What Happens in Antarctica Affects You More Than You Think

0:00 What if some of the most important warning signs about our planet are happening in one of the hardest places on earth to reach? Antarctica may feel distant, frozen, and disconnected from everyday life, but what happens there can shape sea level rise, ocean circulation, climate systems, and the future health of our marine ecosystems around the world. The challenge is that Antarctica is one of the least observed places on the planet, and that is starting to change. In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, part of our ongoing Surfacing Secrets Explore the Ocean, Know the Planet series with Ocean Networks Canada, we go behind the scenes of an incredible international mission to install real-time ocean monitoring systems in Antarctica. Joining me from Spain was Juan Ho and from Ocean Networks Canada was Ruchi and Bradley to talk about what it takes to build observatories at the edge of the world, why the data matters and how global collaboration is helping us understand a rapidly changing ocean before it's too late. Here's the interview with Juan Ho, Ruchi, and Bradley. Enjoy it and I'll talk to you after.

1:09 Hey Juan Ho, Ruchi, and Bradley, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about monitoring in Antarctica? Sure. We're always ready. Alright, I love it. This is going to be a lot of fun because this is part of our collaboration with Ocean Networks Canada, and there was a recent trip to Antarctica where you guys installed some really great monitoring tools and you got to work in Antarctica. So we're going to talk about what the program is all about, what it's like to work in Antarctica and to get there and everything and then come back and just start decompressing and figure out what it's like to live in a world where you have everything. So we're going to talk all about that on today's episode. I can't wait to do that.

1:53 I am a professor while I'm in the lake. I've been engaged in marine science and technology for the last 40 years, more or less, or even a little bit more. So I've been doing a lot of things since the start of my career. I did a PhD about the origin of the Canary Island. It's an intraplate volcanic archipelago. And then I've been working all over Europe and in America as well in Canada and Mexico. In Europe I've been working in Barcelona, in Madrid, in Cambridge, in Paris, in Netherlands, in Rome. During this time, well, the important thing is just to summarize a little bit, is in 2000 the president of the research council appointed me just to make a big change in the marine science and technology in my country in Spain and to set up the proper tools for people to do research, which is equal to say a powerful research vessels and at least a very wonderful Antarctic station in Livestong Island in Antarctica.

3:04 Indeed, it was already is already 38 years old, the Antarctic station. And when we did a big important renovation of the station. And now, well, as you know, because Ruchi and Brad and you were there, it's a very modern station with a very good communication, comfortable. And in terms of energy, very efficient because we do a co-generation using heating and electricity at the same time. So to be more efficient because while in Antarctica you should take care and we implement our self like most of the station is to to have a minimum impact from the from anthropogenic impact.

3:53 And well, I just finished by my implication in the subsea observatory was related with my position in Rome as the director general for the European Multisciplinary Sea for observatories. I set up a system from the Arctic through the Atlantic to the Black Sea. And this is the reason why we jump into this connection between us and Network Canada because they have this is the bigger supersea laboratory cable supersea laboratory. And in Europe, we try to simulate something similar, very modest compared to what you did in Canada. And this is the reason why we have an incredible, beautiful and powerful collaboration between us and Network Canada and the National Research Council in Spain.

4:40 Let's stop here. That's perfect. Thank you so much. Ruchi, how about yourself? Hello, everyone. My name is Ruchi Gustan. I'm a marine equipment specialist from Ocean Network Canada. I belong to a group called the Test and Development Group. And my background is electronics engineering. And I'm one of the designers of the first station that we deployed in the Southern Ocean. Very nice. Very nice. And Brad, how about yourself? Good morning, everyone. I'm Bradley. I'm part of the field services team at Ocean Network Canada. I'm an engineer on it. I helped to design the deployment method and how we're going to get the observatory from land into the water and also working.

5:26 Nice, very nice. Awesome. Okay, so let's start off. I know one whole you get it gave us a little bit of a description of the station that's in Antarctica. Can you just talk about the explain the overall project? And then what problem you're trying to solve by monitoring in Antarctica? Yeah, well, indeed, these three years ago. So these are what third trial. And this is something absolutely normal when you are far away from everywhere, which is the case of Antarctica. As I always say to my technical people and engineers is we don't have any shopping 1000 kilometers around. So be sure when you make your checklist that you put everything which is needed.

6:09 Otherwise, we need to have a lot of imagination and invention what we have. Of course, I mean, the two things are important. And then we decide to get out with experience with the people like Brad and routine to set up a modest, let's say, subsea observatory in Antarctica. And one of the reasons you figure we don't have anyone. And the second reason and important reason is because Antarctica is becoming a place where we can detect the primary location. And we can identify whatever is happening related with the health of the oceans, climate change, global change. And by putting the adequate sensor, this is what we did in this net ocean network observatory.

