First Indonesians voyage to Antarctica
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Who would have ever believed that Agus Supangat, a diminutive man from Solo in Surakarta, Central Java, would someday be the first Indonesian to set foot on the Antarctic continent?
Certainly not his parents. "They would never have imagined it," the 44-year-old Agus said with a laugh. "My parents were batik traders in Solo it would be unthinkable for them."
But the unthinkable has happened.
On Feb. 13, 2002, the oceanographer from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), along with marine biologist Muhammad Lukman from the University of Hasanuddin, South Sulawesi, have become the first Indonesian scientists to set foot on the world's southernmost continent, Antarctica.
They were invited for a summer research expedition by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) to join the seventh voyage this 2001-02 season to the continent on the icebreaker ship Aurora Australis.
Embarking from Hobart, Tasmania, towards the Davis Station on Jan. 22, the two tropical men spent 23 days at sea, and had their first taste of the notorious Southern Ocean.
The journey to Antarctica is quite hard on the uninitiated: many people become violently seasick until they reach the first pack of ice, which dampens the ocean waves.
Even Agus's extensive ocean-going experience little prepared him for the rough ocean between Tasmania and Antarctica, and he admitted to having dizzy spells and vomiting.
"I know that it would be open sea, different from the tamer seas between the islands, and I imagined that the waves would be a lot higher -- but I was surprised to discover that they only rose to 17 meters," Agus said, recounting his Jan. 31 experience during a major storm.
He added that it was difficult to get decent sleep on the ship because his cot was tied to the floor, and therefore moved according to the ship's movements.
"You can imagine how the high waves affected the ship's movements, it the ship swayed left to right -- but also front to back. It was difficult" to sleep that night, Agus said, adding that, during storms, everything on the ship was latched down.
Routine drills to prepare in case of fire or a sinking were conducted every two weeks.
"We never knew when, but anytime the siren went off, we had to jump into our protective clothing," he said.
The protective clothing wore like a second-skin, and protected the wearer against the ocean water, in which temperatures reached minus 1.8 degrees Celsius -- the freezing point.
Agus's research task, taking daily water samples, let him have most of the day enjoying the sights, including watching the whales, and sea birds such as albatrosses and petrels.
The first sign of Antarctica, he said, was marked by the sightings of icebergs, and a lightning in the sky -- or "iceblinks" -- caused by the light reflected from sea ice over the horizon.
"Icebergs are just so beautiful, so amazing -- not just white, sometimes they are green, sometimes brownish, and bluish," Agus said. "So beautiful."
On Feb. 13, Agus and Lukman were picked up by helicopter, and taken one of Australia's research centers on Antarctica, Davis Station.
Davis is located 2,250 nautical miles south-by-southwest of Perth, Western Australia, at 68 degrees, 35 minutes South, 77 degrees 58 minutes East, on the Ingrid Christensen Coast of Princess Elizabeth Land.
The station is situated on the edge of the Vestfold Hills on the eastern side of Prydz Bay. It is bounded by the Sfrsdal Glacier in the south by the steep, ice-covered slopes leading to the continental plateau in the east, and by sea to the northwest.
The Vestfold Hills is an ice-free area of about 400 square kilometers. It is bare, low-lying hilly country, deeply indented by sea-inlets, studded with lakes and tarns of varying salinity.
Numerous islands fringe the coast out to five kilometers.
It is the largest coastal ice-free area, and has the greatest variety and number of lakes in the Antarctic.
As soon as the team landed on Davis, a small, flag-hoisting ceremony was conducted and -- for the first time in history -- the red-and-white flag of the Republic of Indonesia was raised above Antarctica.
"I was very, very moved. It was an emotional moment for me ... imagine being the first Indonesian on the continent," Agus said,
A plaque from President Megawati Soekarnoputri was also presented to the leader at Davis as a symbol of Indonesian- Australian cooperation and friendship.
The station on Davis is as modern as can be. "it's just like being in a hotel," Agus observed.
Food and drink abound, especially because it was the summer season -- a time in which the station stocks food for the coming winter.
"Anything you want you can get -- you want meat, what kind of meat? The cooks apparently have been to Indonesia, and I was surprised when they asked if I thought their dishes were "enak (good)" Agus recalled.
Being a Muslim, Agus had to watch what was being served, but since many on the ship were vegetarians themselves, it was easy for him to avoid non-halal foods.
"We arrived at about seven o'clock in the evening ... it was still light then ... it gets darker at around 10, by then it's like maghrib here," he said.
On the Antarctic coast, where the station is located, there are usually a couple of weeks in mid-winter (mid to late June) when the sun does not rise, and a few weeks in the summer, around Christmas, when there is 24 hours sunlight.
But there is no time difference between Davis and Jakarta, and Agus and Lukman could sleep according to their usual schedules back home.
"But I only sleep when tired, I did not come all the way to Antarctica to sleep. Besides, we usually wait for the dark to watch the aurora appear," Agus said.
The aurora australis (called aurora borealis in the northern skies) is caused by the interaction of the sun's solar wind with the Earth's magnetic field, sending charged particles down into the Earth's upper atmosphere.
The colors produced depend on the type of atom, or molecule, struck by the charged particles. High-altitude oxygen is the source of rare, all-red auroras.
Oxygen at lower altitudes produces a brilliant yellow-green, the brightest and most common auroral color, nitrogen molecules produce blue light or reddish light, as well as the purple borders, and rippled edges sometimes seen.
"It wasn't as cold as I thought, maybe because it was summer, but it was only about minus 5 degrees Celsius when we were there, and I could handle it fine," said Agus. He remembered growing accustomed to the chilly winters of France, when he lived there to study for his masters and doctoral degrees.
Temperatures at Davis, as in the rest of Antarctica, vary little between day and night -- but substantially between seasons. The warmest month, January, has an average temperature of 1 degrees, while winter temperatures are usually below minus 20 degrees.
"It's the winds that I can't stand -- they are very strong, and can take your ears off," he said.
The Indonesian team set out for the far warmer climes of home on March 8 with the promise that, next year, another team with three of their countrymen would return to Antarctica.