Domain).

Such a one-way expedition required two ships. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, headed to the unexplored Weddell Sea. The Aurora headed to established huts in the Ross Sea. The plan was for the Ross Sea team to lay supply depots over nearly a quarter of the route so that Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic team, having trekked over 1,300 miles with only what they could carry, could make the rest of the journey to safety.

But nothing worked out as planned. After crossing the Drake Passage and cutting hundreds of miles into the pack ice on the way to the landing point in the Weddell Sea, the Endurance got stuck in the ice. Surrounded by massive floes, the ship and its crew were at the mercy of the shifting pack. They floated, helpless, for 10 months, through the Antarctic winter. They maintained their ship until October 1915, when the pressure of the ice finally overcame the thick wooden hull, crushing the ship, and leaving the men on the ice floes with only their 22-foot lifeboats as potential transit back to safety.

Shackleton’s crew working to free the ship Endurance (left). Then the Endurance being crushed by the ice (right; photos by Frank Hurley).

The men dragged their boats and supplies north across the pack ice for another six months, camping on the shifting floes until they got to open water and took to the lifeboats for the trip north over some of the roughest seas in the world. Miraculously landing their three tiny boats on Elephant Island after nine days at sea, they were still not safe. No one knew where they were, so rescue would be almost impossible.

Shackleton would then have to captain one of the boats across nearly 800 miles of the Southern Ocean to South Georgia Island – and then become the first man to cross that treacherous island – to reach help: a whaling station. The men back on Elephant Island would have to wait out another winter before Shackleton could return to rescue them.

Launch of the lifeboat James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island (left; photo by Frank Hurley). The James Caird on its way to South Georgia (right; illustration by George Marston).

No one died. It is perhaps the most fabled story of survival of all time. But hidden by this fable is a tragedy. The men of the Aurora, the other half of the expedition, fared worse. Though that ship actually did reach its target in the Ross Sea, landing at Scott’s Hut outside of present day McMurdo in January 1914, the ship broke loose in a gale before all the supplies could be brought on land and was carried away by the ice, stranding ten men onshore with minimal provisions. And though that stranded team successfully did their jobs and laid the supply depots for the Weddell Sea team that would never come, three men died before they were eventually rescued two full years later.

Shackleton (left) and the Ross Sea Party (right; photos by Frank Hurley).

In envisioning these men, some of whom gave their very lives to the pursuit of Antarctic exploration, I can’t help but reflect on their contributions to science. Yes, they did what they did in order to conquer and claim new territory, plant their flags on new precipices, and even open the door to new industries in Antarctic waters. But these men were driven by the pull of the unknown and a thirst for knowledge. They noted, measured, and investigated everything they encountered. They did the first science in Antarctica.

Even as the ice was slowly crushing the Endurance, Robert Clark, the expedition’s biologist, dropped his sampling net into an ice crack with nearly 3,400 feet of wire, “and hoisted it up at two and a half miles an hour by walking across the floe with the wire.” Shackleton also reports, by the way, that the “Result [was] rather meagre–jelly-fish and some fish larvae.” They never stopped doing their work.

Here, a century later, how could I possibly complain about lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, cracked hands, or the cold? It’s time to go collect more water, pull up the sampling net, and do some more science.

The first Antarctic sunset of the season – from the starboard side of the Nathaniel B. Palmer (photo by Cassandra Brooks).

I raced upstairs, donned my thick red coat and ran for the steel doors leading to the first floor deck. I opened the door, then quickly and carefully stepped out onto the icy deck. The sight took my breath away – the sky was on fire, turning the ocean a deep purple-red. Gusts of wind collided with the wide rolling swells, driving an arc of brilliant pink spray 10 feet into the air. Our vessel glowed soft and bright reflecting back orange light.

I made my way to the railing, choking back tears of bliss. I opened myself to the raw, pure beauty of this place and fell in love with Antarctica anew.

Light shining off the Nathaniel B. Palmer during our first sunset of the season in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (photo by Cassandra Brooks).

