![Transcription Center logo](/themes/custom/tc_theme/assets/image/logo.png)
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
breeze to keep us from getting too hot. At the top of the first hill most of us shed a vest or jacket. Up, up we went over stony, muddy hillside, examining cretacean fossils on the way. It was easier than I supposed to keep up with Bill, despite clumsy boots. I found my ice axe an essential aid to walking & keeping my balance. Fossils abounded. Large ammonites, petrified wood, & all sorts of others. Tony found a huge crab claw and, heavy as it was, (I would guess 11 pounds), she packed it home.. her father's business involves crabs. Bill found bones, which proved, after a day long study by Tim & Brian Small, to be a plesiosaur. || Finally, we arrived at the K/T boundary & stopped to salute & photograph. During the day we saw several [[expanses?]] - about 3 where sampling would be feasible. Brian Huber showed us the pit where he sampled the K/T last year. He drove a plastic tube into ground, sealed it off, and wrapped it for safekeeping. || In fact, had I known that, I should have reconsidered whether to come here. I told him we woud[[would]] send his samples w. ours to have radiodensity done -- a joint effort. The walk was long & disorganized. Bill simply takes off when he feels like it & doesn't look back, often, for anybody, unless he discovers something of interest. I made a special effort to keep close behind so I would know where we were headed. About noon as Tony & I climbed a steep hillside she suddenly said: "Ursula, how do you keep in such great shape?" I was surprised but pleased. I said I didn't know, because I don't really work at it, and mentioned the great shape Tom is in. Added that I didn't want to hold up the party but I seemed to be doing as well as most. She said I was putting most to shame. We picniced here & there at fossil stops. Bill would just get up & take off [[end page]] [[start page]] without a word. It went on all day. Up & over, up & over, and finally to a pass where we saw the Weddell Sea - of the same intense blue as the ocean in front of tent. About 4:00 we were at a place where we could choose to take the long route to Penguin rookery or to sea cliff w K/T contact. Most of us -- those in sight -- took the sea cliff. A long hike took us toward the beach, but impossible to get down the cliff. We gave up the effort & aimed at Penguins. The tide was coming in. Pancake ice crowded the shore -- great oval & rounded blocks of ice - topped w snow worn to the odd shapes by continual rubbing & jostling. Over & across them we went. Sometimes having to be pulled up or steadied by an athletic man. It was a long, painstaking hike under difficult circumstances. Tim fell way back. Bill plunged way ahead. Finally, as Toni & I & Jeff & Luis & Jeff Stillwell brought up the rear we agreed to stay together. When we saw the lst Penguin we stopped for photos, rather resenting being left no time by our guides. Eventually, however, farther along the beach, we found Bill & lots of penguins; this was the main rookery area. 20,000 or more in summer - a few hundred now. Adelies - altho Brian Small saw one gentoo. Bill led me up into rookery; a smelly place w green slime all around, to see the much weathered historic marker showing where the "Uruguay" had received Nordenskold in 1903, two years after his ship sank. It is bleached wood & hardly readable. Dead chicks all around mark failures of one sort or another and ravages of skuas. Near the sign we saw one half moulted chick with a solicitous parent -- after parents should have gone to sea. Allegedly it was a one-hour walk to rookery from camp.
Transcription Notes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_Uruguay#Rescue_of_the_Swedish_Antarctic_Expedition_(October_1903)