Author: Debra Tillinger2

Which is good, because we’ve been doing plenty of rocking and rolling! Things have calmed down a bit, but we were getting 40-foot waves. I wasn’t actually seasick, but I couldn’t do much besides lay down in my bunk and wait for calmer waters. I kept waking up because I was sliding around in my…

Yes, those are helicopters. We’ll be doing helicopter operations over the ice and over the water once we’re further south. You can see how well they’re secured to the hangar! There are only a few inches between the blades and the walls. The helicopter pilots let me wear a flight helmet and sit inside! I…

Okay, we’re still stuck in port. But a ship is a pretty interesting place even when it isn’t going anywhere. This is where we will be going: That’s the Antarctic peninsula, just south of the tip of South America. The rainbow colors indicate the depth of the water in places that the ship has been.…

When I agreed to go on a research cruise to Antarctica, I imagined flying into the charming port town of Punta Arenas, Chile, and boarding the well-equipped research vessel, the Nathanial B. Palmer. It turns out that the town is delightful and the ship impressive, but you don’t just stroll on to a research ship…

This will be my last post from land. We’re still setting up to do science, but this is so cool I just had to show it to you. We store entire containers on ships. Containers (like the one you saw in the last post) are the big metal things on the back of trucks, and…

Right now, everyone is busy working in port. There is cargo to load, labs to set up, and endless problems to solve. But it will all be worth it once we set sail on January 2nd. Here’s the Research Vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, otherwise known as the NBP And here’s cargo being moved to one…

My name is Debra Tillinger and I’m a graduate student in ocean and climate physics at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Until now, all of my work has focused on the tropics. My thesis is about the Indonesian Thoroughflow, which transports water from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean via the narrow straits and deep basins…