People often ask me why I would want to work in Antarctica – the windiest, driest, coldest continent on Earth. If I could bottle up that sunset and share it with the world, then there would be no question. These moments – humbled by the extreme elements and exhilarated by the sheer beauty of the place – here at the bottom of the world, are like touching infinity.

The bow of the Nathaniel B. Palmer moving through the pack ice in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (photo by Cassandra Brooks).

Since that 1:00 am sunset, we have lost about 15 minutes of daylight every day. The season is changing hard and fast. Even the twilight nights are turning to darkness – I caught the moon three nights ago and will soon catch the stars. If I am lucky, once we are further north, I will see the aurora australis – the southern lights.

As the darkness encroaches, the temperatures drop. Some days are still almost balmy with no wind and temperatures hovering just around freezing. Other days, the wind blows 60 knots (~70mph), driving the temperature down to -40°F. On these days, we are not allowed outside on deck – its too dangerous. As the weather shifts, a layer of ice coats the vessel, melting and refreezing into milky icicles.

Ice has covered almost everything on the vessel, including our life rings (left) and the bow (right; photos by Cassandra Brooks).

With the increasing cold, the surface of the ocean begins to freeze, dropping its salt to form sea ice. As the Antarctic winter descends, the ice continues to grow, effectively doubling the size of the Antarctic continent. As the ice extends, so does the darkness. In the southernmost areas of the continent, the Antarctic night can last for six months.

Average sea ice extent in the Southern Ocean in the winter (left) and summer (right; graphic by Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal).

Many birds and mammals, like humpback whales and Antarctic Petrels, flee the dark and icy winter, heading north to feed in warmer waters. Others, like Adélie Penguins and crabeater seals, move to the northern stretches of drifting sea ice (referred to as pack ice) where the temperatures may be less extreme and there will be still be some faint daylight to feed by.

Adélie Penguin on the pack ice in the Ross Sea (left; photo by John B. Weller) and crabeater seals on an iceberg off the Antarctic Peninsula (right; Photo by Cassandra Brooks).

The hardiest of the Antarctic bunch stay. Emperor Penguins gather on the fast ice (the sea ice that is frozen solid to the Antarctic continent) to breed, enduring temperatures as low as -100°F and winds racing at more than 100 mph. Weddell seals, the southernmost mammals in the world, also stay in the fast ice, hunting by moonlight and raking holes in the ice with their teeth so that they can return to the surface and breath.

Weddell seal underwater in the Ross Sea (left) and an Emperor Penguin chick and mom (right; Photos by John B. Weller).

As the summer turns to fall, the Ross Sea offers a new scene every day: the myriad of sea ice formations and bergs, the drastic weather changes from sunny skies to howling wind and snow, and the abundance of seals, penguins and whales. All the while we are searching for scientific answers that will help us better understand not only the Ross Sea ecosystem, but also how processes in the Ross Sea impact our global oceans. I look forward to continuing to share these stories with you.

McMurdo Station is by far the largest Antarctic base, supporting more than one thousand scientists and staff at the height of the austral summer season. A facility of this magnitude requires a steady supply of food, gear, and other resources, which are normally supplied via a huge C17 military plane. But this year, the sea ice runway where the planes land has been far too soft to support a C17 landing.

Our team boarding the LC130 (left) and inside of the aircraft (right).

While waiting in Christchurch, New Zealand, we heard rumors of McMurdo’s supply shortages and proceeded to stock up on two month’s supplies of toiletries, extra lab gear and creature comforts (for me, that meant 6 pounds of chocolate). We packed up and then boarded a LC130 – a much smaller plane equipped with landing skis that can safely touch down on the sea ice runway outside McMurdo.

Arrived on the ice! Note the skis on the bottom of the LC130 (left). Ivan the Terra Bus takes us from the sea ice runway to McMurdo (right; photos by Christina Reisselman).

While many of McMurdo’s summer residents have finished their season and headed home, we traveled with a handful of support staff that are coming down to “winter over.” During the cold and dark Antarctic winter, the station’s population drops to about 150 people, all of whom must pass a thorough physical and psychological evaluation (the psych exam includes questions like: Do you like your mother? Has anyone suggested that you stop drinking?). When the final flight leaves McMurdo at the end of the austral summer, these winter residents are stuck on the ice until flights resume again the following season. Despite the lack of sunshine and fresh food, winter residents celebrate amazing moonlit nights and southern lights.

