Antarctica Flora and Cold Weather Gear

When landing on the Antarctic peninsula mainland at Admiral Brown Station, we saw our first glimpse of plants in 8 days.

Here is a British Antarctic Survey Overview of Plants in the Antarctic. They state that only 1% of the Antarctic mainland is available to plants.

 Here is what we saw.

 Lichen

Mosses and grass
The grass above is Antarctic hair grass Deschampsia antarctica.
The mosses could be Antarctic endemic moss Schistidium antarctici, and/or/either two co-occurring cosmopolitan species Ceratodon purpureus and Bryum pseudotriquetrum, but don't press me, I'm not a scientist, I only play one on TV. Further reading about Mosses here should you need a sleep aide. I left out the algae and liverworts, neither are my favorites, hence the omissions.

OK, now I got that over with, here are the cold weather clothes I took.

Antarctic Cold Weather Gear list, some items added/subtracted from the photo.

• waterproof and insulated snow pants
• fleece jacket
• down sweater
• fleece vest (not in photo)
• 2 hats with ear flaps (didn't lose one so didn't need the other)
• balaclava (did not use, except to craft a crazy hat) 
• 1 neck gator (wore every day)
• 3 pair long wool socks
• 3 pair medium wool socks
• 3 pair liner socks
• waterproof mittens with liners
• waterproof gloves (purchased after the photo taken)
• green wool liner gloves (did not use, were backups)
• silk glove liners (did not use)
• 4 pair thermal pants
• 4 pair thermal tops

My standard outing outfit consisted of; liner socks, 1 pair wool socks, thermal pants, waterproof pants, thermal top, fleece vest, down sweater, the Parka and the Muck boots loaned for the duration of the trip. The boots were very warm, I had brought a pair of fleece insoles to add comfort and warmth, probably not needed. Every day the temperature was around 32 degrees F. If the day was sunny I unzipped on land, if it was windy or overcast I stayed zipped up. I usually stayed zipped up when we cruised on the Zodiacs.

After adding clothes needed for the three weeks I had to use a larger suitcase than I usually take on vacations. On the ship we hand washed some items that were made of fast drying material and we also had some laundry done on board. Dress on the ship was casual, so wearing the same clothes more than once was not a big deal. I thought about taking fewer thermal pants and tops, but then I would have had to done more hand washing and I didn't think it made sense based on the weight/space savings.

Standard airline weight limit (before getting a tag of shame) is 50lbs/23kg and we both were close to these limits going South. Plus we knew we would have to pack a Parka on the way home, plus what ever other trinkets we would purchase. Just to add to our concerns, the domestic flight back from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires on Aerolíneas Argentinas had a 15Kg limit, less that the domestic flight going to Ushuaia, very odd. Ended up none of the airlines made a fuss about the weight, but someone did get a Tag of Shame returning from Buenos Aires. We'll put that down to a couple bottles of wine, a shared necessity.

Before departure my bag weighed in at 42lbs/19.5Kg, on the way back it was just under 50lbs/23Kg. The snow pants, gloves, mittens, hats, neck gator and fleece inserts alone weighed 6lbs.