7:07 We can pass this information online, even, and we have different we talk about how we pass this information. For instance, knowing temperature salinity and pressure and many other different essential ocean variables. This is the key point to understand how the ocean is evolving and how important is that for us to provide this information to the policymakers here to say, well, we have one ocean. We need to keep it as it is or to improve it. If not, something is going to be wrong in this planet. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier that the the project, the collaboration happened with Ocean Network Canada, because they were such a there were such leaders in the space of undersea observatory, especially with cables using cables. How did that partnership come together, though? Did you reach out to someone at Ocean Network Canada or did they reach out to you? How do or did you reach out to them?

8:08 Did you know it through somebody else? How did you how did that initially start? Well, you know, they in terms of science and technology, even in marine science, we are not a such a huge community. So we know each other all over the planet. Right. And this is something interesting because we have been global since the beginning because we're changing information data between continent, between countries, between seas and in particular in this case between Canada and Spain. The relation in terms of science and in polar science and marine science has been and it is wonderful. And this is the reason why by having which is very important when you have a good relation between different teams, everything is smooth and easy to to set up whatever. And then we have only one focus is to work together in the best way possible and to get out of our common knowledge.

9:08 And I think that's a big participation of the global escape because as you can imagine, ocean is global by definition. Right, right. Absolutely. Brad, you guys mentioned earlier in our in our previous talks that, you know, it was it was difficult to work in Antarctica and set up a subsea. And so we've been working on these problems. Can you just talk about some of the problems in just working in Antarctica itself and some of the problems that initiate this trip that that made this trip sort of worthwhile and like, you know, what you learned from that in terms of the past, what's happened in the past? Sure. Yeah. So in the in the past, we deployed to one observatories there and they lasted for a while. But then they they died likely from icebergs, we think floating icebergs floating along and cutting the cables.

10:00 And so for this one, we came back with a crazy amount of cable protection of like thick steel pipe that we wrapped the cable on and then deploy that to the surface and that protects the cable from the icebergs. The problem is that the cable protection was 2000 kilograms or something like that. So that was a logistically challenging and also challenging for us to figure out a way to deploy that in the water where we want without a large vessel. So we managed to do that. And because we had the two observatories, the first one went well and the second one went much better. Awesome. And you just Brad just mentioned two observatories, you know, people be like, well, that's really redundant.

10:45 Like, why do we need two observatories? You just talk about, you know, why you guys put into two observatories and, you know, why you feel better about it, really. Yeah, so I think I think yes, one is is redundancy for sure. And the second one is doubling of the capacity of data capture. So and and not only that, we are also like positioning the sensors strategically at different depths now. So that we have a better view of how the mixing of the freshwater coming out from the glacier and the saltwater coming into that basin, like how the dynamics is going on and then hopefully using the data would be able to assess the impact of the glacier melt and the saltwater coming in into the local ecosystem and how it impacts the, you know, the the the circulation as a whole, if we can feed that data to the model.

11:44 Yeah, that's gonna be very important, especially as there's more more melt happening due due to climate change and one well, like, you know, we just talked a little bit about, you know, how this is going to impact. We're wondering how it's going to impact this this this bay essentially. Can you just talk a little bit about what type of data you're collecting and what do you hope to what trends do you hope to see or or or find out in terms of the project? Well, indeed, this is a trial because if we want to what we are doing normally, not only at the European level, but also at the level of Canada is to to have these subsea observatories more or less at the depth between 2000 and even 3000 meters.

12:35 And this is important because we know what is happening on the surface, but we have no much idea about what is happening on the bottom of the sea floor that affected dramatically the surface by all means. I mean, climate change, also circulation, whatsoever. In whatever case, it's a very good idea to have a monitoring station. I with the one we set up finally in Antarctica in the Spanish station to understand how the is the operation of different parameters. For instance, something that we know that is happening already is that this an increase melting of ice everywhere.

13:20 I mean, everywhere means in North Pole and South Pole in particular in Antarctica. So we are having a huge amount of fresh water coming into the ocean and these make a completely different behavior of the ocean because by doing that, the the as much the water is less dense and is handling the sinking of the water masses. And this may affect completely the Antarctic bottle water, which is connected with a more, which is a very famous Atlantic, meridian ocean, current, which is the current which control claim in on Earth.

14:08 So a little bit of a slowdown, which is that many of the scientists are claiming in both in the northern hemisphere and in the shoulders hemisphere may produce a drastic and dramatic change in the weather in the climate. But on top of the weather, there is also a smoothly change, which is happening about the hell be or hell chemical condition in the water column that affects life on at sea. And this is a process which is have many different consequences at all levels and all latitudes. Yeah. How's the data like that you get from this? How's it going to be used?

14:52 Like, is it going to be implemented into models that your team has? Or is it part of a bigger, bigger, bigger project? I think it's part of the bigger project. Yeah, I think indeed, one of the beauties of this collaboration is that we are working together for the rest of the planet. So we as far as I know, we don't have any restriction for any scientist who is looking for a better planet. We don't have any restriction for any scientist who is looking for some data in Antarctica or in in in the Pacific where Neptune cable is working. And this is the beauty of the scientists because we spread very fast the data to the rest of the scientists.

