Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Happy Camper, the long version (and answers to questions)

So first, some answers to questions people have been asking.

I'm not exactly sure where the got the wood for all the crosses around here (there are a lot of them. They even put some up on the ice during their travels for the men who died on the way and they just buried there). Maybe it was left over from the ships, or they took some from the ships or the huts. I'm just not sure. I'll try to find out though. The Mary statue was brought down by the Navy I'm sure. That site was put up as a grave marker of sorts for the Navy Seabee who fell through the ice on a dozer. His body was never found, so they put up the Virgin Mary in honor of him. Our skiway airfield (which will be opening on Saturday, Dec 1st) is named in his honor as well.

Most of the black in the pictures is rock. The island I am on is a volcanic island, so we are on rock. It's really hard to picture it, but McMurdo Station is situated right on the edge of the ocean, basically, and it's extremely hilly because of the volcano and the winds. The winds blow a lot of the snow off the land, and in winter, it's too cold to snow. So the rock is exposed much of the time. It's not much what I thought of at all before I got here. You just don't expect Antarctica to have so little white. But farther inland, on the main continent and farther, everything really is white. Sure you can see some of the exposed rock on the mountains, but for the most part, you are surrounded by glaciers and snow. It's also a lot warmer here than I expected. Pretty soon, it'll be warmer down here than it is in PA.

We aren't exactly in a water shortage here, but they do ask you to go easy on the water. Things like washing full loads of laundry, turning the water off when you brush your teeth or wash dishes, taking short showers, are what they ask so you can conserve water. It's just a precaution. As for the firehouse, they let us flow water (and the water we were flowing that day was for Fleet Ops, for the retaining pond, so it was necessary) but they don't want us to do it too much for too long, but we are allowed to.

Most of the run was through town, though some of it went on the Ice Runway. All of the sea ice is grooved by machines, and then snow gets packed into it. It's slippery, so you have to be careful, but you can run on it.


I think that covers all the questions. If I missed one, let me know and I'll answer it.

OK, so Snow School, or Happy Camper. First we had to sit through some lecture stuff in a classroom before heading out to the site. Once we headed out, we sat in the Instructor's Hut (I-Hut) for some lunch and more lecture stuff. Then we got our sleeping supplies, our tents, stoves, food, and tools, and headed out to our site.

The first thing we learned was how to put up a Scott tent. These are pyramid shaped tents that are basically the same design that Scott used when he attempted to reach the South Pole. They can withstand 60-70 knot winds, and are fairly roomy inside. We used huge rebar like poles to anchor the corners and the sides, but the guy lines were staked out using 'dead man' staking, or 'T-staking.' This is when you dig a T shaped trench in line with the guy line, with the vertical part of the T going towards the tent. It gets dug about a foot deep, and then you put in a piece of stick (we used bamboo pieces) and wrap the guy line around it. Then all the snow gets shoveled back in and packed down as hard as you can get it, and the guy line gets tightened and tied with a trucker's hitch. It doesn't seem like it would hold very well, but the snow can pack down hard here cause it's so dry, and we had to dig them out when we broke camp in the morning.

The next thing we learned was how to make a Quinsey hut. This is basically a mound of snow hollowed out with a tunnel dug to get in. The easy way to do it was to pile all our sleeping kit duffel bags up and shovel snow on top of it. Every once in a while you have to stop to pack the snow down hard, and you keep putting snow on it until the walls are about 1.5 to 2 ft thick. Then we left it to set and went on to something else, and once it sets, you dig a hole at the base to pull the bags out. Once the bags are out, you have a nice little cave, and then you dig a tunnel to get into it (you want to lightly block up the bag exit hole, since that is on ground level, and a lot of cold air will get in that way. When you dig the tunnel, you actually want to dig it lower than the floor of the quinsey, so that it acts as a cold air sink, and all the cold air gets trapped below the floor, and the warm air stays in the hut. I had heard that it could get so warm, the snow would start melting and drip on you, but I didn't have that problem.

This is how we built our quinsey.

Here is our instructor having snow thrown at her. She climbed to the top to pack down the snow, and said we didn't have enough. So we threw some at her.

I actually slept in a quinsey that another class had built, and we excavated it for our own use. Once the snow sets, it gets very hard, though eventually they do collapse over time. The one I slept in had a very low ceiling, and I couldn't even sit up in it. It made it nice and warm, but it was hard to set things up without hitting the ceiling and getting snow all over you.

Here's some shots, the inside of the quinsey I slept in, the doorway (tunnel) and the whole thing.




Of course, in the real world you wouldn't have a bunch of huge duffel bags to pile up together, nor would you likely want your bags with all your survival gear stuck under the snow for an hour or 2. So most likely you'd be just making a huge snow pile and then hollowing it out completely, or finding a snow drift and doing the same.

