The Penguin and the Seal

We made it back from CTAM. The trip was great. We had good weather, got our work done and even got back a few days early. Although, I will post more about that later because I have more important things to blog about now. Like the fact that I finally saw my first Antarctic penguin! For those of you who know me well, you know that this is a VERY big deal for me.

Tonight I took a walk out to Hut Point after we were finished in the lab. In all honesty, I was going searching for penguins as I always do. I figured, as usual, that I would have a nice walk and if I were lucky that I might see a seal or two. I rounded the corner of the hill and I spotted a penguin. I couldn't believe my eyes. I praised the Lord and then whipped out my camera and binoculars (thanks Mom and Dad).



I eventually sat down to watch him for a bit. The sea ice kept moving around and then all of a sudden a seal popped out of the water. Luckily, these are Weddell seals and they do not eat penguins. I sat and watched the two until my fingers were numb. All in all, I felt pretty lucky.

Willie Field

Yesterday, Lee and I went out to our site at Willie Field. This is about a 45 minute drive out the Ice Road on the Ross Ice Shelf. We did this drive in a track pickup truck. See photo below.

Track Pickup Truck

On the way, we saw three tractors hauling cargo and realized that it was our cargo for the traverse out to the Tall Tower site. Therefore, the Tall Tower project is in motion. The traverse should have reached the site early this morning and the riggers will work to get the tower and booms installed over the next couple of days. Lee, Jonathan and I are set to be in the field for the next couple of weeks, so we'll start attempting to fly out to the Tall Tower site to install the instrumentation sometime after that.

Traverse out to Tall Tower Site

We also saw the launching of a long duration balloon while we were out at the site. These balloons take ozone measurements in the stratosphere. We had to clear out of the area during the launch due to safety reasons. If the balloon has trouble launching, it is important that no one is in the area where it may come crashing down.

Launching of a long duration balloon

After being allowed back into our site, Lee and I removed the instrumentation of the Willie Field site. The station stopped transmitting data (we send our data to satellites through the Argos system) in September. We also removed an old experimental tower that was next to the official site. This involves a lot of digging. We found that the tower base was about 6 feet below the snow surface. Here is a picture of me in the hole that we dug. As you can see, the surface of the snow is well above my head.

Hole to remove experimental tower at Willie Field

Jonathan and I have been delayed on our flight out to CTAM. We were suppose to fly out this morning, but are now scheduled for tomorrow. This isn't a very big deal, since our original fly out date was for tomorrow.

It looks like CTAM was featured on a NY Time blog.

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/airplanes-and-helicopters-on-an-icy-runway/

This should give you an idea of where we are heading. We are scheduled to be there until about the 23rd.

Lee is suppose to fly out to Byrd field camp today. Although, I have been checking the flight schedule and it seems that he is currently on mechanical delay.

In other Antarctic news, it seems that the Russians have gotten approval to drill through the Ice, into Lake Vostok. This is up on the Plateau and holds the record for coldest recorded temperature (-129 F). It will be interesting to see what they find.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/scientists-prepare-penetrate-subglacial-lake-hunt-weird-life-forms

It's snowing!

For those of you who have been to McMurdo, you know that it is not often when the town is covered in white. We've had flurries on and off over the past couple of days with no accumulation. This morning started with flurries, but then turned into a beautiful day. I was working outside without a coat for most of the afternoon. After dinner, I was up on the cargo line preparing tower sections for the field when the weather changed quickly and the snow started. By the time that I headed back to my room, about an hour later, the ground was covered. Of course this amount of snow is considered nothing for the northeast or the mountains of Colorado, but for McMurdo in the summer it makes things quite fun. There were quite a few happy people outside taking pictures.

In the mean time, Jonathan, Lee and I have been working hard to get our cargo prepped and shipped to the field camps. Lee is scheduled to fly to Byrd field camp on Tuesday and Jonathan and I are scheduled to fly to CTAM (Central Transantarctic Mountains) on Wednesday. We have to have our cargo into the system at least two days in advance (and Sunday does not count). We got the Byrd cargo loaded today and we're working hard to get the CTAM cargo loaded tomorrow.

The other exciting news is that the tall tower project (installing a 30 meter tower in the middle of the Ross Ice Shelf) might be a go for this year. We've been trying to get the tall tower installed for the past 2 or 3 seasons. Each year we have trouble getting the riggers out to the site to install the tower due to bad weather. Without fail, this year has been the same situation with bad weather and busy flight schedules. Although, the planners have developed a new plan. This includes sending the riggers and equipment out to the site using the Traverse road. The Traverse is a two thousand mile trek made from McMurdo to South Pole. It is used to haul cargo and fuel to the South Pole. Here is a blog from someone who was on the Traverse and took some amazing photos

http://beyondthebackyard.com/Adventures/SouthPoleTraverse/SouthPoleTraverseJournal5.html

I would estimate that the Tall Tower site is about a days drive (on a track vehicle) from McMurdo. It will be very interesting to see if this project goes through. If the riggers are able to install the tower, we'll fly out in February to install the instruments. Here's to keeping our fingers crossed.