15:37 And this is the reason why science can progress very fast because we can talk to each other with the same data, not like others. Exactly. No, it makes such a makes such a big difference. A difference. Ruchi, can you just talk a little bit about how the data gets from Antarctica to, I believe, it's ocean networks, Canada and then to the world. Yeah, so currently there are two paths that the data goes through. So the one of the path and the main path is a satellite. So the data from the shore station is transmitted to a satellite. We're using a redeem right now. And from the satellite gets sent to ocean networks, kind of the servers. And then from there, we grab that data and then make that available through the oceans three point level platform.

16:25 And that data is open. It's open to everyone. Any scientist around the world can use that. And the second part is through the radio frequency link. So we installed an antenna Mount Sophia in Livingston Island, where the data gets transmitted from the shore station. And then from that antenna, it's received to the the one Carlos Uno base and stored into their local server. And then from time to time, we we get the data from them because it's a very it's a highly secured server. Right. We have requested exclusively from from our Spanish partners to get the data. Okay, let's just talk a little bit about the preparation for the trip. Now, Juan, whoa, you've been to Antarctica a number of times. You've you know how to prep for this trip.

17:13 Like, we'll talk to we'll talk to Brad and Ruchi about what it was like for them for the first time going and how they prep. But I would love to hear, you know, just in the overall general sense, like, you know, for a project like this, where my understanding is, you know, on the boat, it wasn't just this project, there were multiple other projects that were going on. Can you just talk about what the preparation is like when you're when you're doing a multi project sort of program like this? Yeah, well, indeed, any small project in Antarctica is a big challenge. Doesn't matter if it's small or not. I mean, the question is the main point. And Brad and Ruchi knows very well is preparation. We need to prepare everything minimum. Have a year in advance.

18:00 At the end, there is always things coming in the last nanosecond, let's say. But on the other hand, it is important to make a very good checklist and to make all the combination of different issues, different sensors, different capacities, different scientists at the level of the logistic. Because in comparison with other places in northern Canada or in the Arctic, the only way to reach Antarctica is by using strong logistic vehicles like research vessels or planes, which are not very easy because they are very, very few small airports.

18:41 And this depends on the very much on the weather condition to be sure if you can reach or not in whatever case, whatever you go in Antarctica. You need again sooner or later a result vessel. Well, in our particular case, we go our main position in South America, Punta Arenas in Chile and Ushuaia in Argentina. And then we need to cross the Drake Passage, which the bad weather is sure is always there. And for big resale buses, rather big because between 80 and 100 meters length is relatively big, but I mean, it's small in the ocean. Everything is small. But we have been using until recently supply buses, which are much smaller and very difficult to handle.

19:36 And they need to wait to have a window between two bad storms because there is one behind the other. So the only possibility is to have a very good weather report and say, well, now is the moment to be in between two storms. Right. Which is the usual case. Well, I have been crossing the great passage of the north and 20 times probably. Yeah. And the wave could be between 15 and 20 meters high. So cross. So most of the time, the people are lying in bed. I'm not because I am you since I am very young to say and I always go to the kitchen, say, where's my food? No food today. It's not allowed to cook anything.

20:23 So and then once we are in Antarctica, the the challenge is to to deploy everything using Saudi small boat because the large vessel, they cannot reach close to the to the to the station. And then we have another risk. This is the more risky place or point when we are transferring all the material and people from the research vessel to the station. We are very used. But as I always tell to the engineers and technicians, it doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter if we're used. We need to have a lot of respect to the sea and to the ice, both because we never had any accident.

21:09 And because we have a lot of protocols and we follow strictly the protocols, even if I have some anecdote because I set up many protocols when I was responsible of Antarctic station. And one of the protocols was that you are not allowed to get out of the station alone. You need to have with somebody else. You need to to tell to the head of the station. But I once I tried to be alone and say, this is not allowed because you said you put it there. So you should follow the rules like everybody else. And I say, of course, of course. Well, I worked up in the Arctic before and I know the protocols there were very strict as well. You know, one, you don't want to touch that water for too long.

21:54 It's very cold to you just never know what's going to happen at sea. Exactly. You know, even if you're using a small boat to go from, you know, ship to shore, you just never know what could happen. And ice as small as as a little rock can can tear a hole in a boat. You just never know. So if it's if your boat's not ready for for ice. So there's a lot of stuff to go over. But if you fall into the water, you have a few minutes, only a few minutes there. So yeah. Yeah. And everybody knows this. So we take care of this and we take care about everybody as Brad and Ruchi knows very well. Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of which, you know, Brad, we'll start off with you in terms of like the prep first time going, you know, with Juan Juan's team, you know, they've gone a number of times, you know, this is your first time going, you're prepping. At what point did you start to think like, this is going to be really remote.

