Questions for 1Q

Since I have been down here, I have been getting a range of questions for different school groups. I've noticed that some of the same questions come up so I thought that this time I would answer Ms Quinton's 1Q questions on my blog for other students (and parents) to learn from.

Logan - Can we call you Skippy? Why do you have snowmobiles there? You could just walk over the ice? I like arctic wolves. Yes Logan, you can call me Skippy although the nickname didn't really catch on down here. As for the second question, we could walk over the ice but some of the places that I need to go are very far away. Even with snowmobiles it can talk an hour or two to get there. Plus whenever we leave the station we need to bring survival gear with us just in case a bad storm comes in. During bad weather you can't see the flags that mark the routes and you can really only travel by GPS. These survival bags are very heavy and it would be hard to carry them. A typical survival bag (that is checked before each time going out) has a tent, sleeping bag, dehydrated food, stove with fuel, first aid kit, toilet paper, and books for reading.

Shayla - are there puffins or any other birds down there (besides penguins)? are kids allowed to go down there? We do not have puffins, but there are other birds. First off there are many kinds of penguins. In McMurdo we have Adelie and Emperor Penguins but you can find others along the coast. The bird we see the most is the Skua. It's a very large seagull looking bird that is very cleaver at sneaking up behind you and stealing your food. Skuas love to sit on top of the buildings looking down on the area were we come out of the galley. If they see someone with food, they swoop down from behind and quickly duck up over their shoulder and are off with the food. It's really funny to watch. Unfortunately you must be 18 or older to come down here with the USAP. However it may be possible to come down on a cruise ship but I hear that costs about $17,000.
Kennedi - Have you seen any whales? Did you know that polar bears have black skin? I have seen one whale. It was a Minke whale which is a baleen whale that feeds on plankton in the water. The channel that the ice breaker made is finally starting to clear out so we hope to have more whales come into our bay soon. In another day or two we will have a fuel tanker here to offload 7 Million gallons of fuel for us (that's a lot of fuel). It has been delayed over a week because of pack ice about 500miles out. Oden, our icebreaker headed out the other day to go help it. The information about polar bears is very interesting.

Jalyse - Do the penguins like you? Do you have hats? Do you like it down there? I don't really know if the penguins like me or not. I think we have a relationship that if I leave them alone, they will leave me alone. We enjoy looking at each other, but from a comfortable distance. I have a bunch of hats down here. The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) gave me two hats at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) in Christchurch. However I also brought two hats down with me, bought a hat, and had a hat sent to me. Lots of hats, but I like my Red Sox (thank you Steve-O) and Scott Base ones (thank you Amber) the best. I love it down here and am already looking forward to coming back again next year.

Hayden - Do you have a lot of fun on the snowmobiles? Have you caught a penguin? Hayden, snowmobiles are a ton of fun. Most of the ones we have are old and don't go very fast, but it is still nice to have the wind in your hair. The thing I like most about snowmobiling here is driving towards Erebus (our active volcano on the island) on a sunny day where you can see smoke coming out of the top and have a helicopter fly a couple hundred feet over the top of your head where you can see the pilot wave. Truly a great experience. I have not caught a penguin. The National Science Foundation (NSF) says that we can not approach the wildlife in any way that will effect their behavior. However some of the scientists get special permission to capture them for research but must let them go after they are done.

Luke - Why did the penguins walk away from you? Are there any stuffed animals down there? I'm not really sure why the penguins walked away but I bet they got bored with us. It was neat watching them go away because after they waddled a little, the dropped on their bellies and pushed themselves along with their toes. We do have some stuffed animals in the station store. I sent a cute little stuffed animal penguin to my adorable niece Ella for Christmas.
Gabe - Have you touched a seal? While with scientists, I have been very close to seals, closer than you would get to most wild animals, however the NSF and the Antarctic Treaty (signed by 20+ countries) don't allow interaction with the animals down here except by special permit. Touching a seal could be dangerous and if I got caught they would send me home. The picture above is of a bunch of seals laying on the ice.

