Last Post?

Okay, I know it's been awhile since the last post. I won't lie, at this rate this *might* be the last one.

So what I've been up to the last couple weeks: The lab is quieting down, almost all the science groups have left including the BBC :( We have had a couple artist/writer groups come in the last few weeks which has been interesting. Outreach is a big part of the NSF mission. I very excited to see the end products off all this work in the next few years.


I had the opportunity to travel to the dry valleys a few weeks ago. It was beautiful and quiet. Carrie and I went to close out the Lake Fryxell field camp. We had to inventory all the supplies there and send all the unused stuff back to McMurdo. To get to the continent we took an A-star helicopter which took about a half hour. After months of watching these things take off and land right outside of my window I FINALLY got to go on one. While there are some jobs at McMurdo that require lots of travel the majority don't, so I am very lucky to have the opportunity to do a couple days of work out of town. The flighgt was awesome and we got to see where the ice was breaking out (just months ago I was driving the 45,000 lb Delta over these same spots!). We flew over the Ross Sea to the base of the trans-Antarctic mountains. The camp was at the base of 2 glaciers- Canada Glacier and Commonwealth Glacier. After work on our first night we hiked to Canada Glacier and the second night we went out for about 6 hours to the peaks behind the camp to look for ventifacts. Ventifacts are rocks that have been pounded by blowing dust and wind for hundreds of years so the rock gets formed into crazy shapes. I guess I should mention that the significance of the dry valleys is just what it sounds like. It is not ice covered like the rest of the continent. It is wind swept and dry and the scientists go there to study the lakes and streams as well as the terrain. A few group study this place as the closest thing to a landscape on Mars. In fact many of the geological features in the dry valleys have also been seen on Mars pictures. Carrie and I hiked a bit together but we also spend some time hiking alone which was really peaceful. It's hard to get lost because it is so barren, I could almost always see camp even though I was miles away. (And of course mom, I carried my radio).

Since the Helo flight back I've been busy working on spreadsheets and other boring things that tend to come in the aftermath of something very fun. We were, afterall, out there to do work. On the helo flight back we asked our pilot to fly us out over the ice edge. We saw Minke and Orca whales jumping and seals everywhere as well as huge iceburgs breaking off. We are still wondering if the ice edge will make it all the way into hut point this year. Though it is the closest it has been in years. In fact if you read about Scott and Shackeltons first expedition to the Antarctic they were able to sail all the way to hut point, but then the ship got frozen in and the next 2 summers the ice edge did not melt all the way in leaving them stranded. At the end of the second winter they blasted their way out. None of following expeditions were able to make it this far in either so they ended up with the Terra Nova and Royds camps 13 and 20 miles further north.

Today's flight back to Christchurch starts the staff flights where all my co-workers start leaving too. It's very sad to say goodbye to dozens of people every few days. But many of the winter-over crew is just arriving. They will be the 200 people who run McMurdo from February until September. There will be no flights in or out for that entire time. Within a month or so it will be dark 24 hours a day. I'm hoping to see the first sunset before I leave but I might be a few days too early. It's been strange not seeing the moon or stars or darkness for 5 months, but I think not seeing the sun for 5 months would be even more strange. When I first got here we had mostly darkness and a few hours of twilight, but that was changing at a rate of almost an hour a day until it finally the sun didn't set anymore.

Open Ocean

The last few weeks have been very busy. People coming in from the field, science groups leaving to go home, the ice breaker and fuel tanker coming to McMurdo, parties, spending as much time with friends who you can at best hope to see again someday.

Everyone is is very busy and either getting ready to spend the winter in Antarctica or planning their vacations and jobs at home. It's exciting and sad all at once. I have less than 4 weeks left here which is hard to believe. I guess that means maybe only one more blog entry at the rate I'm going?

We've been seeing lots of seals, penguins and whales now since the ice breaker Oden came through and broke up a path to McMurdo. I have seen Minke whales but I'm hoping to see Orcas. It's hard to believe the sea ice that I was at one point driving a 45,000 lb Delta over is now open ocean. Everyone is watching where the ice edge is at. Right now we can see it if you climb to a higher point around station. The open ocean has not reached station in years, but a lot of people think this year it will. For now we have some big melt areas close to us to watch for wildlife popping out of.

I finished my jewlery class and made some rings and earings (the crazy earings are for Vicki). Other than that classes and trips have taken a backseat to spending time with friends who are leaving (or have left) way too soon. Most of the BBC crew is now out which was hard to see them leave. They have been here a good portion of the season and I got to be good friends with a few of them.