22:49 And like, I need to make sure I have everything like like did did one on his team kind of prep you guys a little bit in terms of like, hey, make sure you have everything or were you just kind of realizing it throughout the prep or a little bit of both? A little bit of both for sure. We, you know, we we had the idea that going to enter guys a little bit crazy and we probably need to bring over the equipment necessary. Yeah. We we also knew that the base was there. And now now that we've been there, the base is really well done. The base is really well stocked. So of course, you know, bring your own stuff and make sure you have everything you need. But like the tools and a lot of the equipment we needed was there already. So we might bring a little bit less next time. But for for for pieces we need for the observatory, those we all we bring what's the saying.

23:39 One is none and two is one to you need to to make sure because if anything breaks and you're there like one who said there's there's no store. You're not you're not buying another one. It's you need to either bring the stuff, bring extra or bring what you need to make extra. So, yeah, that's definitely something we think about as we're packing those boxes that could shift off. Yeah, that's amazing. Richie, how about yourself? What were your thoughts, you know, like prepping for this trip? Yeah, I think I think we can, you know, like over prepped a little bit because it's our first time. We don't really know what's what's going to happen. But the good thing is that there's so many people on the ship who's had experience already working at the base.

24:20 So we talked to them and like, you know, we learned new things from them and we started like thinking through what fine tuning we need to be in our plan to account for that. Like, okay, so we brought two of these. Okay, we don't have to bring this in the field. We can leave this at the base kind of thing. Yeah, I think it really helped a lot. You know, like talking to the experts on the ship help us a lot. Pancha our plans as we went into the field during the few days. Awesome. Now, I'm thinking about the platform that you're putting all the instruments you're putting together.

25:01 It's got to be pretty heavy. It's got to be pretty bulky at times. You're trying to manage, you know, thinking about what the ship is going to be like. There's other projects on the ship. So, Rishi, how do you how do you sort of prep for that part of it, like to for the space that you'll have to put your equipment and the weight of it as well as you mentioned earlier? So, luckily, we have a very good logistics team at the ONC and also very good logistics team at UTM CSIC, the Spanish Research Team. And they coordinated and when we appeared in Punta Arenas, when we arrived in Punta Arenas, all of the logistics have been handled already.

25:43 All that I needed to do is just go into the sea camp and check, make sure that you have all the boxes in there. And then when we arrived at the base, all of these boxes has to be had to be transported via Zodiac. So I had to be there and and probably have to be there to just to make sure that we have everything unloaded. Right. The ship is to ship once everything is unloaded the ship will go somewhere else. And we had to be absolutely sure that we have everything unloaded. From the ship into the base. Gotcha. Yeah, indeed. Well, one of the things that I mentioned always sees that in Antarctica, everybody help each other.

26:24 And normally before asking who you are, they are what you need. And this is something very nice. Never happened anywhere else. And in particular, loading the equipment is critical simply because we are many different research projects. So it is very important to know the sequence of the project. And these depend on how you load the vessel, because unloading depend on when they are going to use the equipment, because sometimes happened that for whatever reason, the ship needs to go somewhere else because the ships and most of the time our ships are doing dual work, which is transporting people and tools and doing research.

27:11 Which is something that we need to improve on not only we, but the world, because this is stupid sometimes from my viewpoint is if you have a Ferrari, you don't use the Ferrari as a taxi, no, you use the Ferrari to do races. And sometimes we have a beautiful polar reserve vessel doing transportation and say, well, this can be done by somebody else. No, not very simple. But, OK, we improve. But when I say we, this is at the world level, I mean, everybody is because there's a lot of strategy logistics. And in any case, if you have a problem there and you sign a call, everybody help you immediately.

27:59 I mean, this is a nanoseconds for to respond to help you. Absolutely. And speaking of which, Brad, why don't you just talk a little bit about like, you guys are two people coming in from a different, like, you know, with O and C, you used to working with a lot of different collaborators in the past, like when you go out in the field and even even within within O and C as well. Now you're coming on to a ship with people mostly, I assume from from Spain, probably not speaking English as their first language. Here you guys come in. I don't know what your what your Spanish is like, but can you talk about just what it was like to interact with brand new teams from a different part of the world that you may or may not have. That you may or may not know and being on a ship with them for multiple weeks. For sure. Yeah, it was a, you know, there's there's a there's like a shocking aspect for sure to being in an environment that's not like really not English, but the crew and everyone there like Juan Jose is so inviting and so focused on achieving the goal of whatever we're trying to do.

29:03 So everyone really brings us in. They helped us a lot translating when necessary. And, you know, sometimes we'd miss a thing here or there. But whenever there's important information, someone who would pull us aside and give us the give us the info. And then once you're on the base, it's amazing that the saying of of what you need, not what's your name is so so true. And every single person there is they're all inspired together to work for this like world science goal. So everyone's everyone's really pushing hard together. And it's it's amazing to be part of. That's that's awesome. Ruchi, how about yourself?

29:45 I think I can share similar experience with Brad. I kind of I kind of like know a little bit of Spanish here and there because I grew up in the Philippines and I spoke a few dialects there that helped like Spanish. But our Spanish inspired dialect. So I can understand phrases and words there. So that came in handy. And yeah, and then I think it's going to what Brad said. It's just so amazing to be in this kind of environment where everyone is willing to help that. Like even if they're explaining very in depth technical thing that you know, my my my understanding Spanish can like follow the clip very quickly. Someone is always there willing to help even if you don't ask them, you know, they get a sense of, you know, me needing help to understand this like very detailed stuff.