After making our giant quinsey and leaving it to set, we learned to set up regular 4-season tents (just like you'd find on any mountain in the US), cut blocks out of the snow to build a wall against the wind, and to build trenches. A snow trench is basically a hole in the snow with smooth walls, just wider and longer than you are. It gets dug about 4 or 5 feet deep, and then you cut blocks to lay on top of the trench (the blocks are wider than the trench, so they aren't actually laying on you). You place the blocks across the trench except for the last one, climb in and pull the last block over your head. Some trenches can get really elaborate, with a deep trench dug and then bunk slots cut out for you to sleep. We had 4 people sleep in trenches, and they said it was quite warm, but I couldn't bring myself to sleep in one. It looked too much like a coffin, and while I'm not claustrophobic, I just wasn't feeling that one.

Here is a Scott tent, with a little regular dome tent in front.


Once all that was done, the instructors gave us some suggestions, and then left for the I-Hut, which was several hundred yards away. We finished our snow wall and set up our kitchen. We boiled water for hot drinks, and the dehydrated food we had for dinner (pre-packaged...I much prefer making my own).

This is what our camp looked like.

After I ate dinner, I decided to go to bed. The quinsey I slept in wasn't very tall, and even I couldn't sit up in it. I had gotten a regular mummy sleeping bag, which I forgot I didn't like because it doesn't let me move around as much as I like. I was plenty warm, after I changed my clothes and socks and settled in, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Once I did fall asleep, I woke up every hour or so, I'm guessing when I tried to change position. So I didn't sleep very well, but I managed. I was up and out at 5am, just because I was sick and tired of trying to sleep. I went to the bathroom, changed my clothes, and went over to the main camp (my quinsey was a bit farther out than the others) and got some hot cider mix to warm me up. By about 0630, most people were up and about, and we started breaking camp while everyone got breakfast. By 0830 we were done and had dragged all the supplies and our baggage back up to the I-Hut and put everything away.

The rest of the day was spent learning how to operate a VHF radio and a HF radio. We talked to South Pole a bit, and then had scenarios where we had to put the skills we learned on Tuesday to good use. We also did a white-out scenario, where we had to put white buckets on our head and try to find someone outside. I'm sure it looked hilarious, but it was hard.

Once that was done, we did a final debrief, and packed all our stuff up and headed back to town. I managed to get some good shots of the landscape on that side of the headland before we left. Erebus was erupting, though the wind was blowing the plume away from us, but it left a nice cloud ring around the middle of the mountain. I also got one of Castle Rock, which is a huge rock (perhaps an Erebus bomb, or maybe just a piece of rock sticking up) in the middle of the glacier. There is a hiking route out to it, and when the ice isn't too bad, you can climb up it. I hear the views are incredible.

Once we got back to town, we unpacked everything and got it ready for the next class, and then watched 2 videos, learned to strap ourselves into a helicopter, and then we were done. I got back to my room, took a shower and started a few loads of laundry before heading to dinner. I got back and watched some DVD's while waiting for laundry to finish before going to bed. It was so nice to go to bed.

Thanks to the beautiful weather and the lack of ozone in this part of the world, I managed to get a decent sunburn on my face. It's mostly toned down now, but last night you could have used my face as a flashlight. I think a good bit of it was wind burn too. I was wearing sunscreen, but I was sweating a lot too, so I probably needed to reapply more often. I also have raccoon eyes from wearing sunglasses, and a line just above my eyebrows to my hairline where my hat was. It's the typical Antarctic sunburn.

Here's a shot of Castle Rock.


Mt Discovery with Scott Base in the foreground.


Mt. Erebus. You can see the plume from the eruption blowing out to the back, and the ring of clouds around the middle.

A shot of the early morning sun through clouds.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Happy Camper, the short version

So I survived Happy Camper (ie Snow School). I slept in a quinsey (spelling?) hut (a hollowed out mound of snow), and was very warm, but didn't sleep well because the mummy style sleeping bag was too confining and wouldn't let me move around much.

I am sunburnt (yes, I wore sunscreen, but there is no ozone down here. I guess I didn't apply often enough).

Right now, I am going to finish checking email, switch laundry, and go to bed.

Details and pictures later.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner was yesterday. I actually covered for one of the guys on A shift so he could run in the 'Turkey Trot" which is a 5 K race they have here every Thanksgiving. Once he came back, I went back to my room and called Chris to say hi, and we talked for a while, then I read for a bit before dinner.

Let me just say that I have never seen so much food in one place before. We had raw veggies and dip, shrimp, salad, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, fried asparagus and peppers, and prime rib. They even had stuff for vegetarians. There was also bread and 3 or 4 different kinds of pie for dessert. They had linen table cloths on all the tables, and it was very nicely done.

After dinner, I went to see if I could help out in the kitchen in cleaning up and everything, but they had so many people they said they didn't have room for anymore. So I went to the store and borrowed a video, and then went up to one of the guys on my shift's room to hang out with some people. We hung out for about 3 hours, drinking wine and talking. I borrowed some DVD's from him, and went home when he and one of the other guys headed out to the bar, since I was really tired.

I got home and started one of the DVD's I borrowed from John, and worked on making a DVD for the family/friends I'm not going to see for a while, with pictures and videos and music, but the videos and music are in the wrong kind of file format, so I'm trying to find a good conversion software to change them so I can use them.

