It is Sunday and we are all working to try and make up for the time we lost due to the bad weather. I actually enjoyed the snow and wind but that might be because I grew up in Tennessee and snow falling was a special occasion. However, it can look pretty scary at [...]
29 November 2008
Stacy Writing
Everything revolves around work here, even the holidays. So Thanksgiving is celebrated on Saturday, today, and it is one of the two – two day weekends that happens all season. We planned it as a day of relaxation, with a nice scuba dive at a new site that a film crew has [...]
Two days ago, I asked Bob if he thought it was likely that the helicopter flights would be canceled. His answer was: anything can happen, this is Antarctica. The weather had been so beautiful for the last couple of weeks, I just took it for granted and thought it was going to last forever. Well, [...]
Happy Thanksgiving! It feels good to be wearing cotton again, and I’m humming “Winter Wonderland”. What’s going on? Our helicopter flight for today was cancelled due to the bad visibility, so we decided to call it a day off and work on Sunday this weekend instead. The “normal” Thanksgiving around here is a two day [...]
Today I get to go to Heald Island again. It is this amazingly beautiful place that very few, if any, people have seen before. The idea that we might be the first to ever visit this place is almost incomprehensible. How many people can say they were the first ever to see a place? [...]
25 November 2008
Stacy Writing
We made several bets about today’s ROV mission. First, we bet on how thick the fresh water layer on top of the ocean was – when we did our reconnaissance of Heald Island, we encountered fresh water when we got through the ice, though we are 99% sure we are over the [...]
Busy day.
Very stressful preparation in the morning.
Drove to Cape Evans (2 hours in tucker).
Deployed SCINI on other side of iceberg.
Battery died in transponder so lost navigation.
Changed battery, redeployed SCINI.
Got the science done for Stacy.
Walked around the iceberg a couple times, beautiful afternoon, no wind.
Tucker broke down on way back. DJ and Bob had snowmobiles and [...]
About half an hour from my house back in California there’s Castle Rock State Park, named for a big sandstone formation which is popular with rock climbers. I’ve hiked there a lot and even built and helped to plan trails for the park. It’s a large park in the Santa Cruz mountains, with enormous [...]
I stopped this morning and realized that I had been in Antarctica for two weeks. It seems like just yesterday that I was flying into New Zealand and starting this amazing adventure. I still have almost four weeks here but I know that the time will fly by. I want to make sure to [...]
21 November 2008
Stacy writing
Today we had an Expedition with a capital E. All seven of us, plus volunteer Joe, headed out for a science assault on one of the icebergs at Cape Evans. We were such a large group that we took 3 snowmobiles as well as our Pisten Bully and trailer. We also needed [...]