30:40 So they come in and like, hey, can how can I help extend this? And it just comes naturally. And that's kind of the I think the miracle there is like, yeah, all of this happens. And you don't even have to speak a word. It just like happens naturally. And it's so beautiful to be experiencing something like this in my life. Well, that's good. I mean, that's awesome to be able to see that now. Let's talk about the trip itself for you guys. You know, as one who mentioned earlier, there's a pass where it's there's never good weather. How did you guys have been on boats before sailing down towards the Antarctic has got to be quite a different experience, Brad. Can you just talk about what like how long the trip was and what it was like to go through the past?

31:31 Yeah, we for for both directions on the way there, our ship was delayed a little bit. So we ended up having a few more days aboard, which was a we were in shelter. So it wasn't too crazy, but it extended the journey. And then actually against what is normal. Our Drake Passage heading there was kind of crazily calm. It might have been a promise journey. So that was really cool to see. I was looking forward to some big waves and feeling nervous. You know, maybe maybe on the next next adventure through, we'll get to see those 20 meter seas one hose.

32:12 Careful what you asked for it because that came out comfortable. There's a lot of horror stories of, you know, 45 degrees on the boat and it sounds quite extreme. That's awesome. How long was the trip to get from Chile to to your like where the station was? I think it's about like three nights, three more or less, I think that was going there and coming back. And yeah, coming back, though, I'd like four or five meter wave and that's enough to get me. So I was like, just in my bed and yeah.

33:21 It could happen to the best of us. I know I've had it a couple of times. But you don't see it any time on board the ship because they are lying in the bed most of the time seasick and waiting. I want to reach the station before I die here. Yeah, it's only three days, guys. Three days. Interesting to share the story here that the seasickness medicines are like hang on the doors like candy. So you can make any time you go there, grab your seasickness medicine if you if you want. But yeah, it's kind of a way we saw it. Yeah, I feel it's kind of a kind of a candy being hung on the door in a candy shop or something.

34:03 I love it. I love it. That's awesome. So when you get what were your first impression when you actually get to the station, you know, what did you for Brad? What did you think of when you first got to that station? I think I think that kind of bring me back to the one who talking about the six months preparation. So like we spend all this time designing the observatory, thinking about the plan, think about how we're going to do it. And then we ship it off six months before we go. So those six months, all we can do is think about it and like really focus and think about what we're going to do. So when we're on the boat, that's our last week before we're about to get to our big show.

34:43 And so for me, and I think for Ruchi as well, all we're doing is thinking about what we're going to do, think about the mission, think about everything that can go wrong and what we're going to do to solve those problems. And so then when you arrive at the base, it's finally like, here's the boxes, here's all your equipment, it's now time to work. So for me, it's actually kind of relieving to be at the base because now it's not time to think anymore. It's time to do and it's time to solve those problems and get the observatory in the water. So for me, being at the base was very exciting. Very nice. Very nice. And for you, Ruchi. Yeah, for me, it's kind of the warm welcome from the base. So when we arrived, so the ship was kind of anchored probably like, I don't know, 1500 meters from the shore. So we have to go by Zodiac and then as to me, like as a Zodiac was like approaching the shore.

35:42 If you see these people waving at you, like welcoming at the base and I see I see Joanne, I see Joelle helping with with the Zodiac, putting it into the shore and welcoming us is it's kind of a warm up. And you know, when you get there, that things will be done, you know, with this kind of attitudes, with this kind of characters, people out there, things will be done. And that's giving me like a positive kind of outlook of this trip. It's this I arrived to add to what Ruchi saying. It was like, like me and Ruchi are going there for the first time. So we're the new people and we get to see all of these people who have gone on multiple campaigns and like they're meeting up.

36:23 It's a big reunion. Everyone's so happy to see each other and they know they're going to be working together and working on their whatever objectives they have planned for the months ahead. It was it's a really special place for sure. Well, now our station is a modern station, but still that you see each other every day, every morning for the breakfast for lunch for dinner. Yeah. And you sleep very close to each other. So I mean, you need to have a relationship. You kill everything. And this is very, very important. And before was even more important because we're in a container of 20 feet. We put, I don't know, the people there now is a little bit more comfortable.

37:08 And this is good. But in any case, the relation is fundamentally because, you know, when you have a job at the end of the job, you go home and you cut. You never got to during the time you're there. Yeah, there's no downtime. Like in terms of home to your families or going home. Yeah. Like doing what you normally do. Yeah. The paradox is the people who stay there longer like John who just I mean, the station was closed on Thursday and Friday, joining the rest of the people. I mean, John is the head of the station. They were sailing to to South America.

