Today was another exciting day. Bob, Stacy, Scott and I flew to Heald island at the usual 8:30. The weather was really nice there, no wind, mostly sunny and temperature near -5 degrees. We hooked up the SCINI system in record timing. Just when we put SCINI in the water, we had a couple of problems, first communicating with SCINI and then with the navigation system. We only lost about a half hour fixing these problems. We started the dive by doing video transects in mid water: 50 meters, 100m, 150m, and 5m above the seafloor. These all went very smoothly. We also took some still pictures of the seafloor. Doing the video transects on the seafloor was much more difficult. The seafloor is made of very fine sediment which makes big clouds as soon as SCINI come too close to it.  We managed to get some descent transects even so. We recovered SCINI early in the afternoon, but had trouble getting it out of the hole. The tether got stuck in the crack, and only with the help of a long bamboo stick were we able get it free.

After this long mission, it was time for a little break. In the last few days, I had been working on making the current meter hole larger so it wouldn’t freeze over. This hole had become almost as big as a scuba dive hole. Definitely big enough for a person to jump in. So Scott, Stacy and I went for a quick swim.

After this refreshing break, we deployed SCINI again, and did more video transects at the sea floor.The helicopter showed up an hour early so the pilots hung out with us at the camp and even drove SCINI for a while.

We quickly packed up our gear and the helicopter took us back to McMurdo, via the continent north of Heald, for a bit of a scenic ride.

The rest of the day was used to prepare for the open house. Good night.

The southernmost free dive ever?

Bob made some great rice and beans.

The Royal Society range, seen from the helicopter on the way home

Friday was my day to work in town while the others went to Cape Evans to continue the work under the icebergs there.  During breakfast, though, Stacy was offered some helicopter time – there had been a cancellation and now there was room in the schedule for a trip to Heald.  Of course the team took it, knowing that a little bad weather could prevent us from getting out there anytime soon.  Our work at Evans could go on even in slightly bad weather.  Folks sprang into action, quickly packing for the flight, and they were soon on their way.

I took advantage of the day in town to take care of some chores.  Checking at the post office for mail, doing laundry, dropping off the usage log for the Pisten Bully at MEC, and running over to the Scott Base store to do a little Christmas shopping.  I blew it on that last task.  I walked over expecting the store to be open, but arrived 5 minutes after they closed.  I had misread the schedule, and they weren’t going to open for another two hours.  With a few more tasks on my plate, I walked back and planned to get back to Scott Base via the shuttle after getting some more things done at the lab.  The shuttle worked out perfectly later in the day and saved me from another 4-mile round-trip walk.  Good to get the exercise, but the freezing wind made it enough of an adventure for  just one trip.

I finally started reading some of the posters describing previous research here at Crary Lab.  One of the first that I read indicated that extended Antarctic stays (10 months or longer) can cause an increase in serum thyrotropin.  This can lead to memory problems, with a mean memory decline of over 13 percent, based on some test.  Hmmm, maybe that’s my excuse for forgetting the Scott Base store hours.  I haven’t been here very long, but maybe it’s enough for the effects to show.  It would be interesting to know what other studies have been done on humans here in Antarctica (or climates where there is uninterrupted sunlight (or darkness), but I couldn’t find any other posters based on research into human behavior.

I also learned that Emperor Penguins regularly dive as deep as 500 meters and can be underwater as long as 27 minutes.  Their heartrates slow down to 6 beats per minute, which conserves oxygen.  Very impressive.  Another poster described research into microbial life at Blood Falls, where they believe water has been trapped under a glacier for roughly 5 million years.  I also learned about Antarctic Toothfish, which produce an anti-freeze glycoprotein, preventing ice crystals from growing and piercing or rupturing their blood cells.  Lots of cool research is going on around here.

An example poster from around the lab. Oh! It just happens to be for our project, oddly enough.

The lab also displays a collection of artifacts from some of the research done here:

A Crabeater Seal skull - they eat krill, not crabs, and their teeth are shaped to filter the krill

Fossilized wood and leaves show that larger plants used to grow in Antarctica long ago

The team had a very productive day out at Heald Island.  They finished the science at the current dive hole and moved the camp to the next, and final, dive hole.  It sounded like a lot of work to move the camp almost half a mile over the ice.  Since the tent had been so much work to erect, they hauled it completely assembled and tied it down at its new site.

