Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

Hilton near the airport. Next day we didn't take off until 7.30 p.m., on an Aerolineas
Argentinas flight. (We were given good seats in the exit row with plenty of leg room,
because the lady in the airline office had a daughter who was a marine biologist! - so
she was interested in our work). Travelling with one stop at Rio we reached Buenos
Aires at about 11 o’clock, arriving at the Tucuman Palace Hotel at 1.30 am.
Next day was fairly relaxed and at 8 o’clock we went out for dinner with my
friends Roberto Martinez-Abal and Jimenez (Argentine Antarctic Institute) at the
Navy Club. We talked about the Antarctic Treaty meeting; the Chinese interest in the
Antarctic - Roberto has regular weekly visits from the Chinese naval attaché; also the
recent arrests of Russian and Bulgarian trawlers by the Argentine Navy. The
Argentines were very cock-a-hoop about this exercise of sovereignty. We talked
about the SCAR BIOMASS Programme also. The following day we were still held up
in Buenos Aires and I visited the British Embassy to talk with Dan Leggat, the British
Naval Attaché. He introduced me to Herr Raschenau, who had been technical officer
on the battleship Graf von Spee in World War II - and was trying to organize a reunion
for all who took part in the battle, on both sides. Later I talked with Leggat about the
BAS programme of marine research; he was concerned about possible Argentine
interference. I had lunch with John Illman, Second Secretary, and others at a small
restaurant near the sea - extremely good steaks after England. After lunch we
continued our discussions at the Embassy.
By now I had met all the others in the group that was due to sail together on the
"Hero". The line up was Don Siniff, Ian Stirling, Torger Oritsland, Doug DeMaster
and John Bengtson (two of Don's graduate students from University of Minnesota),
Nick Wolkman and Wayne Trivelpiece (graduate students of Dietrich Muller-
Schwarze from Columbia University). We were beginning to get to know one
another.
At last we were on our way at 4 o’clock next day, flying in a Boeing 737 to Bahia
Blanca, Commodoro Rivadavia and Rio Gallegos, where there was a long wait for
our connection, a Fokker F27 for Rio Grande del Sul and Ushuaia. Towards the end
of the flight the scenery was very impressive - mountains, snow and ice, with
Notofagus forests, lakes and sea. Ushuaia is in a military zone , the most southerly
city in the world, small and colourful; it is surrounded on three sides by mountains
and on the fourth by the sea - the Beagle Channel. We stayed in a pleasant tourist
hotel, appropriately named Hotel Antardida. After settling in we had our first
introduction to the ‘Hero’; we looked over her and watched while boxes were being
unpacked and the contents stored aboard; it was chaotic.
She was named after a 30-foot American sailing sloop captained by Nathaniel B
Palmer, an American sealing skipper who in l820 was one of the first to view the
Antarctic mainland. The modern ‘Hero’ served as a platform for American research
in the waters of the Antarctic Peninsula, South Orkney Islands and South Georgia,
and also in Tierra del Fuego. She was strongly built of wood on the lines of a New
England trawler, powered by two diesel engines (Caterpillar tractor engines), but
also equipped with red sails. Her specially strengthened oak hull was sheathed in
tough American greenheart to protect against abrasion by the pack ice. Normally she
carried a crew of ten and ten scientists.
The ‘Hero’ was small:125 ft overall, beam 30 ft, 14 ft draft and 300 gross tons,
range 6,000 nautical miles, horsepower 760 shaft horsepower, cruising speed 10
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