Tyler - Do you have any weapons? Do you hunt down there? Good question Tyler, no I do not have any weapons. We are not allowed to bring any weapons here and they search our bags in Christchurch before we fly over. The rumor is that there is one gun on station that is for the station manager (who is also a US Marshal). The gun is rumored to be in three places under lock and key of three separate people. This would be used only in an emergency and I don't know if it has ever been used. Hunting is not allowed in Antarctica so there is no reason to have a weapon. As a side note, we don't have a police department, but if something does happen, the fire department is called in to handle the situation. Every now and then a fight will happen and both sides will get sent home on the next flight.

Matthew - How many penguins have you seen? More than 10 or less than 10? Good question Matthew, I'm not sure how many penguins I've seen but it is over ten. When the Penguin Ranch was up and running, I saw penguins there and now that the ice breaker has come in, we have Adelie penguins around town. If I look out the window with binoculars, I can see them along the edge of the ice. My roommate saw about 20-30 Adelie penguins walking next to one of the trails on the edge of town while I was at the South Pole. I saw some of his pictures and videos and it looked pretty neat seeing them all walking in a line.

Kelsey - Do you have any friends down there? In the summer time is there lots of food or in the winter time is there lots of food (for the people) I do have a lot of friends down here. Coming down, I didn't know anyone but people are very friendly and it is easy to make connections. As for the food, this is lots of food. We have two huge warehouses that are FULL of food (food is even staked in the isles so that you can't even walk down them). We also have a greenhouse that was made out of scrap supplies laying around. In the winter planes can't land here and this is the only place that the people can get fresh vegetables. In the summer about once a week "freshies" are flown in from NZ and we get good food like avocados, peaches, watermelon...

Shealyn - What is your favorite thing to do down there? There are a few things that I really like to do and I'm not sure I can narrow it down to one. I really like playing my guitar with friends as they sing along, going snowmobiling on the sea ice, driving a pisten bully, answering enthusiastic questions about Antarctica and watching really bad storms come through. Some of the things I don't like doing include working 6 days a week and not seeing my niece.

Hannah - Are there any cars down there? Great question Hannah. I haven't seen any "cars" down here, but we do have "normal" vehicles and some interesting vehicles. Normal transportation is in trucks and vans. Some of these vehicles have over sized tires for the snow while some have tracks. If the van or truck is only going to be used in town, they have normal tires. We also have a wide variety of snow vehicles including Ivan the Terra Bus, Deltas, Pisten Bullys, Hagglunds, snowmobiles, planes, helicopters, four wheelers, big tractors, small tractors, flatbed trucks and the list goes on.

Brian - I have 3 snowmobiles! Do you know that we made life size Arctic animals? You must love snowmobiling as much as I do. It must have been fun making the animals, what kind of animals did you make?

Taeva - How do you sleep down there? Do you wear any snow gear down there? Have you been in the Arctic? Interesting questions Taeva. Sleeping is very easy since we work 54hrs a week. If by any chance we can't fall asleep, we can get NyQuil in the store. We wear lots of snow gear and I hope this picture gives you an idea of what we wear. The clothing is known as ECW (Extreme Cold Weather Gear). I have not been to the Arctic, but did live in Alaska for a little while.
Mrs. Kern - Do you get to watch movies down there? Some of the new movies the kids like are Alvin and the Chipmunks, High school Musical etc. :) Just wondering. Also, have you seen any tourists, my dad went down there on a ship once. We watch a bunch of movies down here. We have two movie channels where they rotate the movies daily. Since we are part of the government, we get the AFN or Armed Forces Network. I haven't seen any of those movies, but we do get them shortly after being released in the theaters. While at Pole I saw some people that had skied in. In McM I haven't seen anyone yet, but I am on of the tour guides for when cruise ships come in. We were suppose to have two of them in town last week, but for weather reasons, they canceled. Maybe in a week or two. The picture above is of the three vessels currently in town. The one at the pier is the fuel tanker, left is the Oden (Icebreaker), right is the Palmer (USAP research vessel).

Thank you for all the great questions and I hope I was informative on the answers.