Bob uses the table to help haul some of the camp contents

Cameo and Stacy haul the tent

Finally, as the day drew to a close, Ken, one of our very helpful volunteers, looked through the bazillions of pictures that SCINI has taken during our science dives.   He even wore one of the punishment hats while doing it so he could feel like part of the team.

Ken browses through the SCINI images for some highlights to show at our open house this weekend

Today we decided to take a break from going to Heald Island. It is incredible at Heald Island but the days are very long and the work is especially hard. I keep reminding myself that in a few weeks I won’t be able to work in such an awesome place. It is hard to believe that I have been here for over a month. I could easily stay for several more months.

Now don’t think that this means that we had a day off. We have only a set number of days left in Antarctica and we have a lot of work that we need to complete. We decided to go to Cape Evans and check out a new iceberg. It took most of the morning to get things ready and by 10:30am we were ready to go. We packed up the Pisten Bully and made sure to get lunches from the galley.

The first stop was the jetty to pick up the trailer. Then we were off to Cape Evans. As we went down the road we saw a seal resting on the snow. It was only about 4 feet from the road. After about 15 minutes we realized that we had forgotten to get the tether. We turned around and headed back to the lab. Of course, it was sitting right in the lab. That should tell you how tired everyone is.

Once again we were off to Cape Evans. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and the winds fairly calm. It took us almost an hour and a half to reach the site. Pulling the trailer really added time to our trip.

The new iceberg was on the opposite side of the road than the previous two icebergs. It was breathtaking. I took one look and said “It has a slide!”

The iceberg at Cape Evans. Do you see the slide?

We took out the drill and began drilling ice holes. The ice was about 6 feet thick and it was 285 feet to the bottom. We set up everything and then we launched SCINI. It went like clockwork.

While Scott and Stacy were manning the control center, I decided to eat some lunch and Francois went for a walk. After a few minutes I heard Francois on the radio asking if I had seen him slide. Sure enough, the iceberg was a perfect slide. I put down my sandwich and walked over to the iceberg. Francois climbed to the top and slid right down.

francois_sliding

It looked like so much fun that I couldn’t help myself. I proceeded to walk over to the iceberg and give it a try. On the way we discovered a crack that was about 8 inches wide. It had been totally covered with snow and you had to be paying attention to notice it.

Once we were at the iceberg I started to climb the slide. I was about two-thirds of the way when I slipped and went sliding down. I may have been on my belly but it was a blast! I got up and started up the slide again. I kept getting a little further up but I would always slip and go sliding down. On my eighth try I made it three-quarters of the way up before I slipped. I was exhausted and decided to try again later. Who knew fun could be so exhausting?

Francois and I headed back to the Pisten Bully and found another hidden crack. When we got back Francois took over as pilot. After about fifteen minutes, Stacy told me to come into the control center and see all of the cool things they were seeing. It was clear that Francois was having a great time piloting SCINI.

Francois really loves piloting SCINI.

It was amazing. The bottom was covered in life. My favorites were the large sponges.

Francois managed to maneuver SCINI to allow Stacy to take this awesome picture.

It was time for us to go. The navigation system had worked beautifully (way to go Marco!) and we had seen lots of wonderful things on the seafloor. There was just one thing left to do. Stacy and Francois had not had a chance to use the slide. I took video while Francois, Stacy, and Scott went sliding. Everyone had a great time. As we began walking back to the Pisten Bully, I was watching for cracks. Suddenly, I found myself stuck in snow.

That's me in the crevasse. I wasn't even scared.

Apparently, I had walked into a hidden crevasse. Stacy immediately offered to help me out. I said “Get a picture first.” After everyone had taken my picture and they helped me out, we looked into the hole. It went pretty deep.

The crevasse was at least several feet deep.

The others decided that they wanted to have their picture taken in the crevasse. Of course, there is more than one way to fall into a hole.

Stacy shows us another way to enter the hole.

It was an incredible day. All that was left was to drive back to the lab. As we were getting close to McMurdo Station, Francois suddenly stops the vehicle. Where there had been one seal, there were now two and a third was coming out of the hole.

We were lucky enough to get to watch this seal climb up out of the hole.

We all got out and took pictures. It was amazing how calm the seals were. We walked right up and took our pictures. It was also interesting to realize just how big these creatures are. They seem so graceful under the water but on land they scoot along and look quite cumbersome. However, they are still adorable.