I'm at Station 2 today, but it's pretty boring since there are no flights on Sunday and no one is
down here.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Yesterday was Thursday here, so technically, I am already into Black Friday (though given the amount of people at the store yesterday, you would think yesterday had been Black Friday here!). Our trip to Cape Evans was canceled yet again due to weather (which hasn't gotten here yet), so I got to spend a quiet evening at home watching movies.

I didn't stay up till 2am to watch the Macy's Parade, so I missed the Parade this year. I saw that the weather was really good for it though.

Almost all my Christmas cards have been written out and mailed, as are the packages to those who are getting them. They should arrive before Christmas, since outgoing mail travels a lot faster than incoming mail.

Tomorrow is our 'official' Thanksgiving down here. We got the freshies in on Wednesday and I helped unload them. I have never seen so many bags of carrots, potatos, and onions in my life. I don't think they store that much at a single grocery store back home. Yesterday one of the girls on my shift cut 2 bags of carrots, and said she was told it was about 90 pounds. And we got in a heck of a lot more bags than just 2. It was really amazing how much food they use in this place. It makes you appreciate their effort that much more. I will be eating dinner with my shift, since our captain signed us up for the same seating. Before that, I will be helping in the kitchen to wash stuff, and all kinds of things.

So, while I would much rather be at home, eating turkey and watching football with my friends and family, I am thankful that I at least have email and internet access to talk to you all, and a phone with a phone card to call you all when I get the chance.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And here's my standard tourist photo, of me in front of the McMurdo sign.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Excitement

Well, yesterday I had a bit of excitement. I was attacked by a skua.

See, my roommate was home from work, and didn't particularly feel like going to the galley for lunch, so I said I would bring her back a burger and some fries. So I went to lunch, ate mine, and collected the appropriate things for her lunch. The burger, fully loaded, and fries were on a plate, nicely wrapped up in plastic.

Here's where things started to go wrong. I stepped outside, and immediately nearly stepped on a skua, who was blending in nicely with the ground. He started eyeing me up, and I knew what his little brain was thinking (they know what food on a plate looks like). I turned my back on him, and immediately heard wings flapping. I leaned over and tried to cover the plate with my arms, but the skua came right up in my face, and stole the top bun of the burger through the plastic. This caused several ketchup packets and all the onions on the burger to fall off as well. I swear I could hear the monster chortling to himself as he inhaled the burger bun.

I took the now sadly depleted burger back to my roommate, who was appreciative of my brush with death, and was not in the least upset by the loss of the burger top. As I went back to the scene of the crime to finish cleaning up (I wasn't about to hang around with the food still in my hands!), I saw the offending bird attempt the same attack on a man with a sandwich. However, the man with the sandwich put the food in his coat, thus fending off the bird attack. This was a tactic I could not use, as I was carrying several items on a plate, plus I wasn't wearing a coat.

So that was my excitement yesterday. The skua got so close to my face that had I moved, I would have head-butted him (which doesn't seem like a bad idea, if it wouldn't get me sent home). They are smart, wicked birds, who have quite possibly read the entire Antarctic Treaty, and know that regardless of what they do to us, we can't do a thing to them, except perhaps call them nasty names.

After that, I had to take the written portion of my driver test. I haven't found out if I passed yet or not, but no one has said anything yet. Today was the 'daily check' portion of the test, which is a practical. Basically, you have to go around and show that you know what to look for on the apparatus (checking fluids, tires, etc). While on a normal day, we would have a checklist to go off of, today we were expected to do it by memory. I passed anyway, but only because my proctor was pretty cool, and gave me a hint on one of the things.

Tomorrow is the driving test. I am betting rather heavily against my passing that.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Another Cape Evans trip, and a busy day.

For more information on the Aurora, see this website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/lostmen.html . The Aurora expedition was a during the same time as the Endurance, which was when Shackelton attempted to cross Antarctica, from the Weddell Sea, near South America, to the Ross Sea, where I am. The Aurora part of it was to lay food and supply depots from the South Pole to the Ross Sea for Shackelton's team. They had a horrible time, and ended up getting stuck at Discovery Hut, near where I'm at now, which is a small, drafty hut that Scott built, but used only for supplies. When the Ross Sea froze over, the group headed for Cape Evans and stayed there while waiting for someone to come and get them. They ended up getting stuck in this area for 2 years, while Shackelton was dealing with the Endurance problems on the other side of the continent (there is a movie and several books based on Shackelton's Endurance expedition, all of which are worth checking out, if you're interested, plus the book Shackelton himself wrote, South). Anyway, yes the ship Aurora was blown out to sea, but her crew survived and eventually came back to pick up the men left behind, albeit over a year later. But the hut is a mess because they were saved, and after over a year of living off seal meat, keeping warm by burning seal blubber, and not having a bath, they left as soon as they could. Quite frankly, I can't blame them.