Sir David Attenborough spend 2 weeks in Antarctica. I got to talk to him a few times which was fun. I've been hearing hs soothing voice my entire life on every nature documentry I can think of. His voice was unmistakable. He gave a lecture one night and spent time mingling at a party the BBC threw for the science support staff last weekend. Funny to hear him talk...I think he could narrate just about anything and make it sound amazing. And no, I did not ask him to record my cell phone voice mail...but it was tempting. Instead I had him write a postcard to Marc which I just put in the mail today.

Now I am focused on my trip on Monday. I will FINALLY be getting off the island and heading to the continent. I'm going to the Dry Valleys for a couple days to close out a field camp. I'm told it is one of the most beautiful places in Antarctica. It will be me and Carrie going and while we have a ton of work to do I hope we have time to hike a bit.

Finally Friday

It's finally Friday and tomorrow is my day off. I plan on doing a 9 mile hike in the morning if the weather is good. The hike heads out to Castle Rock (yep I'm going there again) but this time I'll complete the entire loop which circles around and I hike on the Ross Ice Shelf.

So I missed a few questions from a couple days ago (some students from my nieces' school have been posting questions for me).

Manda- I got here August 20th and I will leave February 20th. A solid 6 months in the ice. Then I fly back to New Zealand where I will travel with friends for 10 days until my husband Marc flies down from Boston to meet me. We are going to spend another 11 days in New Zealand, then fly to Sydney Australia to visit friends and then fly to Tonga in the South Pacific. I figure I have a lot of warm sun to catch up on. So I will get home at the very end of March or early April.

Oh and Rhian, Raytheon will pay for a free stopover in Hawaii.... where are you these days? Plus to answer your question...yep...they scan the blogs. In fact they were trying to make a rule against blogging all together but so far nothing has come of it.

Destiny- I think the most fun I have had was when I got to go out with the BBC film crew and listen to Weddell seals swimming under the ice. We put a hydrophone in the water and I listened with headphones. They call to each other a lot like whales do but the sound is hard to describe. I'll look for a link sometime on the internet to post. It sounds fake, almost like a computer generated sound not smooth and long like a whale call.

Misyy...I like the snow mobiles more than the motorcycle....there is nothing to crash into. Just miles and miles of ice. We should get snowmobiles when I get home :)

I'm off to call Marc now. I heard Reece hurt her paw playing today and is at the vet. Poor little girl. And for anyone reading his blog I am taking a pole as to if I should accept his appology for blaming me about the mudroom trim missing for 8 months. I knew it wasn't me!

Questions!

Yay Questions... this will be easier than trying to describe what I do everyday... which from my perspective at the moment is go to work, go home, sleep, go to work etc...

So Robert, Today was a typical day for peak summer in Antarctica. It was 19°F (-4°C) and the wind chill was 0°F (-17°C). The wind was gusting at 46 mph. When I first got here last August we had days that were -50°F with a -100° windchill. Instant frostbite for any skin that was exposed.

Last Saturday we had the nicest day of the season. It was for a brief few hours 39°F and dead calm wind with the sun shining. That's about the best you can expect in Antarctica and I doubt it will happen again. (Although at Palmer Station which is on the other side of the continent they are a bit farther north, so they get many more days like that). This beautiful day lucky for us happened on the same Saturday as Icestock.

So Icestock... and I suppose if you are, well I hate to say it...MY mom's age you will know this is a play on the famous 1969 Woodstock music festival. Except our theme was "Peace and Parkas". Basically the carpenter shop built a great stage (see my "New Years" post) and all the bands on station played all day long. We cooked outside on grills and people sold crafts.

I guess this sort of answers the other question of what do people do in their free time: Lots of people play music, sing and form bands...which entertains the rest of us less talented people in our free time. Lots of people make crafts to sell and we have a great craft room where people go to draw and paint. Actually another thing people do is teach classes after work. One of the plumbers volunteers his evenings to teach jewelery making and one of the fuel line people teaches massage. It's all classes that people do as after work as their contribution to the community. This week there is dance aerobics, bookbinding, navigation, drawing, jewelry making and I'm sure others that I have not heard about. My volunteer contribution is taking people on tours to various places in Antarctica like the historic buildings that the first explorers built and teaching people about Antarctic history and nature. Remember we have an entire little town here, plumbers, electricians, scientists, outdoor exploration experts who make sure we all all traveling safely, logistics people, housing coordinators, cooks, janitors...everything. So there is a ton for us to all learn from each other.

We have 3 places to go and have coffee and drinks in the evenings. People go and play board games there and listen to music. Sometimes we all pile into a dorm room and watch movies together and catch up on entire seasons of TV shows.

