Journal Entries

As this is my first time blogging, I've been having fun experimenting with different ways of sharing this incredible experience with you all.  On that subject, I've now added a Q&A page.  If you have any questions about what life is like here, our research, or anything else, feel free to post and I'll try to answer as soon as possible.  Since I have left you all hanging the last few days, I'll try catching you up in a more journal-like play-by-play manner.  Note that I am going to use days of the week (and not actual dates) for the following reasons:
1) I've realized calendars and dates are a completely man-made concept.
2) I now have blog readers from all 7 continents.
3) The time difference to VT gets quite confusing... Football Mondays, wtf?
4) It never gets dark here anymore so it is hard to tell when days actually end.

Wednesday

Drilling a sea ice core

Recording temperature profile of core

Today we helicoptered to both of our sites to collect samples.  Since we have been having the Antarctic equivalent of Florida weather (Sunny, no wind, with a high of 5 degrees F), our baskets were empty.  However, we had yet to take a sea ice core from our Iceberg site, so that was the plan for the afternoon.  McMurdo has a "Morale Trip" system where we as scientists can take out volunteers from the station so they can get out and lend a hand, learn some science, and enjoy the incredible scenery.  Today, we took our first volunteer, Michael, who was eager to lend a hand as we drilled our core.  Since the ice is over 3 ft thick, we have to drill in 2 sections.  Michael helped with the 1st half, but then we told him he could join the pilots on a walk around the Iceberg to appreciate the beauty as Rachel and I did the 2nd half.... and then DISASTER struck!  The bottom of the core was quite slushy, and it started going in at a slight angle.  However, it was enough such that we were unable to pull the core barrel out of the hole.  oops.  We tried the drill, but no such luck (the drill doesn't spin in reverse).  We tried by hand (even adding extended lever arms).  We even tried lying down and leg pressing it out (after hearing friends use that technique in Greenland).  No dice.  After hacking with ice-axes for an hour, we had to admit defeat for the day.  Nothing quite like calling McMurdo on the radio (with all the big bosses listening), "MacOps, MacOps, this is Project O-263.  Yes, thanks for the fancy ice corer, but it's kinda stuck in the ice right now.  We know environmental regulations don't even allow leaving bread crumbs or pee on the sea ice, but hopefully penguins like ice corers? Over."

Thursday
Today we were forced (self-imposed) to sit in time-out in our lab and not fly on the helos.  I spent the day playing with GIS making pretty maps of our field sites and proposed drilling sites.  Due to budget cuts, there are only 3 computers on station that have Arcmap: one for the surveyors, one for the field safety crew, and one for public use that runs about as quickly as a scientist wearing his ECW and bunny boots.  It had been awhile since I played with Arcmap so I probably spent 3 times longer than necessary, but at least the maps eventually came out pretty.  We celebrated the small successes in life by heading over to Scott Base to have a welcome dinner with our German/Kiwi colleagues (Johannes and Udo recently arrived to join Tim and Denis). 

Friday
We recovered the corer stuck in the ice!  And by "we," I mean one of the gear guys who came along and spent 3 hours hacking out a hole around the corer 3 feet deep while Rachel and I drilled a new core.  Thanks Solomon (who turned out to be a friend of Lilly Corenthal... small world).  Good day in the field.

Intrepid Antarctic explorers checking out an iceberg

Cracks in the ice

Saturday
Today I planned to sleep in.  However, at 8:30 I awoke to a phone call from Rachel, letting me know that we were leaving in 1 hr for Cape Evans (12 miles away) with Lars, Tom, Tim, Denis, and Johannes (Udo, or maybe his instrument, was misbehaving so we left him to fix it by himself).  Quickly I rushed through the 30-min process of dressing oneself, threw together my person bag, and ran out to gather our scientific equipment and survival gear.  Mode of transportation would be a piston bully (PB), the standard for short journeys over sea ice with lots of gear.  A PB makes a sloth seem fast, and thus we expected to arrive at the BrO monitoring site 2 hours later.  After some packing delays and realizing we needed to refuel the PB, we pulled out of McMurdo around 10:45.  After a "speedy" 15 minutes (traveling maybe 2 miles), we notice our PB was struggling (even beyond its normal standard), so we returned back home to bring it to the shop.  Sweet, lunch time and nothing accomplished as of yet.  Thankfully, we were able to track down another PB from some friends and actually left McMurdo close to 1pm.  After arriving around 3pm, the German Zealanders went to work on their instruments while Rachel and I started coring and taking snow samples.  Turns out our corer didn't enjoy the bumpy ride on the PB and the top cap (with all of its tiny screws) had come apart.  Nothing quite like making mechanical repairs with tiny screws and small metal parts in the cold.  Nevertheless, we persevered and retrieved a beautiful core.  After a little bit of time to take in the sites (rrrr..... NO PENGUINS!  We saw tons of tracks and guano since this is one of their favorite sites, but they seem to hide from us), we returned just in time for the end of dinner (Saturday night you are allowed to take wine to dinner, so you don't want to miss out).

Sunday

Diana and I enjoying cross-country skiing in Antarctica

Black flags mark crevasses... watch out

Sundays are the day of "rest" at McMurdo since it is the only day off for most of the crew.  A few people kick back with a bottle of wine and enjoy a movie.  However, this is McMurdo and very few people are normal.  Thus, despite subzero temps, unheard of windchills, and lots of ice, people generally go out and play (provided the weather is Con-1).  I was easily convinced (plus, we are having ridiculously nice weather as mentioned above) to join a ski-trip leaving at 7:30 am in order to make it back in time for Sunday brunch.  The plan was to skate-ski the Castle Rock loop, the longest recreation trail.  Turns out that since I had been skate-skiing once (Thanks, Meira!), I was the 2nd most experienced person in the group, and 2 of the 5 of us had never been on any type of skis before (notice how this doesn't stop anyone from joining a 5 hour ski trip).  After a valiant effort and a broken pole (replaced by a bamboo flag), the 2 newbies decided walking was faster, but were still able to complete the loop with us.  Most of the trail is relatively flat.  However, the 2nd half of the trail was a little sketchy since it involved some serious descents on icy terrain (Antarctic is a desert and has very little snow).  Rachel actually found it better to sit down and slide on her skis.  They kindly mark any known crevasses near the trail with black flags, but you can't see them because they are covered in thin layers of snow.  Heading down steep slopes on flimsy cross-country skis with no metal edges with black flags around is quite the experience.  The map of the trail even indicates where people have died (as a reminder not to venture off the red flagged routes).  Thankfully, we made it back 5 minutes before the end of brunch, where we scarfed an incredible feast.  I then played a little volleyball for an hour or two before crashing early to wake up in time for Monday's scheduled helo trip.