Dear all:

Happy holidays. The attached photo was made by an associate who organized the carnivorous starfish in one of the aquarium tanks.

Thank you for the messages that we've received. We've found that email is the best way to stay in contact. The phone connection is not very available, so we relish every message we get.

It is the peak of summer here. Yet we managed to have a white Christmas. We put all of our presents under a small artificial tree that we found in Bert's lab. Outside, the power poles were decorated with stars, candy canes and a painting of the grinch who stole Christmas, but there was no Christmas light show here. The next sunset is not until late February. We are at 78 degrees south latitude. On winter solstice, the 21st of December, the earth was inclined 23.5 degrees from vertical relative to the sun. This meant that at solar noon, the sun was at 35.5 (23.5+12) degrees above the horizon. It also meant that at midnight mass on Christmas eve, the sun was at 11.5 (23.5-12) degrees above the horizon. It shone directly into the little chapel here on the base and some people had to wear sunglasses to see the service.

On Christmas morning we arose extra early and didn't have time to open presents. We had received an invitation to ride snowmobiles to a rookery for adelie penguins. So we dressed for the event and rode 20 miles north of town. Jean had a great time driving the snowmobile. There were only nine of us that went. This was not a standard field trip. We felt lucky to have been invited by a snowmobile mechanic who needed to go and wanted company. In the email messages that follow, we've included more photos from this trip.

We opened our presents when we returned late in the afternoon. Among the gifts we received was a copy of "Tide Tamara", a magazine with articles written by my uncle Gerard.

The Christmas dinner here was splendid, the staff and volunteers had worked on it for several days. The main course included dishes like fresh pears marinated and cooked in a wine sauce. The desserts included a French "buche de noel", a chocolate cake made in the form of a log.

After dinner, we watched the film "Notting Hill", which capped off quite a day.

We are now getting ready for New Year's. There are plans for lots of visitors to be at the South Pole. We won't be among them. The other doctor in McMurdo is going to the pole in case there are problems with the skydivers, balloonists, skiers coming overland, or aging dignitaries that are expected at the pole. The altitude at the pole is equivalent to 13,000 feet (4000 meters). Two years ago, six people tried to parachute to the pole. Three of them died when their chutes didn't open.

Our plans are to climb the local observation hill with a bottle of champagne, and perhaps a tuba and recorder to celebrate the coming of the new millenium.

We hope your Christmas was merry and wish you all the best for the new year.

Bert and Jean

Here are some photos from our trip to visit the adelie penguin rookery at Cape Royds.

roadel01.jpg shows some of the adelie penguins that were walking along the snowmobile track as we approached the breeding area. These penguins are about 1 foot (30 cm) tall.

rocrak07.jpg shows a crack in the sea ice 2 miles (3 km) from the rookery. The adelies would walk this distance to get fish for themselves and to feed their new chick. They would then relieve their mate, to make this same journey. There was always a stream of penguins making the journey. They were lucky. A week or two before, this crack hadn't opened up, and the walk to the ice edge was about 15 miles (20 km).

rocraks2.jpg shows how well these penguins can swim. To enter the water, they dive in. They often swim in groups of forty or more. They can come out of the water (porpoising) to move more quickly. To come back onto the ice, they fly out of the water and land directly on their feet on the ice.

roemily1.jpg shows how large adelies are and how close they would come. These penguins were slightly taller than the bottle of champagne we'd brought along the celebrate the occasion. They would sometimes come within ten feet of us and then realize that we were not penguins, get a little scared and then walk on.

Here are some photos taken at the adelie rookery:

royover2.jpg gives an overview of the rookery. There are about 3000 adelie penguins breeding at this location (Cape Royds). There is a larger rookery at Cape Crozier that is an inaccessible part of Ross Island which has 300,000 penguins breeding each season. That rookery has both adelie penguins and the larger emperor penguins.

roydchik.jpg shows the nests. If you look closely, you can see that some of the penguins are still incubating their eggs. At the feet of some of the other penguins, you can see little grey fuzz balls. These are the young chicks.

royover4.jpg shows the penguins marching over the sea ice from the rookery to the crack in the ice and back. This journey takes them 1-2 hours each way.

roydj&b1.jpg shows us in front of a different part of the rookery. In this area, the scientists have put a fence most of the way around one set of breeding penguins. These penguins have only one way in and out, which is over a scale, which reads the tag that has been placed on the penguin, weighs him/her and records the time that this penguin is going to or from the nest. In this way, they are studying how long the penguins go fishing and how much they eat on each trip.

Here are some other photos from our snowmobile journey.

roybarne.jpg shows the Barne glacier. This is a glacier that flows into the sea and has the tall wall that you see in this picture at its base.

roshakjn.jpg shows the hut that Shakleton built at Cape Royds for his attempt to reach the South Pole. During this trip, Shakleton got to within 100 miles of the pole.

roydice1.jpg shows an iceberg that had frozen into the sea ice. During the next month when the sea ice melts, this berg will probably float further north.

royseal7.jpg shows a seal sunning himself in front of this iceberg. The temperature this day was around 40F (5C).

roydsku1.jpg shows a skua. Skuas are birds that steals penguin eggs for their food. This skua was sitting on a rock overlooking the rookery.

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This page was last updated on 12/20/00.