We have a gym and intermural sports like rugby, soccer, volleyball, softball, dodgeball and basketball. We do things outside like cross country ski, run, hike, and play ultimate frisbee. Sometimes if you are going on a long hike you have to take a radio and check out with the firehouse so they know exactly who is off station and what time they are expected to return and check in that they made it back safe.

Ah and well what I actually do for work (which by the way is 7:30am to 5:30pm 6 days a week) is I supervise the building where all the scientists come down to work. I help them organize their life down here basically and help them with anything they need in the lab or when they fly out to remote parts of the continent to collect their samples.

This season we have about 70 science groups (with 1 to 16 people EACH) thankfully not all at once. Our building is 45,000 square feet and has tons of offices and labs for them to work. Right now we have the BBC here (Like our National Geographic Explorer show) making a movie called Frozen Planet. This will be the follow up to Planet Earth. For science we have a groups studying climate change by looking at ice core samples, microbes in the soil of the Dry Valleys, my favorite group the Volcano Scientists who are up on the ACTIVE Mt. Erebus which we can see from town, people who study the movement of the earth, plate tectonics and the rebound of the earths crust since the last ice age. There are people who study the lakes and streams which are usually covered in ice. David Ainley is here studying penguins (his website is lastocean.com ... Dawn you will like this one), A group studying Weddell seals which are popping up all around these days out on the ice. As well as quite a few others...

Okay all for now... Thanks for the questions!

New Years

Well Marc is probably right, I would have been terrible had I gotten the "best job in the world" last year. The sole responsibility was keeping up with a blog, which is obviously a weak point for me. This would be a ton easier though is people (say Emma and Molly's classes) just posted questions. I'm sure there is a ton I am missing simply because I'm used to it.

So the strange thing about New Years is that Raytheon decided that we would not have Jan 1st off from work. Rather they moved new years officially to Jan 3rd. So we got our 3rd (and last) 2 day weekend yesterday. Pretty much what this meant is a lot confusion as to what day it was and when should we countdown to midnight....which with no darkness just seemed strange no matter what day you celebrated it on. This in addition to never quite remembering what the day and time it at home added to the confusion.

Overall though I had a good weekend. On Friday I got to go out on a snowmobile about 10 miles out of town to a spot where we will bring town people on moral trips. I said I was done with volunteering this season but there is no way I was going to pass up taking people on snowmobile trips. We had great weather for it and getting to fly across the Ross Ice Shelf improved my mood significantly. This trip was my training trip so we learned the route as well as how to fix common snowmobile problems like spark plugs and belts. Plus since everyone had been snowmobiling before lets just say we got there a little quicker. The spot was just at the base of Mt. Erebus, the active volcano that we live next to. When it is clear out you can see it fuming most days and it's crazy to think there are scientists working up there. Someday I hope to get up to the crater.


Saturday was Icestock. Everyone has been looking forward to this and we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. It was 39 degrees F and at least in the morning the sun was beating down. We had bands play outdoors on the stage that was built and various departments served grilled (hot!!) food and coffee.


I helped give out H1N1 vaccines in the morning at the gym and then joined the rest of the crowd. My friend Katie (who has the best band on station) played last and actually had the BBC filming for the "behind the scenes" portion of Frozen Planet that will come out next year. Oh and I finally got a picture with David Ainley who's website you should check out www.lastocean.com



Marc and I are starting to get our travel plans together for New Zealand, Australia and we think Samoa or Tonga. It will be hard to coordinate since I have to arrange my travel via USAP rules long after the Marc has grabbed a good flight deal. So the best I can do is try to match closely to his ticket, so it is unlikely we will end up on the same flights at the same time. It will be interesting anyway.

Today I am relaxing. It is windy outside so I have not left the building all day. I am almost finished reading "The Art Of Racing in the Rain" that someone on station gave me. It is possibly one of the saddest books I have read but it is very good.

Christmas

So since last week we had Christmas here...even though we are at the wrong pole. I spent Christmas eve going out to see the Long Duration Balloon work site which is a few miles out of town. After was a holiday party at the Vehicle Maintenance Facility, complete with Santa riding on a Piston Bully and posing for pictures.

Christmas day after calling Chicago some friends and I hiked out to Castle Rock which is a few miles outside of town (Picture is of Rich and the gang behind me). We were basically hiking in a cloud the whole time so not very good views but it did sort of feel more like Antarctica with the wind and blowing snow. When we got back we watched Christmas Vacation and then dressed up and went to dinner. After dinner was the McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery at the Carpenter Shop. There was a lot of really interesting and beautiful art by people from town and then a few pieces by people who just seemed to have way to much time on their hands. Overall a pretty good day. Oh and the best part was I got a cute necklace from mom for Christmas to wear that she made in a jewelry making class. Someday you guys might get the package that I sent to Chicago.