Now, when we went to Cape Evans on Friday, there was a group of conservationists from New Zealand, who are working on fixing the hut and saving the artifacts there. They said that in the 60's, there was a group who came in and 'fixed up' the hut, and moved stuff around. Evidently historical conservation was a lot different in the 60's than it is now. So this group is working on shoring up the hut, since a century of ice and water has damaged several parts of the building. They are also cataloging everything they find, both in and out of the hut, and will eventually be taking it all out, preserving it, and putting it back in as accurate a position as they can determine from both current pictures they are taking now, and pictures that Scott and Shackelton's men took while they were living there. They should be done by 2014. They only just finished the hut at Cape Royd's, which was built by Shackelton in 1908 for his Nimrod (the name of his ship) expedition.

Which reminds me...Cape Royd's is only about another 10 miles or so from Cape Evans. One of the Kiwi historians at the hut on Friday said that the ice has melted up to Cape Royds and there is open ocean there. So it won't be long before we won't be taking trips to Cape Evans anymore. Things seem to melt really fast down here.

Here is a shot of the Barne Glacier, which is about 7 miles from Scott's Hut at Cape Royds. Some of the sea ice school people got to go out and get closer to it. I won't have the chance, but even from 7 miles away, it's impressive.


So that was my Friday. And when I got back, I collected all 4 packages that had come in for me, from Mom, and Chris and Anna and Art. And since she had packages too, we opened our packages and watched movies for the afternoon.

Yesterday was work, and I was up here in town for the day, on the ambo. We ended up having 3 calls, one for a fire alarm (that was nothing) and 2 medical calls that were also nothing. But it made for a busy day.

And tonight is the science lecture I've been waiting for, so I can ask Kerry's questions. It's about the anti-freeze proteins in the fish down here. I can't wait.

I'm such a geek...

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Best day, worst day

Yesterday was quite possibly the best day I've had down here so far. With the penguin herding in the morning, a nice relaxing day (with the exception of the minor fire dept recall in the afternoon) and the Cape Evans trip, I had a blast. This of course was followed by the worst day I've had.

Bad day first. I overslept and was really late to work this morning. The dispatcher had to call me and she woke me up, so by the time I got dressed, up to the station to get my gear, down to the shuttle stop to get the shuttle (which was late, I might add, and then we got stuck behind a dozer that was going really really slow) to the airfield, and actually down to the airfield, it was nearly 0900. I owe Lonnie some beer for staying and covering for me. I spilled some soup on my leg at lunch. No breakfast, no shower. And I'm still tired. Plus I have found 2 holes in Big Red, which is down. So first thing tomorrow morning before I go back to my room, I have to head up to BFC to see if they can put a quick patch on it. Then again, tomorrow we may get mail, so that'll be good. I hope.

Karma. Gets you every time.

So, good stuff. Yesterday. I had a nice relaxing day for the most part. Someone burnt up a car on the road to Cape Evans, so they had a fire dept recall to back-staff the apparatus since some of the guys had to take a Hagglund out to the site to put out the rest of the fire. The problem with this is that a Hagglund is very slow, so it was about a 30 minute or so drive just to get out to the vehicle. When they got there, the only thing still actually on fire were the tracks (it was a tracked vehicle, like our red ARFF trucks), and the rest of the truck had burned up. It's going to take a few days for Haz Waste and the Spill Team to clean this one up. Supposedly, a transmission line blew and the fluid caught fire. They left a 3/10ths of a mile trail of transmission fluid that has to be cleaned up.

The Hagglund the fire crew had to take out to the scene.
The trail of transmission fluid (the red line on the snow).
The truck itself. It was a tracked truck, so the wheels were replaced with gears and a rubber track.


I wasn't needed for the recall, so after I got to the firehouse and got in my gear, I was told to go home. So I went back, ran into someone from Rec who was organizing the trip to Cape Evans, and helped her fill up the Delta with gear for the trip. There has to be a full compliment of survival gear just in case we get caught out in weather.

Cape Evans is where Capt Scott landed in order to make his trip to the South Pole in 1911. (Here's a good website for info. It actually has excerpts from Scott's journal on the trip from the Pole. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/scott.htm) They built a hut to stay in over the winter before they left for the trip in the summer. Unfortunately, Scott and the 5 others in his party died on the way back from the Pole (which they got to, but the Norwegians, led by Admunsen, got there a month before them). Shackelton also used the hut when he made his trip across the whole continent 5 years later. But the hut is exactly how it was left when the last person in 1917 walked out. Well, mostly. There is a historical society, mostly run by the Kiwi's, who maintains the hut, fixing pieces of the building that are falling down, and stuff like that. They really aren't changing anything at all, and are just reconstructing it really. A lot of the items inside are tagged for cataloging purposes, as it really is like an archaeological dig. But it was really neat to see all the stuff in there, pretty much as they left it, with their clothes hanging on the bunks, the chemistry equipment right there, the newspaper on the table with the dates on it. They killed seals, and ate the meat, burned the blubber for light and warmth, and used the hides to make mittens, boot liners, and blankets for their bed. One of the really neat things is that the hut was pre-fabricated in NZ, and when they put it up, they insulated it with seaweed quilted into canvas. They kept the ponies in stables attached to the hut, and there was a small entry way before you got to the hut itself, and this entryway wrapped around to where the stables were. It is actually quite big and it's clear that this is where they stored all their tools and such. They kept the floor level below freezing so that they could easily sweep the snow off the floor, and then the mid-body area was at about 50F and the rafters were up around 70F.