A close-up of a seal.

We finally made it back to the lab and unloaded everything. At around 11:00pm we finally finished up everything in the lab and wandered over to the galley to eat the meals they had saved for us. Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for the food. I think the last really good meal I had was lunch on Monday. I would trade good meals for working with this team in Antarctica until all hours of the day without hesitation. I hope tomorrow is just as much fun.

3 December 2008

Stacy writing

Why was today atypical?  Because we got SO MUCH done! Once again our day started with a helicopter flight to our field site at Heald Island.  I have to say, a commute like this is very worthwhile.  First we turn in a flurry of buildings as we head away from McMurdo, then we are over sea ice in all the shades of white from clear to grey; it clears the mind to get away from the structures and see the shapes of wind and water.  Then we get to the Dirty Ice, where katabatic winds off the continent have strewn dirt and rocks on top of the ice, creating patterns in black and white that culminate in Bratina Island, a huge mound that is not attached to the seafloor, is just sitting on the sea ice.  Then we get into the mixture of refrozen melt ponds that show the blue glacier ice beneath, and finally, into the spectacular “architexture” of the barrancas.  We follow the tortuous line in the canyon of ice that leads to our tent and land.  Heavy gear is handed out and slipped and slid across the slick ice, we lie across our bags and boxes to stop them from blowing away in the brief storm of the helo taking off, and we are into our work day.

A helicopter-eye view of the sea ice.

And the dirty ice.

And finally, the ice shelf.

Today our base of operations starts in the Kiva tent.  This is also called a toilet tent, and it is not much protection but does offer a small amount of privacy.  For a single person.   But that use is not what we have in mind for it.  Following the wind-borne destruction of our Arctic Oven tent, the Kiva is what we had out here as an emergency shelter.  We set the computers (4 monitors) up on an equipment box and we sit on the floor of cold wet cardboard.  Wind blows in under the tent which has no floor, and we are enshrouded in a layer of black plastic to block out the light that unfortunately sags and crinkles around us.  Nevertheless, we get great science done!  Bob pilots us through beautiful transects in the midwater, assessing abundances of planktonic animals at different depths.  In the background we hear Scott muttering as Cameo and he attempt to set up the Endurance tent that we brought out today. Scott does not appreciate that the directions included do not accurately depict the tent they accompany, or even anything vaguely like it. Cameo takes charge and together they pry, prod, drill and tie a tent into place.  It is a magnificent structure, a 4 of us EASILY fit inside and you can even stand up in it!

Our Kiva base tent. How can all that gear fit inside?

The computers plus an extra monitor - is a tight fit.

After a lovely lunch of peanut butter and jelly on crackers, we move operations to our new base in the Endurance tent.  Ah, such luxury!  We sit on the equipment box and the computers are on a real table.  There is room to move without plastic folding around your head.  Scott pilots us though a great set of transects and photos at this new site.  It is ¼ mile away from the old site, and the animals look very similar, but there is a huge mound of sediment about 5 m high and the grains seem finer.  It is still amazing to me to see so much life almost 80 kms from the edge of the Ice Shelf.

Ah, spaciousness as we operate out of the Endurance tent.

Exhausted from focusing on the computer screens showing us the life 200 m below us, and trying to record it in the best detail, we finally have to conclude the dive and start packing up.  Everything has to be organized, boxed, and tied down in case another storm comes through.  We are getting better at this, but we cut it close and Scott is still winding up tether when the helo is calling that they are 5 minutes out.  A brief panic and we are ready, very ready to go home.  But when we arrive we still need to unload and back up data and ready things for the next morning!

Snug and safe, everything tied down in camp for the night. A small place in a large landscape.

I hope that your day doesn’t leave you too tired!

Yesterday, Stacy, Scott, Cameo and I flew to Heald Island at the usual time, 8:45. In the morning, Stacy and Cameo set up a new tent, while Scott and I worked on getting the SCINI system hooked up. We also took a CTD cast just before deploying SCINI. A CTD is an instrument which measures conductivity, depth and temperature. The CTD we have also measures oxygen concentration and pH. We lower it to the seafloor with a rope, and pull it back up. Usually this is done with an electric winch, but we do not have one, so we do it by hand. It’s easy lowering the CTD, but pulling it back up is very tiring. We make these measurements to help understand the oceanographic conditions of the area.