Marathon Day

While I was at Pole I went skiing for the first time since I've been down here. The conditions were horrible but for some reason I got this great idea to ski the McMurdo Marathon. The plan was to train for two weeks but from a fall I took skiing at Pole my leg wasn't in condition for training. The race was on Sunday so Friday I rented some skis and waxed them. Saturday I continued to train by going to Gallagher's and drink like a fish.

With all my "training" I woke up ready for the race on Sunday. First all I needed to do was wash down a couple Excedrin with a Liter of water to get the pounding out of my head. The race went from Scott Base Transition (where you go from land to ice shelf) out to Willy Field then over to Pegasus and back for the grand total of 26.2 miles. (I stole most of these pictures off the I:Drive)

My one day of training really showed as my technique was quite poor. I did the first half of the race in 1.5 hrs and was enjoying a little AC/DC on my MP3 player on the beautiful day. However, at the halfway point my batteries died not only on my MP3 player, but also in my body. Wow, the second half of the race took it's toll on me. Right about Willy field I almost passed out from low blood sugar but was able to hold it together enough as I skied passed the ambulance. After hitting the Willy Road, the first runner passed me and gained a 200 yard lead. However, after the last aide station I pounded down a few Luna Bars and I was "back in black" (okay I was still sucking wind, but I wasn't about to pass out anymore). After the final turn, the course turned into a slightly downhill run covered in ice for a quater mile. This was perfect for skiing and I quickly overcame the lead runner and finished in 3hr and 26min. I'm a little sore today and I learned my lesson about not training and drinking too much before a race. However it was the best day to enjoy outside and how many people can say they did a Marathon in Antarctica? Also how many Marathons use a Terra Bus or Pisten Bully as an aide station?

Only three short weeks left and the sun will set on the longest day of my life. As the Grateful Dead put it, "what a long strange trip it's been."

The Oden

This post is for my Dad and Bruce as they fish in FL this winter. Also before I forget, Happy Birthday Brian (he's my brother). When I arrived back in town, I noticed a big ice breaker parked at our dock. A few years back an iceberg by the name of B15 broke off the Ross Ice shelf and blocked our bay. B15 made it so that each summer the ice in front of McM did not "blow out" to sea. So, for the past few years ice breakers have come to clear a way into town so we can offload fuel and supplies for next year.

Oden is the Swedish ice breaker with her 18 crew members that are doing our dirty work. Today I got a tour of the boat.

After waiting about 45min to get on board, the captain welcomed us and brought us to their store. Since I have not had real ice cream (we only have frosty boy here which is made out of edible plastic although it still tastes good) in who knows how long. If it would ship, I would have someone send me some. However on the Oden, they had ice cream bars and I was more than willing to pay the dollar to get one.

Next one of the crew members brought us through the bar (look how nice it is and they even have fresh beer on tap, not 3 year old beer with floaties).

Eventually we made it up the 7 decks to the bridge. The view was amazing and we could see seals and penguins laying on the ice next to the channel they had cut. Apparently the sea ice is still 2-3 meters thick.

Brain (from the Xmas hike at arrival heights) and I did the tour together and since I had a picture of him in front of a bunch of computers from our previous outing, I only thought it appropriate.

After leaving the boat, I saw Amber's good friend Cindy managing people on the dock. I needed to send Amber a good picture as a small thank you so this is for you Amber.

