16 October
Stacy Writing

Unlike the horrifying driver training videos that 16 year olds suffer through in the US, our driver training was very hands on.  First, we met with Toby, who instructed us on the skills needed to start a snowmobile, fix very minor problems, and then let us pick out our helmets.  Required helmets are new this year and there was much discussion over whether the full face, or the half helmet was better.  We were divided about evenly and we’ll see who ends up happier.  I of course selected the full face because I like to be warm and I am not very bothered by claustrophobia.  Then we all piled into a truck and headed out to the sea ice, where we each got our own snowmobiles, started them up (some were not so easy to start in the cold) and drove around after Toby like little sno-mo ducklings, following him around cones, over whoop-de-doos, and through a variety of obstacles to make sure we had listened and were able to translate the words into actions.

Toby shows us how to make minor repairs on the snowmobile engines.

I chose the full face helmet because I think it will be warmer.

DJ, Marco and Bob modeling some of the helmet choices.

Then we had our small engine training, where Rick showed us how to use generators, Jiffy drills, and Hotsies.  The generators we will be using to power SCINI and all the computers that we need to communicate with her, the Jiffy drills will be used to make the holes in the sea ice for the ROV and for the navigations system, and the Hotsy is a hole melter (modified from a pressure washer) that we will use if things go really wrong and we need to melt out something that has gotten stuck in the ice.  Rick then sent us on our way with a video on how to operate a chainsaw safely, but since we will be cutting ice and not trees, not a lot of the information in the video was very relevant.

Rick demonstrates how to feed and care for a 1 kW generator. Look at the stock of them in the rack behind him!

DJ demonstrates how much he likes Jiffy drills. We’ll see if that lasts after he has drilled 50 or so holes.

After lunch we had our Pisten-Bully training.  The PB is a tracked vehicle that we will be converting into a mobile control center for operating the ROV.  It is not much like a car except it does have an accelerator pedal (but no brake).  We also watched a video on the modifications to trucks that we will be driving – some have had the wheels replaced with small triangular tracks (called Mattracks) and all have a special emergency brake called a Mico brake.  With all of this information, we are now set to drive ourselves around station and to our work sites on the sea ice.

The track on our Pisten Bully. Driving it feels like a cross between being in a tank and an aquarium, because the track ride is very rough but the front windows are very large.

We are getting pretty tired of trainings although we know it is all necessary and very useful.  But Bob and I had a little break this afternoon, because we did not need the practical part of the Pisten Bully training as we drove them just last year.  We took advantage of this time to talk to Dr. Randy Davis, who studies Weddell seals down here in Antarctica.  Randy showed us some amazing footage taken with “critter-cams” – cameras attached to the heads of diving seals.  We were able to watch natural foraging behavior and were amazed at how good the seals were at picking out fish from the complex benthic communities.  We were especially excited to see a seal stick his head inside a large volcano sponge, looking for fish that hide there, and to see a seal eating an octopus.  Randy also gave us some really good information on the locations of cracks that we may be able to dive SCINI through later on when we start our helicopter based work.

This fish hiding inside the volcano sponge is not safe from foraging Weddell seals.

Be like a seal and eat something interesting today!
Smiles, Stacy