I also spent some time doing some maintenance work on SCINI: I replaced the propeller (I put a left hand propeller instead of the usual right hand propeller to help remove the loops in the tether), I screwed in the propeller nozzle, I replaced the diffuser for the light, and I adjusted the buoyancy.

Scott was the pilot for the first half of the dive. In the mean time, I went for a walk along the ridge of the Barranca. When I returned, Scott and Stacy had already finished doing the transects on the seafloor and were already doing transects in mid water. I took over the piloting but unfortunately, after a few mid water transects, SCINI stopped working.  We recovered it and after a few minutes of trouble shooting, Scott and I found that there was no connection between the tether and SCINI’s main housing. At first I thought it was due to a leaky aft thruster so I attempted to ‘operate’ SCINI on the field. But the water between the hull and the foam had frozen and kept me from taking SCINI apart. I could have heated some water to melt the ice but we didn’t have much time so I figured it would be much easier to fix SCINI in the lab after we returned to McMurdo.  Instead we packed all of our gear, which took at least and hour, and we went and drilled more holes in the ice for later deployments.

The weather was pretty good when we first arrived but after a while it became cloudy and really chilly. It is pretty hard working in the cold, but I think I have become accustomed to it. I don’t get cold as much, and if I do, I know how to handle it and warm up quickly.

The helicopter was supposed to pick us up around 10PM, but apparently the weather in McMurdo was really bad for a few hours, and helicopters couldn’t take off. When we called MacOps to find out what was happening, they told us the helo would be one or two hours late. Although we were exhausted from a long day working in the cold, we took this opportunity to take a hike and enjoy the wonderful evening light. The landscape at Heald Island is incredible, there are many features in the ice that are mysterious and beautiful.

Just before midnight, the helo finally came and took us back to McMurdo.  My work still was not over yet, I still had to fix SCINI so that we could use it the next day.  I took SCINI apart and opened the aft thruster, expecting it to be full of seawater, but I was not, it just looked perfectly normal, yet there was a faulty electrical connection. I further inspected the cable, and eventually found the problem. The cable had gotten pinched repeatedly and three of the four connectors ended up breaking inside their rubber jacket. All I had to do was swap this thruster with SCINI 2′s thruster, and it was ready to fly again.

We really got a lot done yesterday: we set up our camp, we took a CTD cast, we did several video transect on the sea floor and in midwater, we broke SCINI and fixed it, we took two hikes and overall had a great time. I was glad however that Stacy allowed us to come to the lab at 9am instead of 7:30am the next day, because I didn’t get to bed until 3AM !

Close up shot of a filled crack in the ice.

This valley meets the larger Barranca where we deploy SCINI.

Our rebuilt camp. The tent, which we use as a control room is tiny. The pilot and the scientist have to sit on the ground (there is no room for a navigator nor an engineer).

Here I am ready to put SCINI in the hole.

Around 10PM, the weather cleared up and we had a wonderful hike.

This is the 10000th picture I have taken with my camera which I have had for one year. I think the scenery was up to this great number.

There are many formations such as these cones, how they form is a mystery to me.

We were wondering if our camp was even going to be there when we returned on Monday. Bad weather had prevented us from flying out there on Thursday and Friday, and more bad weather had pounded the area on Saturday. As the helicopter approached our camp, we were anxiously looking out the windows.

Yay! Our tent is still there (just a little up and to the right of center - click to enlarge - it really is there)

Uh-oh, something doesn't look right

It turns out that Condition 1 weather is serious stuff. Almost all of the tent poles were bent in some way, while the tent walls had great tears across them.  We had set the tent up rather well, but since nobody had been around during the bad weather, we didn’t have a chance to monitor things and fix problems if they occurred. We now had a new door on the side of the tent – much more convenient than the old door for getting stuff out. We found tent poles about 100 meters away from the tent. Some ice screws that were tightly holding equipment down were now almost loose from the ice melting and/or being abraded by the wind.

Bob inspects the damage

One of the many bent poles

The wind tries its hand at tying knots

Somehow I think the repair kit (small ziplock at bottom) isn't up to the task

Lucky for us, though, all of our equipment survived in good condition, and SCINI was still sitting where we had left her. Amazing! It’s almost as if the last gust of the bad weather was what destroyed the tent. Bob managed to make a half tent out of what was left – cutting the shock cord in some of the poles and making new poles out of the unbent portions.

