Flagging

"Use of a vehicle in Antarctica will be strictly for business purposes in support of the mission of the National Science Foundation" -paraphrased from the U.S. Antarctic Program's participant guide

Needless to say it's not easy to get a trip off station without a ride. The hiking trail system is the best on the continent but the only way to get far out onto the sea ice near the wildlife where you can get a true sense of the emptiness down here is to get lucky and go on some sort of "work trip."

I got lucky on Saturday and got to spend a day putting up flags to help scientists find their way home in storms. The flag poles are made out of bamboo so they will biodegrade if the wind breaks them appart or if the ice melts out from under them before they can be retrieved.

We started off the day loading up a Ford pickup that had tracks instead of wheels. Every 150 feet along our route one of us would drill a hole a couple of feet deep into the ice, place a flag into it and pack the snow around the flagpole.

The drill we were using had a chainsaw engine and a three foot long auger bit. A second bit could be added to the end to in order to drill through the sea ice and check its thickness. (there was ocean about 5 feet under our feet for the whole day)

The drill did a good job for most of the day until the starter cord froze and broke. After that I was nominated to use the old-school hand drill and find out just how tough sea ice can be. The ice is dense enough in some places that all of the air bubbles are forced out and it has a very deep blue color.

Flagging was a good change from work but the best part of the trip was getting a chance to experience the vastness of the ice. The sky was white and the snow-covered sea ice was white. At one point I could look in any direction and only see white. When the clouds lifted the sky was still overcast but I could see glaciers rising out of the sea miles away.

It's easy to go overboard when describing nature but there is no way to capture what it felt like to see so much white punctuated by sheer black volcanic cliffs. I did post a couple more pictures on my website to give you an idea.

One of the routes we flagged was to a place in near an island where seals spend time on the surface. The ice pushes up against the rock forming "pressure rigdes" or mountains of ice. As the pressure ridges rise gaps form in the ice where seals can chew their way through.

The seals looked big and lazy but they are protected from "harrassment" by international treaty so we kept our distance.

The day was a truly awesome change of pace. Lots of people who come to McMurdo never make it out of town so I am feeling quite blessed to have seen what few humans have, or ever will, see.

Keep Warm

Frustration

I just hit the wrong button while trying to spell check a very nice detailed post of how things are going down here. Which means, of course, that the post is entirely gone. (Thank you very much public computer that only runs Internet Explorer)

I went to a travel lecture tonight given by someone who spent their time off the ice in Tibet. She had great pictures and it was something to do on a Monday evening. Attending the lecture followed by an hour of fruitless typing means it has gotten late here so I don't have time to re-create what I just lost.

In the meantime you're going to have to amuse yourself with a picture I took around station a while back that reminds me of home.

Can anybody tell me what year this Deere was built?

Woopie Pickle OR International Talk Like a Pirate Day

In honor of ITLAPD (Sept. 19th) I've decided to post a photo of a vehicle sporting a Jolly Roger from yesterday.

This is one of the U.S. Army M4k forklifts known on station as a "Pickle." I got trained in operating the Vietnam-era piece of equipment last Friday and spent a good chunk of the morning moving heavy things around.
Pickles are perfect for our supply operations here because they can move over snow with their relatively big tires but bend in the middle so they can fit into tiny spaces: like the shipping containers everything comes in down here.

The last functioning Pickles in the world were brought to station around the time I was born so they need to be baybied to stay alive. This means each has its own personality and name.

Since the CASE company brought them into existence, most of the pickle names involve the word case. "BASKET CASE" and "HEAD CASE" are a couple of examples. The one in the picture is called "Que Sera Sera." I can only guess at what it did to get the name but the old Doris Day song was stuck in my head the entire time I was driving it.

Another entertaining fact is that these things don't have much of a muffler on the 30+ year old diesel engine so they are LOUD! The heat inside doesn't work either so I had to keep the hood to big red up to ward off the -20F temperature. The only option to protect my hearing was to put the ear protectors over my hood. I was warm but I felt like Mickey Mouse.

Look Closely at ye picture me harties. Ye will see the mark of Piracy upon her. Yar!

P.S. I e-mailed the guys who started ITLAPD to tell them it was being observed here in Antarctica. Apparently a few Polies were also celebrating down at the South Pole too!

Picture(s) of the Day

Nice to know the scientists down here still have a sense of humor. I saw this on a tour of the lab building yesterday.

The laser helps scientists learn about Ozone depletion. On clear days it shoots 30+ miles up into the air to try and hit ice particles in the upper atmosphere. When it hits ice particles some of the laser beam bounces back and is collected in a telescope. The more laser that comes back the more ice is in the upper atmosphere. The ice clouds are important because they provide a place for ozone-depleting chemicals to react with the ozone. More ice clouds in theory means more ozone depletion.