I'm getting pretty ready to get home and see Marc and the dogs. I'm also very excited about having real milk from real cows again. Next week we start getting all of our redeployment information for leaving McMurdo. It will be strange to leave here, especially with no job lined up at home yet. If anyone knows of any openings anywhere please pass them on. Otherwise I will just have to be a stay at home dog owner. I'm sure Marc will have no problem with that.

Today one of my roommates was suppose to fly to South Pole, but it's been snowing for the past day so flights are all cancelled. She is just going for a few days to set up some new medical equipment. I am quite jealous. I am lucky to have a job where I have the chance to talk to scientists all day long but I never really get to leave the station unless it is my own volunteer time taking people places nearby McMurdo. You would think that volunteering a ton actually puts you higher on the list for going on moral trips, but not so much. I know better next time now.

I'm seem to think of all sorts of interesting things about Antarctica while I'm walking around town, but somehow when I go to write it down none of it comes to me. I guess one interesting thing is that all the buildings have a number, plus a name, plus a second name that people actually use. It's very confusing for awhile, especially since the numbers are not in any order. Actually for that matter abbreviations are another part of life here. Before I left Peter K gave me a list of acronyms, I thought it was a joke...but I'm pretty sure that in any given sentence I now use at least 2 or 3 acronyms. I have easily learned 200 of them that will do me no good whatsoever in the real world, but when new people arrive here they basically have to learn a whole other language.

No penguins or seals this week just skuas, which are the birds that dive down and steal plates of food when you try to bring them from building to building. They are worse than seagulls.

Around Town

I seem to be getting a lot of pressure again about this blog thing. I think what really should happen is that since I talk to Marc most days he could just write my blog for me. Shockingly I find that I have very little free time here. So much for the stack of books I want to read.

Sadly I have no exciting "Antarctica" stories to report on the last couple weeks. We have been working like crazy with groups leaving and shipping samples home. We have had power outages and water outages in preparation for the new generator system. Finally we have had just today a cruise ship that helicoptered tourists in from the ship to tour the station for a few hours. (It was really really strange). They were people from all over the world who apparently paid 21K a piece to see Antarctica. I guess they get to see a lot of spots, but they just paid the exact amount of money to spend a few hours here than I will make in 6 months of being here. I heard they eat better though. In defense of the kitchen crew I should point out that it is really hard to cook for 1,000 people with food that by nature of the system is not the freshest.

What has happened in the last couple weeks that has been fun is that one night last week I had a lovely dinner at Scott base. It nice to eat good food cooked in small batches with love. I asked if I could go see Sir Edmond Hilary's hut build in the 50's, which was the first building at Scott base. I didn't have my camera so I'm waiting on those pictures from Rich.

I hosted a Solstice party on Monday night at Hut 10, which is sort of a little house that you can rent out for an evening and have private parties. We made real ice cream using liquid nitrogen for the freezing part of things. and Sangria using fresh fruit I had been collecting and freezing from the galley when flights came in. The fun went till 3am and I've been hearing that I throw a really good party. (Pictures to come later...again I didn't have my camera)

We got our H1N1 shots last week. It was sort of voluntary. The problem with getting sick here is that there are limited medical facilities and supplies should everyone get sick at once. Once you get sick here it's nearly impossible to recover from. I've been coughing on and off since mid October. Between the dryness and the cold and long hours your body just can't keep up.

Last night was the Waste Barn party. This is where they sort all of out trash, but last night they decked it out for a concert. There are so many people on station who have formed really great bands, some who have been playing together year after year.

Finally tonight I have my second silver smithing class. One of the welders here volunteers his time to teach jewelry making to about 5 people at a time for 5 weeks. We are lucky to have so many people who volunteer to teach classes here...on Fridays I am learning belly dancing.

My next big volunteer project starts next week. I am guiding snowmobile trips to the other side of the peninsula to get people off base as a moral trip. For some people this will be there only time away from McMurdo for their entire stay here. It should have great views of Erebus and the continent on the other side of the ice shelf so I'm very excited.

That's really all I have. We have been preparing for Christmas so I have a picture of me and Jim Olech decorating Crary for the holidays.

So I guess Emma and Molly are reading my blog too now? I feel like I need to be a bit more exciting here. Maybe what is easier is if you post questions and I answer them. It's amazing how after 4+ months things become commonplace and you don't really think to write about them.
Like the other day I rode a bike out to the point at 1am and it was bright as day...and there were 7 seals below me basking in the sun... but of course I didn't have the camera! I'll get back out there soon though.

Oh and THANK YOU MOM AND BETH FOR THE CHRISTMAS BOXES!!!!!! I can't wait to wear the necklace for Christmas and eat sugary cereal!!