Today is February 26, 2009. Today is a full day at sea. These days can be a little boring for me, but I also get time to catch up on schoolwork. We also have a lot of presentations, which are mostly very interesting.
Today I didn’t really do anything until lunch. That was when I got up and was ready to start the day (sea days are also great for catching up on sleep!). After lunch I went to go see the movie: March of the Penguins. It was a good film.
I learned from the movie that there are fewer male emperor penguins than females. The males have to spend the cold winter huddled together far from the sea for about 2 months while they incubate the eggs from their partners. They go without food for about 4 months. As soon as the females come back to the see the newly hatched penguins have a reunion then the males hurry off to the sea. This is probably why there are fewer males then females because the males are so hungry some of them don’t survive the walk back out to the sea.
For the next couple of months while the chick is still growing the parents will commute from feeding the chick to going out to fish in the sea. The walk to the waters edge becomes a smaller and smaller distance each time because it is summer and the pack ice is melting.
After the film it was tea time. I took a few cookies and went back up to my room to work on some math and science schoolwork. About 2 hours later the video expert on the boat gave a preview of the film of the trip we are making to the Antarctic. I only saw myself once, but my dad was in it three times.
He also showed us some of the equipment he is using for the movie. There is a special microphone that is really fluffy and the penguins think that is food, and he says that they are always pecking at it. Also he has this pad for the video camera that he uses. He puts it down on a surface and puts the camera on top of it and it holds the camera still. He went through two cameras on this trip so far! One died on him while were in South Georgia, so one of his friends lent him there camera… or something like that. He said that maybe the cold affected it somehow. Also the batteries of the camera get used up in a colder place much faster than a warmer place. He always carries extra batteries for his camera just in case. He knows everything about videos.
After the presentation I went down stairs to have some dinner. Then I did a little more schoolwork and then I went to sleep. That was it for today.
Bye for now,
Emily
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