So far the sun has been low enough behind the hills and I'm wearing enough clothes not to have to worry about wearing sunscreen. Give it another week, though and I'm going to be slathering it on my cheeks.

I spent Saturday evening over at Scott Base. (which is full of Kiwis, not Scotts) Our friends from New Zealand were hosting a "P" party where everyone supposedly showed up in a costume of something that began with the letter P. There were a couple of penguins, pirates, priests and princesses. My personal favorites were the Pringles can and the panda using earmuffs high on the head as ears. The most original was probably "partly cloudy with a chance of showers" who had cotton balls attached to a blue shirt and a spray bottle. Biggest cop-out was the "procrastinator" who showed up late without a costume. I used my leather-patch elbow sweater, reading glasses, and large brandy glass to be a professor.

The weather just went to condition 2 again which suspends travel off-station. The powerplant is only a couple minute walk down the hill here so I won't be getting any time off because of the condition 2; it will just give me a bit more adrenaline knowing the weather is quantitatively bad. It was condition 2 most of yesterday too which kept me from feeling guilty spending most of the morning in bed and the rest of the day watching a movie and reading.

I finished reading "Dune" so I decided to check the movie out of the film library. I can't say I liked the movie all that much but I should have expected strangeness since it was done by creepy-confusing director David Lynch and it was the beginning (and end?) of Sting's acting carreer. Sadly even Patrick Stewart could not save the over-the-top campy portrayal of a book which is quite subtle.

Back off to work. This afternoon's task is figuring out where all the heat recovery pipes in the new 16-cylinder generators go. Wish me luck.

My face went bald

Today was respirator training day. No big deal except I had to show up to work clean shaven. Since I was shaving my beard off I decided to go for a haircut too and I’ve been getting shocked looks all day. (My boss didn’t even recognize me when I saw him in the hall)

It took a long time for all of us in the class to have our respirators checked which involved “breathing normally” while we had smoke that induces coughing blown in our faces. The theory is that we won’t cough if there is a good seal on the respirator.

Getting out of work late means I didn’t have time to make it to the gym before bowling. The navy built a bowling alley back in the day and it has one of the last functioning manual pin-setting devices in the world. The company that made the pin-setter has offered to buy this one off us and replace it with a state of the art system but everyone here wants to keep the old one. It may be the socks that the pin setting people get to wear while they are working.

Yesterday I got out on a hike to try and see the Southern Lights. The sky was clear and there was an awesome view of the stars but no aurora. Hopefully there will be another chance before the sun is up all night. There is still orange visible from sunset at 9:30pm.

Work is going well. I’m working on a control panel under a heating vent so this week I have the warmest job on station. I’m also getting trained to drive one of the forklifts on Friday which should be fun.

In other news I put my super Antarctic sunglasses on for the first time yesterday because it was so bright. Summer is definately on it's way.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

This Wednesday was the first meeting of the McMurdo Biggest Loser Club. The name is based on the TV show of the same name. Essentially the person who loses the biggest percentage of their body weight wins a prize which down here will be nearly $1000. I'm not competing but have started working out more.

The food here is similar to Olin's dining hall: for the most part it's good but they find ways to put fat and calories into things that shouldn't have them. The desserts are also quite good. The average person working outside will burn 30% more calories than someone in the States because the body has to work harder to stay warm.

A lot of the station, however, does not work outside. For them the high calorie meals mean weight gain. The guy running the club has four more inches on his waist and 50 more pounds on him than when he started coming down. The club is his way of making sure he will stay health conscious and lose weight over the season.

So you may be wondering: "Isn't Adam working outside shoveling snow? Shouldn't he be getting plenty of exercise?" Well it turns out one of the electricians at work (who is also from VT) found out about my degree and robotics experience so he has me installing digital controls in the new power plant. This has gotten me inside more which is more comfortable and interesting but it also means I'm getting less exercise at work. This week I started working out in the gerbil gym each night.

It's Sunday now which means it's the day off for most of us on station. I took advantage of being able to sleep in today before Sunday Brunch. I'm probably not going to hike today since the weather was bad last night and isn't looking great right now. So I'll probably hang around and read before heading to the library to volunteer tonight.

The library here is a sizable 50'X75' room with a big collection of Antarctic books. There is a shelf of rare Antarctic books, some of them first edition publications written by the early 20th century explorers themselves. The library is in the process of filing the non-fiction books on the Dewey Decimal System and there is a big collection of fiction books for pleasure reading along with a couple of shelves of travel books to help people decide where they will go after their time on the ice. The 10'X10' entryway to the library also has its walls lined by shelves filled with paperbacks. It has a good collection of comfortable furniture and fake plants which make it a cozy place to read.