Here's some pictures of what's inside. This first one is just SOME of the food they brought. The shelves inside are stacked, and they used other crates of things (wine and food) to divide the hut into rooms for themselves. There are also more crates outside the hut that still have tins in them, but those no longer have labels.


This is Scott's desk, which was right by his bed. Yes that's a real penguin, and no one is really sure why he had it. There are also newspapers and a skua skull there as well.


Scott's bed. There are boot liners and gloves that look like they are made out of seal skin, and the top blanket on his bed is also a seal pelt.


Here's a shot of the inside of the hut from the interior doorway. Straight back is the darkroom that the photographer made for himself. He couldn't sleep in the constant light during the summer.

Outside there are lots of crates and stuff that they stored outside, although it may have been Shackelton who left the stuff outside. There are also still bales of hay outside covered in snow.


One of the things they had a lot of was cocoa. Here's a box of it.


Some of the guys were chemists.


Remember what I said about how they burned seal blubber for warmth? There are still stacks of it in the entry way area. Oh, and by the way...it still smells, and it still faintly smells of seal blubber in the hut itself.
Shackelton used the hut too, during his Aurora expedition to cross the whole continent (most of the explorers named their expeditions after the ships they sailed on. Not very imaginative guys...even their place names are boring. Black Island, since all you see is black volcanic rock, White Island, which is all snowy, Inaccessable Island, which you can't get on because it's a sheer face, the list goes on). Anyway, Shackelton used the hut at Cape Evans as a jumping off point, though most of the stuff in there is acknowledged as Scott's as far as I know. They anchored the ship on land, and during one particularly nasty storm, the anchor lines broke, and the ship floated out to sea. The anchor is still there.


On the way there, and on the way back, we saw seals. There is one seal hole right next to the road to Cape Evans (why they don't just move the road, I'll never know). Evidently most of the animals there have gotten quite used to the vehicles going by, so they don't really budge. Here's some shots of the wildlife we saw.


He's yawning, by the way.



So far no more wildlife on the runway today. But, the night is young.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Great Bird Herd

Well, that's just damned odd. I actually wrote something, answering your questions, but it looks like it didn't actually post. Blogspot must have eaten it. Weird. And in my posts list, it's there, but it only has the first sentence. It was a nice long post too, all about us getting mail today, and my being at Station 2, and seeing the LC-130.

Anyway, here's some answers. Out at snow school, they have a little wooden outhouse that is the bathroom. I honestly have no idea if it's a bucket or a hole in the ground or what, but I'll find out when I get out there. From what I understand, they give us radios in case something goes wrong, but they are fairly close to us, so unless it's a white-out condition, we can always run over there if needed.

In December, there are 4 more firefighters flying in, to help when we have to have both runways open. I'm sure we'll still be short-handed, but it won't be so bad.

The plane was actually moving when those cargo pallets got kicked off. They did it on the apron, not the runway. It was perfectly safe to land, so it was just pretty much training for them. I guess you have to be going a certain speed or something when you do it...I really don't know. But they landed fine, and then taxied in, opened the cargo hatch in the back and ran the pallets out. The pallets sit on top of rollers, that run the whole length of the cargo bay, including the hatch area. So all they have to do is drop the hatch, and un-lash the pallets from the floor. I don't know if they give them a kick or what, but they just come rolling out the door. I have some video of it, and it actually looks like the plane is pooping out cargo. It's kind of funny, really. Here's a shot of what the cargo bay looks like. You can see the lines of rollers on the floor. That's what the pallets sit on.


Nose art on the plane. Each plane has different art, and it's actually on the side, just past the door, rather than on the nose.


The C-17 that came in from NZ yesterday afternoon was carrying 14000 pounds of mail. So hopefully that will contain some of mine. From what I've heard, that's about half the poundage of mail that's still sitting in Christchurch. I'm planning on volunteering today to help sort the mail out, to get it done faster. Otherwise it'll be another week before the poor people in the post office get the stuff sorted.

We got to take a tour of one of the LC-130's yesterday afternoon. It was nice to see one again, since most of us haven't seen one since July in Salt Lake City. And talking with the guys on the ground crew who can tell us what would really happen if something were to happen with one of these planes, instead of the firefighters we had in Salt Lake from the 109th who really didn't know what would be going on down here.

Anyway, I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. I went to bed at around 11pm, but I don't think I fell asleep till about midnight or later. I was woken up around 0400 by everyone in the bunkroom talking and getting up. I thought we had a call...turns out the Tower was calling us to do a 'Wildlife Removal.' Seems that a solitary male (probably) Adelie penguin had decided to take a nap on the runway. With an LC-130 not too far out, he needed to not be on the runway. So we had to call dispatch, who had to call the captain, who had to call the NSF station manager, to ask if we could herd the bird off the runway. We got permission, and headed out.