Church in McMurdo in the midnight twilight (left). Stained glass window inside the church (right; photos by Cassandra Brooks).

Despite being at the bottom of the world and having the raw look and feel of a mountain mining town, McMurdo has remarkable infrastructure. Upon arriving, I spent an afternoon getting physical therapy at their well-equipped hospital. My team set up shop in their expansive top-notch science facility. I toured the grounds, checking out the fire station, church, and post office. Some of our team went to yoga class while others hung out in one of McMurdo’s two bars.

Around McMurdo. Lots of great hiking trails (left) and a view outside the hospital (right; photos by Cassandra Brooks).

The most surreal aspect of being down here is the 24-hour daylight. As I write this post, its 1:34 am and the sun is circling low on the horizon and will soon begin to rise again. The low light turns the surrounding sea ice a milky blue while bathing the mountain top glaciers in soft orange hues. The landscape is memorizing, making sleep all the more difficult.

McMurdo Station (photo by Cassandra Brooks).

Tonight my team rests on the boat. Within a day, our research will finally begin.

An Adélie penguin on pack ice in the Ross Sea. (Photo by John B Weller)

For more than 150 years, the Ross Sea has been a place of groundbreaking research, attracting scientists from all over the world to study the frozen sea and the bizarre animals that make their livings above and below the ice. The Ross Sea is the most productive stretch of the Southern Ocean, and the richness depends on phytoplankton.

The Ross Sea’s plankton bloom, a biological event so immense that it can be seen from space, is well documented in the height of summer when weather conditions are favorable. But no one knows what happens to all the organic carbon – the very source of life – as the continent slips towards the long night. We will be the first to trace the path of this massive flux of carbon through the water column as summer turns to fall and the waves, wind, and snow unleash their autumn fury.

Ross Sea Polynya (Photo by NASA)

Over the next few months, I will share stories from aboard the National Science Foundation icebreaker, the Nathaniel B Palmer. I will describe the highly adapted animals that live in the ice – fish with antifreeze in their blood, penguins that survive the equivalent of a human heart attack on each dive, and seals that must use their teeth to constantly rake open breathing holes in the ice.

I’ll tell stories of the fascinating “breed” of Antarctic scientists that spend months in the field every year, dedicating their lives to better understanding the ecology and climate of the Ross Sea. I’ll share the sights and sounds of life on an icebreaker – the incessant shriek of steel plunging through meter-thick ice, the thrill of scientific discovery, the challenges of sharing tight quarters with the same people for months on end, and the fight for the last fresh tomato.

The Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker (Photo by Joe Eastman)

Beyond covering science and life at sea, I will also explore the politics surrounding Ross Sea conservation. The Ross Sea, long celebrated for its rich science and protected by its icy remoteness, is considered by many to be the last intact marine ecosystem left on the planet. More than 500 scientists have signed in support of protecting the Ross Sea, to conserve this living laboratory, which provides scientists the last opportunity to study how a healthy marine ecosystem functions. These scientists are joined by international conservation non-profits, celebrities, filmmakers, photographers, the media and the public, all pushing for a Ross Sea marine reserve.

But the Ross Sea also supports the most remote fishery on the planet. The Antarctic toothfish (sold on the market as “Chilean sea bass”) is the top fish predator in the Southern Ocean and supports a lucrative fishery in the Ross Sea. Plans for a Ross Sea marine reserve are currently under heated discussion within the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the international body that manages marine life in the Southern Ocean.

Cassandra Brooks with an Antarctic toothfish (left; Photo by Darci Lombard) and on the ice (right; Photo by Barbara Catalano).

Join me over the next few months as our team discovers new findings about the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Follow along during our daily struggle to stay sane in tight quarters for almost two months at sea in the world’s most treacherous waters. Listen in as we contemplate the political barriers to conducting science in this remote and wild place. I’m looking forward to sharing the adventure with you!