Thanks for all the comments and e-mails that have been coming my way. I'm glad to hear people are having fun reading this. I'm not going to post my e-mail address here because it's too easy for computers to pick it up and start sending SPAM but if you do want to hear more about something specific you can click on "comments" at the bottom of this post and leave a post anonymously. (though I do prefer if you at lest sign with a first name)

New Pic

Quick note before I head back to Saturday afternoon at the power plant:

There is a new picture up in the Antarctica section on my website.

The view I see every clear day on my way to work.

Dude, it's like snowing and crap!

It snowed last night. Which apparently doesn't happen much here.

The snow was definitely different on the ground as I walked to work today. Normally it is a hard Styrofoam like substance that is easier to break into pieces and throw than it is to shovel. Today the snow was soft underfoot and felt like, well, snow.

Most of my morning was taken up with a scaffolding training classroom session. In about 15 minutes I have a "practical" test that will make me a "competent" person in the eyes of OSHA and Raytheon to handle scaffolding. (OSHA doesn't officially have jurisdiction over Antarctica but the National Science Foundation tells Raytheon it has to follow OSHA rules if it wants to get paid)

I'm getting into the routine here. Every once in a while someone learns I have an engineering degree and asks me a question along the lines of "so why are you a General Assistant?" My boss (who previously worked on nuclear submarines) is planning to go back to school for engineering when he gets off the ice so I guess I'm a little over-qualified.

Then again over-qualification seems to be the norm for most of the first-season people down here. The electrician apprentice working on my project has a masters degree in sculpture and the head of the dining assistants has her degree in English Literature.

There's a film maker down here shooting a documentary on scientists on the ice. She would probably have a more interesting film if she focused on the other people down here. (we do outnumber the "beakers" by over 25:1 right now)

Pictures!

The higher-ups in Denver have a four day weekend for Labor day but for those of us on the ice Sunday is our only day off. (I can see why people in Denver might get the impression some people on the ice are bitter or unappreciative with them)

After sleeping in until 10 I had Sunday brunch and got ready to hike Observation hill to get a better view of McMurdo and the surrounding land. Ambient air temperature is -27F and there was a 30+ knot wind at the top of the hill so the cold sapped the power from my camera batteries almost as soon as I pulled it out of my parka.

The pictures I did get are posted on my website along with one of the pictures from arrival. Hopefully I'll have a little more time tonight to pop more pics up.

SUN!

The sun came out today!

I was told to prepare for being blinded with light when I got to Antarctica but until today all I had seen was the gray, overcast late winter sky. Today was perfectly clear and while I wasn't in the right place at the right time to see the actual sun today there was a great pink sky around sunrise and sunset.

Lots of odd tasks today to keep me busy. A 6-foot tall ventilation hood got misplaced in one of the orange shipping containers that seem to be everywhere on station. It got narrowed down to a row of about 20 or so but there was a lot of shoveling to get the doors opened and look inside each of them. From there I got sent up to "the pass" to bolt some covers onto the openings of a couple of large heat exchangers in storage for the new powerplant.

"The Pass" is between two 1000' tall hills and has a road running along its base. It is between the American and New Zealand Antarctic bases and on the American side it has been widened so cargo containers can be stored there. Needless to say the wind can get moving quickly through the pass. I got back from working up there for about an hour to hear the windchill had hit -80 which is probably the coldest I have ever worked in. I was surprized I didn't feel colder but my government issue big red parka (known on station as "big red") seemed to keep me warm.

The most surprizing thing was seeing how fast my goggles froze up. They were good for the first 10 minutes or so but then I saw an ice crystal in front of my eye and within a minute they were opaque. I'm also wishing my thick work gloves had a little more dexterity in the fingers since had to take them off from time to time and could see the hairs on the back of my hand white with ice before I put them back on.

I may be crazy but for some reason I love the cold, especially the feeling I get once I come back in from it and realize how cold it really was. One electrician down here was working outside on the runway lights today and said his electrical tape would shatter if he tried to cut off a piece. He had a huge grin on his face while he was talking about it and mentioned while he could be comfortably back in the States he loves all the little adventures that happen while he's down here.

Maybe that's part of it... For now I'm going to get some hot chocolate, read a bit and call it an early night. Work will be starting up tomorrow (Saturday) at 7:30 like it has since Monday. It's been a good week but a long week and I'll be glad to get my day off on Sunday.