As the time for our deployment to Antarctica has grown nearer and nearer, questions from friends and colleagues about our preparations have understandably grown more and more frequent.

There's no doubt that preparations for this expedition have been consuming our group as of late, but in reality the preparations have been underway for quite some time. In a very real sense, the preparations for this trip began early in 1999 when Jim, Bill, and I began preparing the proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund the project.

Although the NSF has been providing the funding for our work in Antarctica since Jim started the project over 12 years ago, we still need to compete with our peers for renewed funding every two or three years. We must spell out exactly what our scientific questions and objectives are, and we must explain why they will result in important new contributions to scientific knowledge.

The NSF usually has only enough money to fund 15 percent or so of the proposed projects, and writing one good enough to be in that 15 percent takes a great deal of time and effort. The proposal was due June 1 but we started working on it in January and by mid- to late-April it was our major and primary task.

Integral to that process was defining just what we planned to do during the two proposed field seasons at Palmer Station and over the rest of the three-year funding period. The upcoming expedition is the second of those field seasons, but its goals and objectives were defined then.

The first field season was in March through May 2000 and was the focus of a previous UAB in Antarctica series on the WOW Web site. The planning for this trip continued then, too. Many of the experiments we are going to be doing this time are continuations of the experiments we did then.

In addition, we are also going to be doing some new types of experiments underwater this time, but we needed to identify particular algal species to be used in them during the first trip. A fair bit of our effort then went into those preparations for this next expedition.

Such efforts never really stopped when we came home either. Lots of chemical purifications and identifications had to be done on our algal and invertebrate samples from last time so that they could be used in experiments this time. Katrin, with some help from Maggie, here at UAB and Bill and his students at USF have been working on those chemical preparations ever since we got home from the first season at Palmer.

The specific "nuts and bolts" kinds of planning for the trip began in March when Bill flew up from Florida. Over the course of several days he, Jim, and I began preparing our "Support Information Package," usually referred to as the SIP. The SIP literally lists every single thing our project expects to need while in Antarctica, right down to the number of each specific kind of sample bottle, the amount and quality of each chemical, and the number of lead diving weights. Even with a very small font size the document is about half an inch thick.

The SIP is critical to the success of the field season. The station does have a stock of commonly used laboratory items but for the most part, if you don't ask for something on the SIP you don't have it for your work.

It is possible to order something from a scientific supply company and have it express mailed to South America, but the only way for it to get from there to Palmer Station is on one of the research ships, and they'll only call at the station a couple times during our expedition. Forgetting one little thing could keep us from being able to run a huge experiment. So, we spend a great deal of careful effort making sure that the SIP is complete.

Since the SIP was submitted on April 12, we have gone back and forth on the particular items with the science support folks at Raytheon Polar Services Company. The NSF contracts them to administer the U.S. Antarctic Program research stations and ships. They make sure that they have or can get all the things we need and check with us about any necessary substitutions.

The contractors are also building underwater experimental substrates from concrete, steel, and plastic for us. The construction supervisor has had lots of questions and also many good suggestions for improvements, some as recently as last week.

These last few weeks before we leave has been the culmination of this process. We've made sure that we have all the chemical preparations ready, all the stuff we need to take either ordered by the contractor or on hand here and ready to pack in our suitcases, and all the experiments planned to the smallest detail possible.

A great deal of preparation over the last year has gone into getting ready to scuba dive in Antarctica, so much preparation in fact that I'm going to save all that for a separate journal entry.

We are also making sure that we have all the personal items we need. The NSF supplies extreme cold weather outerwear for us but we need to take the rest of our clothes. Since you can't pack a lot, you need to choose carefully what to pack since it's what you are going to be wearing for two or three months.

You also need to think about all other personal items you'll need. For example, although the station store does stock toothpaste, if you prefer a particular kind you'd better take plenty because the store will probably only have one brand.

The last thing we've all been doing a lot of lately is getting excited about going to Antarctica. However, that part is very easy. It's a wonderful place and we are going to have a great season!

Expedition Journal Entries by Charles Amsler, Ph.D.:

Taking the Ocean's Temperature
Posted on 10/30/2001 at 3:30 p.m.

Getting There by Air and by Sea
Posted on 10/20/2001 at 11:30 a.m.

Getting Ready
Posted on 10/19/2001 at 8:00 a.m.