SCINI is alive! This is actually how we found it - pretty amazing

Bob makes a smaller tent

We managed to get work done after all this! We’re only down here for two more weeks, so every day is precious.  We drilled new navigation holes, which worked out much better than the previous dive. These holes were further away and we dropped the transducers deeper in the water. This seemed to help. It might also have been that we were able to drill a reasonable triangle, which helps the navigation software have enough information to determine our location underwater.

Camp as we finish packing up, getting ready for the helicopter

We had a lot of work to do at the end of the day, since the tent was coming back with us. I think it took about an hour and a half to pack everything up. Even with all the extra work today, we were happy that our equipment survived the storms and we were able to keep working away. May all your clouds have such silver linings!

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 times.

A winter wonderland that can quickly turn into a winter windstorm.

The weather today is really nice. The sun is in the sky, the wind is mild, and not a snowflake in sight.

A view to die for.

We all met at 7:30am for our regular team meeting. The primary objective today was to try and get SCINI 2 in working condition. Bob, Francois, and Scott each worked on trying to get SCINI 2 able to conduct research.

Could SCINI be any cuter?

Stacy and I had lots of work to be done on the computer. The morning was fairly quiet in the lab with everyone focused on completing their tasks.

In the afternoon we all took a break and went to the annual McMurdo Craft Show. I was amazed at how many different tables there were. I saw jewelry, including bracelets made from old cargo straps (mine will be delivered later this week), knitted hats and scarves, painted ornaments and one lady painted wooden match boxes (yes, I bought some), and lots of pictures (prints and photographs). It was nice to get some mementos of my time here that were made by the people I see in my daily life here in Antarctica.

Just some of the lovely items created by our very own Antarctica friends.

The guys took SCINI 2 to the jetty for a technical dive. Stacy and John, an underwater photographer, went for a dive to take pictures of SCINI 2 in action. I stayed in the lab and worked on the computer.

I would much rather talk to you about something interesting than to regale you with my adventures on the computer. One thing that I thought you might be interested in was the Antarctic Treaty. It is really hard to imagine a continent that has no countries.

On December 1, 1959 twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty as a means to govern the behavior of the people in Antarctica. The preamble of the treaty gives you a general idea of what the treaty stands for.

“The Governments of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, the French Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Union of South Africa, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America,

Recognizing that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord;

Acknowledging the substantial contributions to scientific knowledge resulting from international cooperation in scientific investigation in Antarctica;

Convinced that the establishment of a firm foundation for the continuation and development of such cooperation on the basis of freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica as applied during the International Geophysical Year accords with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind;

Convinced also that a treaty ensuring the use of Antarctica for peaceful purposes only and the continuance of international harmony in Antarctica will further the purposes and principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations;”

This is amazing that countries would agree to protect the environment of Antarctica and work to maintain a peaceful place for scientists to study.

Of course, there have been countries that have made claims to land in Antarctica. This map outlines these claims.

This is a map of Antarctica that shows the land claims made by various countries.

Today, a total of forty four countries have signed or agreed to abide by the conditions set forth in the Antarctic Treaty. These countries represent about two-thirds of the world’s population. That is incredible and gives you hope for the rest of the world.

As you know, some students at the Second Opportunity School in Watsonville, California decided to make some flags for Stacy to bring to Antarctica. They created a flag for each of the forty four nations that participate in the Antarctic Treaty. Each flag offers a prayer for the people of that country. If we could follow these students’ examples to stop and think about the plight of others, then the world, like Antarctica, could be an amazing place. I want to share some photographs of these wonderful flags. Perhaps you could make your own flag that Stacy could bring to Antarctica next year. It all starts with one flag and one prayer.

Just some of these amazing messages of hope.

What will your flag look like?

May the winds carry these prayers throughout the world.

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 been working and are now finished so we can “skua the remains” or use their hut before it is pulled back into town tomorrow.  The area is called Little Razorback because there is the small remnant of the edge of a volcanic caldera poking above the sea ice, and it is well utilized by Weddell seals as a place to haul out and pup.

A Weddell seal mom and pup relaxing near Turtle Rock.