37:51 And he always tell me, you say, wow, at the end of some almost three months, I miss Antarctica because everything is easy. I know what to do every day. I have a breakfast every day. I don't need any coin to do anything. And the landscape is beautiful. When I come back, it's traffic. Nice. Money is a mess. They say everybody. Yeah, for sure. You get used to that calmness and just quiet, you know, being in such a remote area that it's just it's just when you come back, there's we don't realize how much noise is in our lives like in our regular day to day lives.

38:32 In any case, unreal. Now is a remote area, but not so remote because we have Internet. We have connection. But before I remember when I was younger and when I went there, when I was on board a ship. For example, on board a ship, I have a communication with my wife once every three weeks and everybody wants to be behind me. And you know why? Because you say, well, who you are the faster always say, you know, I need to talk half an hour to my wife. If I have three minutes in one second, I can solve everything. And this is what I want to be in the list behind you because then I got some extra time. Yeah, that's hilarious. It's so funny. Let's talk about the work when when you guys got there, you know, you had you were putting in two stations, some different instruments.

39:22 Bradley, how long did that take to do when you were down there? And it was was it in the anticipated time that you thought it would take? Depends on what you're asking about. But a few of the different kind of work days we had went according to plan, the largest one or our first large deployment. So we're deploying the actual observatory into the water and putting all the split pipe on and making sure the cable is protected. That one I told Joanne, it would take us something like eight hours maybe and it ended up taking us more like 14. So that was a little bit longer than anticipated for sure. But that that's kind of a compliment as well to the group that we're working with.

40:06 So it's not only me and Ruchi out there, there was maybe five or six of us from the base. And it's a 14 hour long day of hard physical work in the cold outside and no, not a single, not a single bad attitude or anything, even for a second, everyone is super happy to work. I mean, you're working in an amazing location. So, you know, it's not so bad. Right? For 14 hours. It's a grind. And everyone is super willing to do it. And then when we ask who wants to come for the second deployment, every single person comes again and is happy to do the exact same. Yeah, yeah, see the exact same. Yeah, long days, tiring days, I'm sure. And it can get what's the weather like Ruchi? Like, is it always nice? Is there some weather that comes in from nowhere where it's all of a sudden that's a blizzard or what have you? Like, what was it like to work in that type of condition?

41:01 It changes so fast, like the weather is so fast that we have like a local weather forecaster at the base. And we tried to catch the good weather window for our stuff, our equipment. But once we're on site, I think we're pretty much okay, even if the weather doesn't cooperate. But it's very critical that you only transport the equipment when the weather window is good. Right? Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. And in terms of weather, the key point there is the winds. I mean, you can be you can have beautiful sunny day working in shorts and all of a sudden in something like five minutes, there is a wind called Katabatic wind, which is coming through the mountains. Very cold.

41:51 And you think that I'm going to die in the next. It's a drop of I don't know, at least in the feeling is 10 degrees less than the work in really very fast. So this is one of the reasons that you should when you are working, you should take care about this kind of thing because it happened often. Yeah. And in that kind of situation, do the people go back into the base until that that wind is gone? Or are there certain conditions where you're just like, we can't work in this, let's just go back in. Very good point depend on the situation and depend on the location in any case, the first thing to do is to have a communication with the base and to understand where are you because they need to prepare eventually something to rescue you.

42:39 Doesn't happen often because people are well trained it and they have a good feeling. I mean, one thing is that you have a little bit of a win. Another thing is the prediction in terms of whether we know it in advance. So when we have a bad prediction, we restrict the the movement around the station a lot. Gotcha. To avoid risk because if we have a problem with a person, if a quite is not an easy task. I mean, this takes weeks and this perturb everybody, of course, the first one. So this is critical. The collective, the community is important because if something is someone fails, this affects everybody.

43:25 Right. Right. Yeah, I know it's true. Everybody knows this. So this is important. It's very important. Absolutely. Now, for Ruchi and Brad, one of you can take this when you're working in these types of conditions where things can change quickly. Obviously, now everything's never going to work out perfectly. Was there a time where you had to adapt, you know, where you're just like, oh, wait, hold on a second. This isn't going to work or, you know, we need to adapt to this. Like, can you just talk a little bit about that? Whoever wants to start if that happened? Yeah, yeah. I've got a good one. We. For for the the split point deployments, like the big subsidy deployment, the weather has to be perfect. And like one who said it's it's windy there all the time, very frequently. So we had to wait for the good weather window day for our actual deployment.

44:18 The first one we found one pretty pretty reasonably well. But then the second one, we ended up really getting close to the end of time. And so Juwan helped maneuver some activities so that we would be able to have our window on the it might have been the last day we were there. So yeah, it was down to the wire for sure. And it ended up working great. And yeah, Ruchi, how about yourself? Yeah, for me, it's so we have to install the equipment at two different sides. One is in this in this cold, not called the stop where we have our instrument, our sensors. And the other one is like the R.A. receiver on Mount Sophia. So I'm going to share our experience like going to my office. I have this like 30 kilogram backpack and had to like walk up the mountain.