At first, he started running away, just like he was supposed to. But then he decided he just really wanted to be on the runway, and started heading back that way. Those little buggers are pretty fast, let me tell you. And they are so funny when they run (I did get video of that!) We headed him off, and then began the stand-offs. He would stop, so we would stop, and we'd get a little closer, to try to scare him off. He would raise his wings and growl at us. (I don't have video of that, but one of the guys does, so I'm going to grab his.)




This went on for about an hour, until he finally headed off in the right direction. But wait, he angled himself towards the runway, and by the time we got back to the station, he was right at the edge of the runway, laying down again. So the LT and 2 others went out in the truck to get him moving in the right direction again. They finally did, and the Tower got the plane to land from the opposite direction, just in case.

So yeah, with only about 4 hours sleep, volunteering to sort mail, D/O class, and the Cape Evans trip tonight (maybe I'll see more penguins! And seals!), I'm going to be dragging tomorrow.

But it was worth it. And it was a fun way to get woken up.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Practice Combat Drop

We got another neat thing happen today, aside from the mail and the visit to the LC-130 for more lessons in how and what to turn off if we have a call to one where we actually have to go inside. One of the Hercs coming in did a combat drop, which is when they drop cargo off the back of the cargo ramp as they're moving. I got really good video of it, but I can't upload it, so you'll all have to wait till I get home and edit this with the video

I'll probably be editing a lot of these posts...or maybe I'll just set up a couple of posts for video only. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, here's some pictures.



Saturday, November 10, 2007

No Snow School

So I got a phone call just as I was about to walk out the door on Friday. It was from the captain, telling me that I had been bumped from snow school because of my driver class. Oh well. At least it'll give me a chance to get my packages in before I go, with my gloves that actually fit.

I talked to a couple of people who have gone already, and they told me pretty much what goes on. Basically, the first hour or 2 is in town, in a classroom where they tell you what you need to know. Then they take you out to the area (which is on the road, and not far from Scott Base or the snow runway), show you how to build the shelters and stuff, and then they take off for the instructor tent, which is a good thousand or so yards away from where the students are. So you are pretty much left on your own with your class for the rest of the day. They give you food and tell you how to melt snow for hot water (there are little stoves and stuff they have) and stuff like that. The next morning at 0900 they come out and get you and you go back to the instructor's tent, where they go over the VHF radios and some other things. I think they might also do a little bit on checking for cravasses and such too.

Today we flowed some water, and I got to practice some on the pump. We were out there for about 3 hours, and while it wasn't really cold like it has been, it was pretty cumulative. When we got back, we switched the engines, since the one needs to go in for servicing, and reloaded one of the supply hose beds. Fun. By the time we were done pulling all the hose off the one side, there was about a half inch thick layer of dust on the back step of the engine.

At dinner tonight they had fresh lettuce, from the greenhouse. One of these days I'll actually get up there and go in. Someone said they have a couple of hammocks set up to lounge on.

Other than that, not much going on. My new date for snow school is November 27-28, but with all the scientists coming in, I might get bumped again. We'll see.

The class got canceled anyway, due to weather conditions (it was Condition 1 in the area where the class is, which means they couldn't drive out to it).

So I got my Kelly day, and was able to chill for a few days and pretty much do nothing.

There are more skua in town. I saw 2 on Friday evening, one of which someone almost walked into. Later on, when I was on my way back to my room, I saw one sitting on one of the food waste bins outside the galley. A skua's favorite place, I guess. I'll post the picture later. They really do blend in with the roads around here. They are exactly the same color, so unless it moves, you really don't know it's there.

It's really warm today. Even the wind chill is above 0F. Last I looked, the forecast for today was about 25F with the wind chill around 10F or so. It's quite pleasant out, not at all like the past couple of days when the wind has been so fierce and cold. I hear that there is a cold front moving in, thanks to the glacier flow (not quite sure what this is), so we'll see what it's like in the next couple of days.

The ANG is trying really hard to get caught up on flights. They normally don't do back to back flights, or fly on Sunday, but they flew 2 C-17's in from New Zealand yesterday, and another 2 today, and then one a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The one flight today came in around 0500 this morning, and was all cargo. Those planes are capable of carrying 100,000 pounds, and it came in only 1200 pounds underweight. And they are still way behind on all the science cargo. From what I've heard, in the next 2 weeks we are getting another 100 or so scientists coming in, and they are really going to need all that cargo so they can get their work done. I'm not sure if the rest of the flights this week are cargo only, or cargo plus people, but hopefully if the weather stays good, we can get caught up on cargo over the next 2 weeks.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Off to Snow School!

For the record, I did not actually get on TV. I was sleeping when they filmed at 2am and 4am.

Tomorrow at 9am, I will be off to snow school. If I didn't explain it before, snow school (or Happy Camper, or Snow Craft 1) is where they take you out and, among other things, teach you how to survive outside away from the station overnight. The ironic (or maybe not so ironic) part of this is that there is a large storm bearing down on the station, so the big question number one is will we actually be able to leave station tomorrow morning? The next question is whether or not they'll take us out if they believe that serious conditions are expected. I mean, it's one thing to take us out to teach us...it's another thing to take us out and we actually DO get stuck out there for a day or 2.