However we woke to less than ideal weather conditions.  It was going in and out of “Condition 2” in town and definitely “Condition 1” on the sea ice.  So we dithered and discussed whether to dive nearby, where it was safer but more familiar, but finally decided that we would go to Turtle Rock, where I had been before (and we had the GPS coordinates) but the others had not yet dived.  The turn off road there was not flagged as the Little Razorback road was, but with the low visibility we didn’t think that flags would be that much help anyhow.

Maybe flags this closely spaced would have helped us find our way...in a circle.

We were joined by John Weller, a photographer, and Silvain, a scientist who is stuck in town, waiting to get into the field.  We started the drive struggling to see from one flag to the next, about a quarter mile apart.  Eventually we got far enough away from town that the flags were more closely spaced at a tenth of a mile, and that went much better.  We reached the turnoff and then were entirely reliant on GPS.  Visibility was poor enough and with such low contrast that I could not see the terrain which was very uncomfortable for the passengers in the back, because sometimes we would hit the bottom of a sastrugi with quite a bump.  We went very slowly – it took us twice as long as the drive usually takes, but we got there safe.  And near Turtle Rock, the blowing snow was less so we had a bit of visibility.

This beautiful picture of Little Razorback is by Norbert Wu, and is much lovelier than the completely white picture that would have been our view of the same area.

It was worth the drive!  The seals were lounging about with their pups, oblivious to the encrusting snow and howling winds.  The hut was warm and spacious.  And underwater there were ice caves and tunnels and lots of curious seals and pups singing and talking away.  Weddells have a wide range of sounds, trills and hoots and long trailing tones, and thumps that are so deep that you feel them in your chest more than hearing them in your ears.  I was collecting amphipods for a colleagues graduate student who is looking at population genetics, and this area is rich with them because of all the seal poo that they can eat.  So I was busy swinging my little dip net around like I was chasing butterflies.  In the ice caves the amphipods looked like clouds of bees in a meadow full of flowers.  The seals played peek-a-boo, hiding in the chandeliers and cloudlike ice formations overhead, and twisting and turning with incredible grace.  There was one particularly silly one that was following me through the tunnels, playing with my fins every time I looked away, but shying away every time I turned to look at her.

This seal came a visited with Scott and Sylvain in the hut while we were diving.

Because I was focused on amphipods, I saw several beautiful but small species, some striped red and white, some golden, and a huge Glyptonotus isopod that looks like something out of a science fiction movie.  We spent our safety stop investigating the hanging brine tubes and incredible blue crystals just under the ice surface.  It was a long, and lovely dive.

Even before the dive I caught a few amphipods that were swimming around in the hole.

We got back in time to get ready for a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Our group of a dozen good friends gathered and walked over together. The galley staff really goes all out, and there was an amazing array of tempting and yummy foods.  We sat and ate and laughed and enjoyed and hung out and it was an ideal Thanksgiving.

Yum! We are so lucky to have such a delicious meal in such a delicious place with such delicious friends!

I hope your Saturday was full of laughter and leftovers!
Smiles, Stacy

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, today, the helicopter flight was canceled again due to high winds and low visibility, and we are grounded in McMurdo. I guess it is true that anything can happen in Antarctica. The problem is that we left all of our equipment at Heald Island, and we won’t be able to go there until Monday, because the helos are not flying this weekend. We are especially worried that our current meter may get trapped under the ice. This current meter barely fit through the hole in the ice when we deployed it so if the hole shrinks too much, it will be stuck and impossible to recover. Oops.

The weather really is nasty today, it’s very windy and overcast.  But it’s ok, there is still a lot we can do. We decided it was a good time to put together SCINI 2 (SCINI 1 is at Heald island) and to test it a the jetty hut. I spent the morning making some final adjustments to some of the parts, and assembled SCINI. It’s almost the same as SCINI 1, except for a few improvements. It has two camera sensors instead of one. One sensor looks straight forward while the other looks down. The former is for the pilot and the latter is for science images. Scott also made a few improvements to the software.

After an early lunch, Scott, Bob and I drove down to the good old Jetty hut, where we did our early deployments of SCINI. It’s a really convenient place to work, it’s warm, spacious and only a five minute walk from the lab, so if we forget something, it’s not a big deal.

Of course, not everything went smoothly, this is the first time we are putting SCINI 2 in the water after all. We had troubles getting the navigation system working, the ballast was not quite right, there were some glitches with the software… Nothing we can’t solve fairly easily. We managed to get SCINI up and running later in the afternoon and it worked pretty well. Ken, a good friend of the SCINI team joined us and drove SCINI for a little while.