45:07 So a very steep walk through like rocks and glaciers and rocks and glaciers again. And yeah, it's because I was I was so tired during that like uphill plan. I had this stuff so many times. But then when we get there, I think we kind of missed that that weather window that it start like, like the wind, it's it's I can barely stand with the wind. It's so it's so strong that I had to like somehow crawl just to get the equipment out of my pack and onto this tower. And then there was also like a thick fog coming. So it's kind of hard to see where we're connecting things. But I think those are one of the things that we had to like adjust as we go because as this like weather window is closing up, we had to compromise a little bit a select the height of the antenna we want to install because the visibility is so poor, we kind of installed it at the ideal location. We installed it in the original plan. Yeah, we had to like compromise a little bit in that. So we had to do, I'd say a good amount of like fine tune adjustment because of the environment conditions.

46:23 That's so cool. That is, I mean, it's an interesting dynamic to work in, you know, because you're you're in like sometimes what we consider like extreme weather shifts like back and forth. It looks like you got a combination of weather to with the fog and the wind and and everything. So that always makes things things interesting. And then you got the physical aspect of hiking up a mountain to put it on this on the station. It doesn't make it easy. When you like, I think it's kind of funny to see like you do a lot of field work and you you're you are physically involved in doing the field work, whether it's on a boat or on land and you're you're usually carrying stuff and it can be awkward and you have to have like a certain amount of strength. So so Richie, how do you think you fared with carrying that out? Like, do you think like coming back, you're like, okay, hold on a second. Maybe next time before I go, I should do some workouts beforehand to get me to get me to get me to do some work.

47:21 I think it's just like, I don't know, like doing doing a lot of runs. But no, run can can help me prepare for that uphill climb. It's just so just so extreme. Yeah. But yeah, I have to do some sort of, I don't know, like a little bit of physical conditioning, I guess, so I don't get injured or right at least can survive. Yeah. I'll be honest, like it's it's when you hear Antarctica, it's not something you think about is like these mountains and hiking like how difficult it would be to hike, you know, like you guys both live in B.C.

48:06 Hiking is a common thing, you know, and usually we think hikes are like an easier thing to do, probably B.C. There's probably more maybe extreme examples of hiking where you can go on to like hiking, like in more rougher terrains. But you never really think about that from an Antarctica perspective. You just think, oh, it's just probably mostly flat. You never think of all the dips and lows in the mountains and ranges and stuff like that. So I think it's kind of cool to get that experience and to feel that. Now, after like the last day kind of coming down to the last minute, would you consider everything was a success in terms of deployment and then testing and making sure data is coming through?

48:46 Right. Yeah, huge, huge success for sure. We got we brought two observatories with the, you know, goal of doing both. But having one work would have been a good success. But both are working well. Ruchi's data system is working excellent. We've got we're still getting data. And I think we're reasonably optimistic that both systems will last for their deployment life. Hopefully the year. And then, yeah, maybe even more. That's all. That's amazing. That's always that's always great when you when you know all the work you've done in prep time and going into a remote area and it and it works and then you're getting data. That's always that's always wonderful. Now, obviously, this has been an amazing experience. And one whole you've you've been on these trips a number of times.

49:30 You've you visited Antarctica. Like what is the one thing about Antarctica that you love the most? You know, visiting and then telling people about. Well, it's a privilege to be there for us because not everybody can go there. Right. Because there are some restrictions. I mean, due to the Antarctic Treaty on the other hand, he said peaceful area. So it's a lot of collaboration. They they don't care where you are from. The bottom thing is what you need and how we can help each other to in terms of logistic and in terms of science in in all terms. And this is from the scientific point of view is a paradise because you are there doing sign for the signs. And when you ask any technical question or scientific question, there is always happy to help you to guide you. So which is important.

50:25 This is really a key issue. Indeed, this strong collaboration between Ocea, medical Canada and the National Research Council in Spain produce already that many other countries around our station, which have plenty of of countries in the King George Island, for instance, I think there is something like 20 station. They are listening to what we're doing together and they ask already, maybe it's a good idea to do the same thing in different stations. They will be ideal in terms of monitoring in different places, the same parameters. So, boys, maybe you need to go back sooner or later.

51:36 And now you have the experience. This is different thing. But we've seen that for a long time for the whole year and monitor, how is the variability of different parameters? For instance, one of the things which is important is we have indication that the carbon absorption in the is becoming, is reducing because the ocean is absorbing the CO2. the morassitan is the end of life. And this is why to know how the things are millimetrically changing, and in particular in these places, is very useful for the science community, but for everybody else, because indication of what happened in Antarctica may affect the rest of the world quite fast.

52:38 And one of the interesting things is now awesome, and I work Canada is able to do it at the same time in both poles, in the Arctic and in Antarctica. And I think there is no way anybody else is able to do this simultaneously. It was my dream to have a say, we should be able to have two stations in two areas or polar areas recording the same parameters at the same time. Yeah, we can look at comparing. In one place is summer and another place is winter, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's still the same data. Yeah. Richie, what about yourself? Like, what do you remember most about Antarctica and what's like your favourite aspect of it?

