After a few tiresome weeks of intense lab activities at the Dallmann Laboratory and occasional field excursions in Potter Cove on King George Island, my work in Jubany (nowadays known as Carlini Station) finally came to an end. This was November 2007. Antarctic Summer. And just as on all my other expeditions, it’s only at the end that I realized …
October 2007. I was on my way to Antarctica for the second time in 2 years. Not by ship this time, but with a Hercules plane, straight from Buenos Aires. Our destination was Jubany, an Argentinian military base / research station where I was going to perform a number of experiments to study the impact of global …
In November 2006, I left Cape Town in South Africa and went on board of the Research Vessel Polarstern. This was the moment I departed on an incredible journey to the Antarctic, which brought me face to face with emperor penguins and took me to open waters that had been ice-covered for thousands of years until 2002. …
Global climate change is a man-made hazard that affects us all. Nowhere is its impact so far-reaching as it is at both the South and North Pole. There are many negative effects, but large-scale melting of ice sheets and a subsequent rise in sea water level are the most conspicuous. In Antarctica, especially the Antarctic Peninsula …
In our previous blog post about this 2016-2017 Antarctic research expedition on the German RV Polarstern, we were stranded in the ice near Neumayer Station II, at the eastern side of the Weddell Sea. After delivering some important provisions to the residents of the base, we could finally leave the area and navigated towards the Antarctic Peninsula in …
I am a lucky man, in more than one sense, and I love the life I’m living. I am so lucky that I can live it with my fantastic wife and daughter and travel the world with them. Travel has given us so much joy and long-lasting memories. However, I must admit I personally have also …
These blog posts on my Antarctic trip have encouraged me to read my travel diary from 2006-2007 again. It brings back a lot of nice memories. I indicated that Friday 1st of December 2006 was one of the most wonderful days of the expedition: “I went out at 9 a.m., and what a spectacle: everywhere …
“After a few days on board, I wrote in my diary: “Finally some excitement. The weather has seriously deteriorated (now 8 Beaufort), and that leads to some hilarious situations! Washing yourself in the shower of your cabin has become very impractical and during lunch I almost fell down with my chair and everything after a …
“Here I am, at the Big Blue Backpackers Hotel, in my little room. Alone. But it’s quiet here and I’m relieved: the journey went smoothly except for the 1-hour customs delay at Cape Town International. Because I’m going to the South Pole for 2.5 months, I cannot afford to loose any luggage at this time!” …
This is the final blogpost in our “polar” series, dedicated to those days when Maarten (who is writing this) was sent to the arctic and antarctic in order to research the marine fauna there. Until now, I have written about my experiences in Antarctica. This blogpost is the only one about my stay on the island …