After dinner we returned to the jetty hut and deployed SCINI again. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fly it for more than a few minutes because the generator ran out of oil of stopped working. It was time to go to Norb’s party anyway, so maybe it was for the better.

I didn’t take any pictures today, but let me share a few pictures that I took in the last few days at Heald Island, one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.

And if you want to see more of my pictures, check out my personal blog too.

Late in the summer, the ice melts at the surface and forms this incredible maze of melt ponds.

Our camp, in the center of the Barranca. North West of the camp is the Royal Society Range, with Mount Lister towering at 4025m, and at the south East, Mount discovery.

A historic moment: the first ROV dive under the ice shelf.

This is still the ice shelf, floating over the ocean.The dirt gets blown by strong wind from the continent and forms these amazing black dunes, sharply contrasting with the deep blue melt ponds.

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 weekend, but trading working Sunday for a day off today was fine by me.  Since we weren’t in the field, I didn’t need to wear synthetics to keep me super warm, and the snow swirling around in the evening was gorgeous.

What to do with a day off? I called some departments to see if they could give us tours, a chance to see the underbelly of the beast we lovingly call, um, well, McMurdo. Maybe MacTown when we’re feeling like adding a little lingo to our speech. Everyone I called was more than happy to show us around this afternoon, so I took advantage of the free morning hours to do some laundry and relax.

After lunch I met with Francois, Sylvain (a friend of Francois’) and Wolfgang, Sylvain’s advisor. Sylvain and Wolfgang had also come along on our hike this past Sunday. I had little idea where the buildings were or how to get in them, but since I was carrying a small map of town, I became the “tourguide”.

Our little town tour started by going to the water desalination plant, but we were rebuffed by scary sounding signs. These buildings are meant to get work done, not invite visitors. The power plant next door, however, at least had a door marked “Entrance” so we headed there instead. We met up with Dave Weimer, who was watching the control panels as we stepped in.

The control room seemed loud, but we had to put hearing protection on to go into the main room, where only two of the six diesel generators were cranking away. Right now they’re in the middle of a big changeover, installing new, more efficient generators. These new generators are installed in the water plant. At some point they will decommission the current generators and move the water plant into this building.

Dave, on the left, showing Wolfgang one of the generators

McMurdo was using about 3000 gallons of diesel a day up until about a month ago. Now it’s only using 2000 gallons a day due to the increased efficiency of the new generators. McMurdo electricity demands can run as high as 2300 kilowatts during the summer season (right now). The engines use glycol to help cool the engines, and that glycol is pumped around the station to heat the buildings. It’s a welcome use for the waste heat, especially on a day like today with cold, biting winds.

A whole lotta' pipes in

Dave also took us next door into the water plant to show us around, since that’s where the new generators were up and running. They looked essentially the same, but a little cleaner and with a few more pipes running around. We went through a door and were confronted with enormous water tanks. McMurdo has 3 freshwater tanks, each capable of holding 33,000 gallons of water, and all that water needs to be manufactured – we don’t really get much rain here. Seawater is first drawn into the seawater tank and gets filtered a little. It then needs to be heated up. The seawater can be as cold as 28 degrees F, or about -2.2 C, well below freezing for freshwater. If they simply filtered the water and removed the salt, it would freeze in the pipes. After warming the water, it goes through some standard types of filtration, finally ending with a reverse-osmosis system, where the water is forced though at over 800 psi to remove the salt content. The water is so pure that they need to add a little soda ash and calcium carbonate to the water to balance the pH and keep the water from leaching minerals from the pipes around town. They also add a little chlorine to kill off any little bugs that are still in the water.

Here's what makes all our water - the revers-osmosis filters in the foreground, multimedia filters in the background

The water plant can produce about 80,000 gallons of water a day, and is running all the time. McMurdo typically uses about 50,000 gallons of water a day, but use spiked up to about 75,000 gallons a day recently. This works about to about 50-75 gallons per person per day, which is a little less than typical water consumption in the United States. Signs promoting efficient water use are all through the dorms – fewer, shorter showers, full loads of laundry, turning the water off while brushing your teeth. Fairly standard stuff, but it starts to have an effect when people are more aware of their water use. It costs about 2 cents a gallon to produce the water for McMurdo. Expensive, but much less than the South Pole, which has to melt ice to make their water – 32 cents per gallon.