We made it!

We finally made it to the Ice. We left Christchurch at 11:15 pm Monday and arrived at the Pegasus runway at 4:15 am Tuesday. It is about an hour ride on Ivan the Terrabus into McMurdo. Once we arrived we had our welcome training, breakfast and our science briefing. Then we had some time to check into our rooms, shower and do laundry. I met my roommate, who seems very nice. She studies something to do with worms that are found beneath the snow. I didn't get to talk to her about it for very long, so that is the best description that I can give. That afternoon we were able to locate all of our cargo and get it unpacked in the lab.

This morning we had environmental training (Antarctica has very strict environmental regulations for waste, haz mat spills, etc.), the snow school refresher course (unfortunately, I did not get to go through the full snow school class again - no sleeping in a snow trench this time around) and light vehicle training. The rest of the day was spent unpacking our orange shed of tools, parts and supplies, locating our sleep kits (or lack there of - the BFC said that they should have them pulled for us by tomorrow), working out a schedule for flying, getting batteries charged and looking at satellite imagery to view crevasse safety in the location of new AWS installs. It looks like we'll be leaving for field camps by Tuesday or Wednesday. This means that we have quite a bit of work to do to test our stations and get our cargo into the system by Saturday.

McMurdo itself is pretty good. I haven't had much time to do exploring, but I'm hoping to get out on one of the hiking trails tomorrow evening. Maybe I'll have some updated photos by then.

View from the C-17

Delayed Again

We just received unofficial word that we're delayed for another 24 hours. We did not hear the specifics about why we're delayed, but I am assuming that it is still related to the runway.

Continuing to take full advantage of our time in Christchurch, we took a bus ride over to Lyttelton yesterday. Lyttelton is a major shipping port for the south island of New Zealand. It is situated on a protected harbor with very steep hills and cliffs.


We grabbed a cup of coffee in town and then took the ferry across to Diamond Harbor. Diamond Harbor is a small vacation town with beautiful views. We were hoping to have lunch over looking the ocean at Godley Head House. Unfortunately, it had been damaged in the recent earthquakes and is closed. We walked around town for a bit and caught the ferry back to Lyttelton for some fish and chips before returning to Christchurch.

Some of you have been to Christchurch in the past and may be wondering about the extent of the damage from the recent earthquakes. During my first couple of days in town, I didn't think that the damage was too bad. There were a lot of buildings with scaffolding and jacks to brace the damaged areas, but it didn't seem like any of the buildings had been completely leveled. Now that I've had a chance to make it to the outskirts of town, I realize that some places have been hit harder than others. On the outskirts of town, some buildings have been demolished, others are missing entire walls, etc. Additionally, there have been continuous aftershocks. Most of them are small (I felt one the other night that was probably about a 3.8 or 4.0), but I'm sure that some of the larger ones create fear in the people who experienced the large one back in September.

Delayed

We have been delayed again. Rumor has it that it has been pretty warm in McMurdo. This has caused the Pegasus runway to deteriorate, making it difficult to land. Therefore, we are scheduled to leave Christchurch on Sunday at 20:30. I think that the night flight will give the runway a bit of time to set up as the sun gets lower in the sky.

I have been making the best of my extra time in New Zealand. Yesterday, I went for a nice long run in the parks around Christchurch. I also got to see a human-sized chess game on the Cathedral Square (see picture below). This man seems to be very deep in thought.

Today we rented mountain bikes and went over to the Christchurch Gondola, Godley Head and Sumner. This area is right on the ocean and is quite beautiful. We had lunch at a cafe on the beach in Sumner and I had a plateful of very tasty mussels.

View from bike ride.

Christchurch

The flights into Christchurch went pretty smoothly. We just had a slight delay out of Auckland, into Christchurch due to some rain. The weather has cleared up nicely and today is a beautiful day.

We had our Antarctic clothing issue at 1:00 today. I was issued my big red parka and white bunny boots, so I am ready to head to the Ice. We are scheduled to fly to the Ice tomorrow with an early check-in time of 4:30 am. If all goes well, we should depart at 7:00 am. From what I hear, we are scheduled to fly on a C-17. If I remember correctly, that should mean about a 4-5 hour flight to the Ice (since starting to write this entry, I have been informed that we will be delayed for 24 hours).

I had some time after our clothing issue to wander around Christchurch. I decided to take a walk to the Botanical Gardens and take some photos. I stumbled across the Canterbury Museum which had an exhibit of photographs from the early Scott and Shackleton exhibitions to Antarctica (from approximately 1910-1916). The photos were quite stunning and I was amazed that the photographers were able to achieve such clarity on glass negatives. Not to mention, the effort it took to transport the negatives back to Europe. The photographs are a part of the Royal Photograph Collection and will only be in New Zealand for a short time. I felt fortunate to stumble across it today.