At any rate, I should be back by around 4pm on Saturday. Should be interesting. The LT who teaches my D/O (driver/operator) class at 2pm on Saturday is going to flip his lid.

In the picture with the penguin, I wasn't wearing a coat because it was fairly warm out (must be warm to snow) and we were just jumping outside the door for the picture and then running back in. No big deal.

Here's some more pictures from the week in snow....

From a break in the weather Monday. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and shining on the mountains (which are about 60 miles away, by the way).


The kitchen window in Station 1, in town from last night. You couldn't even see out. And the snow looked like little pieces of popcorn stuck to the window.

Condition 2 again

Well, today I am in town. Since Monday, it has pretty much been snowy and windy on and off. The weather was actually really nice earlier today, but then the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up. Then the temp went up again, but with the wind, who could tell? Then the snow started. And it really hasn't stopped since. Right now, every place out of town is under Condition 1 and we were under Condition 2 until about 5 minutes ago, when they upgraded to Condition 1. Someone told the dispatcher that they haven't seen it this bad in town in 10 years. Today my LT told me that it has snowed more in the past 4 weeks than it did all last year. No wonder we're so behind on cargo flights.

Anyway, it is midnight and I am still awake. We just went outside (it briefly dropped to Condition 2) and took pictures with the AFD mascot. The wind is really howling, and we just had a call for an odd smell in the Coffee House. The visibility has actually gotten better, but the wind is really blowing hard.


So to answer some questions...The skua's are a bit bigger than seagulls, maybe the same size as some of the ones down the shore in NJ. So far that's the only one I've seen, but more should be coming in later this month.

The plane just circled to see if the weather would improve, and when it didn't, they went to the Italian base (Terra Nova) and spent the night there. I did hear that the passengers on the plane that did land were quite sick. Several barf bags were used on that flight.

I can say from experience today (we were asked to wet down some pit they are making down on the transition) that when the wind blows the water spray back at you, it comes back at you as ice crystals. However, in one area in the pit, I did see some liquid water. But, when the wind wasn't blowing as hard, the water landed as water, not ice. Remember, these hoses are flowing about 150 gallons per minute, so the majority of the water comes out in a stream that doesn't freeze right away. There is a bit of lag before it totally freezes. Though, I'd bet that it does freeze immediately when it is -70F in the winter time. When we are going to have the engine or tanker outside in the weather for a while, without actually flowing water, we have to recirculate the water in the pump, which keeps the water moving (and therefore it doesn't freeze as much) plus the pump warms the water up a bit. The water doesn't freeze in the hoses really because it is flowing too fast, but it will freeze pretty fast when you shut down the hose line.

I knew about the glacial ice being blue from compression, but the ice in that pictures is the annual sea ice. It melts and reforms yearly. The sea ice extends pretty far, but I'm not sure exactly how far.

And now it is 1am, and I am going to bed.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

White out at Station 2

I am out at Station 2 today. We didn't do much this morning, and we were supposed to practice driving the Nodwell, which drives like a tank with levers.
After lunch, there was a skua just sitting outside on the ice by the galley. He was just sitting here, letting the wind (which was getting much stronger) go right over him. I got some good shots, and it's easier to see him against the white ice, rather than the brown dirt up in town.


You can see the blue ice in the forefront of the picture. They cut grooves in it and drag snow over it so you have some sort of traction. The ice is blue, though I'm not really sure why. Right now, the ice is about 7 ft thick. We have to make sure there are no small rocks out here, because the sun heats up the rock and then that heat melts the ice. The fire department used to do something called 'crack spackling' which was when the firefighters would spray water onto the ice to seal up cracks. Then fleet ops would come out to smooth out the area, groove it, and drag snow into it. We don't do that anymore; fleet ops does all the spackeling now.

So the weather report was that we were supposed to get higher winds and light snow this afternoon getting slightly worse into tonight. The wind started really picking up just after lunch, but it didn't start blowing snow till around 2pm. Then it really started getting bad. At one point, I was sitting in the bubble and literally, one minute I could see the Herc sitting on the apron, about 500 yds away, the next minute I couldn't see it at all. A few minutes later I went out to the bathroom, and on the way out, I could hear the Herc that had just landed, but couldn't see it at all.

Currently, we are under Condition 1 out here, and the Tower crew is trapped until the weather improves enough to leave. I have some good video, but you can't see it. My Lt checked the wind speeds, and at one point about an hour ago, the wind was registering 104 mph on Arrival Heights, and 71 mph in town. It's blowing hard enough that it's very hard to walk, and when I tried to talk while taking a video of the blowing snow, you can't even hear my voice. It's unreal. So yeah...leftovers for dinner tonight here at the galley. I also had to leave my camera on so it could dry out and thaw from being outside in the blowing snow.

In other news, they canceled the C-17 due in here this afternoon, due to bad weather. It's a good thing...by the time they landed we were in whiteout conditions. We're wondering what they're going to do with the 2 other LC-130's who left for the Pole this morning. They boomeranged due to bad weather at the Pole, and now they can't land here. Kinda sucks, so we're not sure what will happen in that situation.