We headed to the waste treatment plant after this, which was just down the hill. It makes sense to place it here, at the foot of town, since this is where all the sewer lines eventually have to run. Yes, this is where all of the toilet flushes end up.

This is what it takes to process the sewage from 1200 people

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to smell when I walked in, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, the humidity felt nice compared to the moisture-sapping dryness typical around Antarctica. Ok, yeah, the moisture was coming from sewage, but it was still a nice contrast. I suddenly realized how sterile Antarctica can feel at times.

John showing us the aeration and settling part of the wastewater treatment

John Larrabee showed us around and explained how they take the 40,000 gallons of wastewater produced every day in McMurdo and clean it up well enough to discharge to the ocean. John explained that this was a packaged plant, a fairly standard setup used all over. The plant is based on an activated sludge process, which really just amplifies the natural breakdown processes and speeds them up by aerating the sewage. About the only difference between this plant and most installations is that this one is inside. He said that typical installations would simply be outside in the open. Colder locations require them to be inside, and Antarctica qualifies there.

Going down the line, the “Muffin Monster” grinds up all the sewage before it goes to the aeration basin. Pumps are constantly circulating the dirty water to help give microbes some oxygen to help them along as well as to make sure that nothing becomes stagnant and rots in an anaerobic (or much smellier) process. After being recirculated for a while, the activated sludge goes to digester tanks to get even more broken down. Finally, after several weeks, the results from the digester tank are dried out by going through a press, producing “cake”, such a nice term for the stuff. It wasn’t too bad, though, looking and feeling (yes, I touched it) like wet cardboard. By this point, the “cake” would make great compost for farming if this plant were anywhere else. Being Antarctica, the “cake” is boxed up and shipped back to the United States. John says they fill about 4 triwalls (thick cardboard containers about 4 feet on a side) every ten to fourteen days.

Clarified water (and it *is* very clear) from the process is sent through an ultraviolet sterilizer and then released into McMurdo Sound. This process far exceeds requirements set by the Antarctic Treaty, and is much better than when raw sewage was simply dumped into the Sound. The plant takes in water with 300mg of solids per gallon and produces water with only 5mg per gallon.

We then headed to the other side of town where the Waste Barn is located. The Waste Barn processes all the trash we produce here in McMurdo (except for the hazardous materials). It’s pretty amazing how much trash 1200 people can produce. James, who runs the Barn and gave us our tour said that they only pick up and process full waste bins and can barely keep up during the summer season. This is with a crew of about 8 people working full-time.

James giving the waste team sign

We sort our waste into about a dozen categories here so that the waste crew can put it into the most profitable categories for recycling, or at least try to keep it out of landfills. When you fill up 400 MILVANs (cargo containers 20 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 feet high) a year, you want to make sure that some of it gets recycled! James mentioned that with the economic downturn that he wasn’t sure how much of it would be bought, though. Usually China would buy up most of the recyclables, but apparently that’s not a guarantee this year.

Hmmmm, at 5 cents a can, how much is this MILVAN full of cans worth?

We also sort our trash to keep the workers safe – imagine having to separate paper from glass, especially if the glass has been broken. Everyone on station has gone through a class on what categories certain items go into, and there are signs everywhere describing what items to put in which bins, and what NOT to put in other bins.

The last place we went was my favorite – the greenhouse. It was difficult to find, as it’s small and tucked away in a little corner of one of the storage lots. Nothing special from the outside, but it smelled wonderful when we stepped in. Warm, moist air smelling of green growing plants. Karen was working there and showed us around. It’s small, probably not much larger than our lab space, but they grow several varieties of basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, lettuce, chard and a few other plants I can’t quite remember. Embarrassing, since I garden at home.

Karen amongst the lettuce

It took about 5 minutes for my camera lens to defog enough to take a decent picture in here, but it felt good to stand there surrounded by so many edible plants. All the plants are grown from seed to prevent pests from coming to Antarctica, and everything grown in the greenhouse is edible. The lime basil was especially good!

It was great to see how the town “works” and I got a better appreciation for the reasons to conserve water and energy, as well as why we sort our waste so specifically. A lot of this goes on in towns all over, but McMurdo has a few little twists, especially with the water.  I hope this helps give people an idea of what it takes to run even a small town!