53:20 I'm just going to back up a little bit about the success of this. Yes, please. So I see the success of this deployment and partnership as a precursor for future endeavors like this. I mean, now we are enabling near real time monitoring in some of the most remote areas of the planet, special Antarctica, because it's one of the most under observed places in our planet. And at the same time, it's kind of a very important part of our planet that plays an important role in the global climate system. So being able to monitor the part of the planet that's been undergoing rapid changes, consequential changes over the past few years is very time critical.

54:07 And we don't have time to wait two or three years to recover the data. We have to be more timely. And this type of partnership is what enables that kind of pushing the frontiers technology, something like this. And as to my experience, I think it's yeah, looking at the partnership, I think it really works very well from from the partnership perspective from the executive level. And at the same time, for us, the people deploying the instrument in the field, being able to work with partners like the UTM, CSIC is really a great privilege.

54:49 And knowing that both of our organizations are are laser focused to like, you know, doing something for a planet, starting from from the other notion expedition. I think this is going to be a bigger thing in the future. Yeah, I think it's I think you're right. I think it's it's huge to be able to have these types of partnerships to get access into different areas now potentially with the, you know, the ability to spread over a large continent like Antarctica to be able to have the same stations, subsea stations in those areas to to be able to give a better picture, better representation of the entire continent, I think is is going to be amazing and to have collaboration where it's like we have somebody who has the connections within Antarctica and the experience.

55:40 And plus, we have, you know, ONC that that is coming in being like we look we we know subsea systems and we know how to monitor and we've done in the Arctic, we've done it in the Pacific, we've done it, we've done it everywhere and we can do it anywhere. So I think that's a great a great partnership to see. And I really appreciate all three of you coming on to kind of give us that perspective of doing it. And it's I'm sorry, I forgot one thing, Brad, what was your favorite thing about Antarctica? My favorite thing about Antarctica, I would put the inspiration given to me by the crew that I met while there. It was it was, yeah, it's incredible. It's it's it's impossible to say how motivating it is to be around a group of people like that.

56:29 And just to see them constantly in and out going all the time. It's amazing. And also, yeah, so it's a good place to learn from each other as well. Right. And I always learning. And let me add something because I like what Ruchi said is we are precursors and this is correct. And this is important for many different things in the first place. Being precursors is being the first one to do something which is high responsibility at the same time because this is what the first two years we were always a little bit nervous to say we need to manage this time. On the other hand, when we you open a new way of doing things, the others are listening to you and say, this is interesting and we can do something together.

57:19 And this is what I like very much. Being precursors is interesting, challenging and responsibility is increasing. And we manage, by the way, I was checking heaven over before starting. I was checking all the monitors we are recording. Apparently, everything is still fine. I'd love for any of those countries who are interested in similar systems, you should send them on over to us and we'll see if we can come back and help them out. Of course. Well, as you know, I will go to Victoria in June in a few months.

58:01 And in the meantime, probably I will go to Chile and Chile is one of the countries who has a lot of station and the airport in the King George Island and Argentina, Bulgaria, many others. They are listening to or watching what we are doing and to see the progress. And this is really, I think is the beginning of a big thing. And by the way, Bradley and Ruchi, they are very well known already in the Spanish and the other station and they are the kings of the road. I think you are in the golden list of engineers and you are always welcome in the station anywhere where Spanish people are working in science or marine science, of course.

58:52 Well, that is what we love to hear. Just in terms of just the collaboration itself, I'm sure people at ONC are loving to hear that as well, including the two of you. And it just goes to show how great it is to work with other people and whether you are on a boat or in the Antarctic in a remote area for like 3-4 weeks, it's great to be able to have that kind of feedback after you work with somebody for that long in those types of countries. And I think it's great to be able to have that here and see the camaraderie between all of you and how well you work together and it's just great to be able to talk about it.

59:32 Thank you all three of you for joining us today on the how to protect the ocean pockets because it was just so much fun to be able to listen to the stories and what you guys have been able to accomplish and hopefully, you know, talk about what you're going to be able to accomplish in the future and have you guys back on when you're able to deploy however many systems you're going to deploy in the next couple of years. But it's been great to have you guys on really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. I think I will ask you and Brad and Ruchi see you in June, I hope. Oh yeah. See you in June. Perfect. It was a pleasure. Thank you, Juan Ho, Ruchi and Bradley for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

1:00:13 Look, Antarctica may be remote, but today's conversation makes one thing clear. It is deeply connected to all of us. The data being collected there is more than just numbers on the screen. It is a window into how our ocean is changing, how climate systems are shifting and how science and collaboration can help us respond faster and smarter. I want to thank everybody for sharing their experience today from this groundbreaking mission and a big thank you to Ocean Numbers Canada for making this servicing secrets explore the ocean know the planet series possible. And I just wanted to say if you enjoyed this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast, I want you to follow it on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a story about the people the science and solutions shaping the future of our ocean.

1:00:56 I want to thank you again for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lew and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.