I also got a phone call today from the captain, telling me that I was being bumped from snow school on Friday. No big deal, I figure I'll get a slot later on in the season. So I emailed the woman in charge of hut guides, who needed one for Friday, and told her I would be able to do it. Then the captain calls back and says I'm back on for Friday, so I had to email her back and tell her I couldn't make it after all. Bloody schedules.

So now we're sitting in the station, watching National Treasure, and listening to the wind howling outside. It's actually quite impressive.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Laid-back kind of day

Today was a laid-back kind of day. I worked till noon this morning, then headed home, with the idea of taking a shower and heading back out to the Crary for another tour (perhaps this time I could see some different stuff). Instead, I attempted to kill the time between the shower and Crary with reading, and got too absorbed in the book and lost track of time. So no new Crary visit for me. It'll have to wait another 2 weeks.

I attempted rugby practice as well, but once again the book sucked me in, and before I knew it, it was 4pm. Whoops. I fuddled around in my room for a bit (wishing for scissors...they are harder to find around here than anything), then headed out for dinner, after a quick stop at Skua Central.

Skua Central (or just 'Skua') is where things (dry foods, spices, shoes, clothes, games, books, etc) end up when people don't want them anymore. You can find just about anything in Skua, if you look at the right times. Unfortunately, now is not the right time, and there wasn't much in there.

In other news, the first skua (the bird) has been seen around town. I haven't actually seen him on the ground, but I did see him winging around town a bit. They are scavengers, and will eat just about anything. They supposedly sit outside the galley entrances and wait for people to leave and will attack them for their food. They also like to try to get into the food waste bins and stuff. They are also pretty fearless. They will stop a vehicle in its tracks (since we can't hit them, or bother them in any way) and not move till they feel like it. One of the LT's at the fire dept says he saw one sit in front of an ice breaker till the prow of the ship was less than 5' from it, then it hopped about 10' over from the ship. If we are going on an emergency call, and there is one in the road, we have to stop. No blowing horns or anything like that. We just have to sit and wait for it to decide to move.

I have signed up for my hut guide trips. I signed up for 2, so we'll see what happens. We are also trying to get a trip to Cape Royd's for our shift, but that's still up in the air. Friday is my Happy Camper school, so hopefully the weather will be good. It seems that they are getting back rather late, so it's looking like I'll miss D/O class that day. Which gets the instructor mad, but what can I do?

I finally talked to my captain about South Pole, and he said that everyone is on the list, since it would be easier to take people off the list rather than put them back on. Makes sense, at least. The word is currently that the time at Pole will be 2 weeks, which I actually like better than the original 5 week duration...either way, I hope to go.

The reporters haven't gotten out of town (that I know of...they might have gone out to Penguin Ranch) all week. The flights to Pole and WAIS divide (a drilling site) have been canceled due to the bad wind all week long. They were supposed to be broadcasting from tonight, but it doesn't look like that'll be happening. They are allowing people to be in the shots the one night, but it'll be at 2am, and I'll be in bed, sleeping. So sorry, you all won't be seeing a sign from me saying "Hi Everyone!" What is interesting is that the bars close at 2am, so they might be seeing a lot of drunk people. Some of us are betting on the fact that there will be at least one streaker, or at least some naked drunk person in the crowd.

I'm at Station 2 tomorrow, so here's hoping the weather will be good so I can get some video of planes coming in and out.

Friday, November 2, 2007

W is for Wind

Which was way too loud last night. There was a live band at one of the bars last night, and in the interest of being social, I went. The first band was way too loud, the bass player had his amp turned up too much, and the instruments mainly drowned out the voices. But, they did have someone playing trumpet, sometimes rather prominently, so that part was nice. And the tunes of the music were pretty catchy, I just couldn't hear what the singer was saying most of the time.

I left when the first band finished, since the second band was reggae, but not real reggae...more like reggae with a bass and electric guitar. For some reason, a lot of people feel that adding congos to music with a certain beat makes it reggae.

The wind yesterday afternoon and last night was absolutely wicked. It howled right into my window all night long. When I got back to my room, it was in the low 60's, so I turned the heat up. When I woke up this morning, it was around 54F or so. I jacked the heat up some more, stuffed a jacket in the window to block the draft, and hoped it was warmer when my roomie came home (she was at Snow School last night, and was likely going to be extremely cold when she got home. It wasn't warmer really, she told me at dinner.

The wind didn't ease up until late this afternoon, so it pretty much howled all day long. It was freezing this morning when I had to go out to take the wind-torn tarp off the un-used engine. Wow, was that cold.

Work today has pretty much consisted of taking the tarp off the engine, sitting in class, training in CPR, and sitting in dispatch. Tomorrow we are here till noon. I think tomorrow afternoon will be laundry, before rugby practice.

I got mail, but I missed picking it up this evening by 5 minutes. Which means I have to wait till Monday, during either lunch or dinner, unless my roommate picks it up for me.