Hold On Tight

I just got back from the South Pole and it was a very exciting two weeks where the world revolved around me. The scary part is that there is no gravity at the pole and you can fall right off the earth (just kidding). A lot happened in that two weeks and I really hope I can cover most of the highlights. I was suppose to leave the day after Christmas but due to a medivac from Pole, flights were changed around. It looked like I was never going to make it by New Years since priority was not given to Pole flights. However a flight got canceled on Friday and we were back on the schedule. While taxing down the runway, we ran into an electrical issue that was corrected by “rebooting” the plane. I guess that works on more than just computers. So, on the 28th I made it to Pole. However I started to get a bout of the “McM Crud” and going to the high altitude Pole didn’t help me out. I didn’t take the altitude drugs since I was fighting the crud but I seemed to adapt well.
Going into the station is a challenge for someone new to the pole. The new station is elevated to help reduce the effects of snow drifts but this requires you to walk up two flights of stairs. When you are already oxygen deprived, this becomes a great workout.
The first day of work went well. They said they were going to take it easy on me since it was my first work day at altitude, but I found myself short of breath by 3pm. The first task was to help run a cable from the new station out to the HF antenna tower. For this we pulled the cable through a trench, and then down a 40’ ladder to the ice tunnels under the station. These tunnels are used for the movement of water and waste to and from the station. Adjacent to the station are “Rodwells” which are big pockets melted into the ice. The water is collected from the well and pumped to the station. After the pocket gets too big to be effective, they switch to the next Rodwell. The old “pocket” is then used for human waste which gives the tunnels a great smell.
After dinner that first night, Matt (a Janitor form McM) and I headed out to the Pole to take some pictures. In the reflection of the ball you can see the new elevated station and the old Dome. The dome is going to be torn down next year and has already been gutted. On Sunday Matt and I went on a tour of the tunnels and got to see some of the weird things under the station like the pig head and sturgeon above. To go into the tunnels we must first check out with comms and report who is going and when we will be back. There are even video cameras in the tunnels to help document who goes in. This is a safety precaution to make sure everyone comes back.
We were in the tunnels for about 1hr and it was very cold in there. The temp is about -60F which will chill you off very quickly. You can tell by the ice on my head that the tunnels are not a place you would want to get lost.
On Sunday night we had a New Years party (even though it wasn’t new years yet) and the gym was transformed into a ballroom. There were three bands that played and each was fun. Since I still had the crud I decided I wasn’t going to drink. Well that didn’t last long and I found out that the effects of altitude makes me a lightweight.
Pole has a great little greenhouse that smells amazing. Monique is one of my new co-workers and one of her part-time jobs is to run the greenhouse. The number of cucumbers she picked a couple days after this picture was incredible. The other great thing about the greenhouse besides the smells and fresh veggies is the humidity. Everything here is dry and my hands and lips are cracking and bleeding. Going into the greenhouse rejuvenates the skin. I spent Monday in here playing cribbage with one of the fuelies.
I spent the true New Years at the geographic SP with some friends and some new acquaintances. A guy there had a GPS that counted down till the New Year for us. Since we had to work the next day, the celebration didn’t last long and it was off to bed.
The next day of work was with the fire tech Joey-T again working on the HF radio. We had to finish running the cable from the tunnels into the station. For this a Ditch Which was used to dig our trench. I am still amazed at some of the equipment that was flown in here.
After dinner that night on January 1st, there was the ceremonial moving of the pole marker. Each year the winter-over crew designs and makes a new pole maker. Since the glacier that the station sits on is moving, the pole marker must be moved in order to mark the true pole. Each start of the new year, a new marker is placed at the new location found by high tech GPS units. Looking at the old markers, I can see that the pole is moving about 10-15’ a year. This means that in another 10-20 years, the pole will be right over the dome. Next to the true geographic pole is the ceremonial pole. This is the barbershop looking pole with the reflective ball on top.
One thing to note is that the crime rate down here is horrible. You can’t park your van or tractor in the wrong part of the station or who knows what will happen.
At Pole Sean (another GA from McM) and I got to work with the heavy carps. These guys are the iron workers of the South Pole. Typically GA’s do the clean up and gopher type tasks. However this day Sean and I got to help Bob build some of the new arch (will be used as a place to build cargo pallets). Sean and I got to learn how to use all kinds of new tools but the coolest by far was the cutting torch. In the afternoon, Bob was so impressed with our skills that he moved on to another task and let Sean and I continue with the knee wall. Working with iron and steel is fun, but at the South Pole it makes your fingers very cold.
Daiquiri night was a blast. Rick, one of the heavy carps, organized a daiquiri party with a wide range of tasty drinks. As a side party we watched “The Thing.” This is a great movie about aliens in Antarctica but we didn’t believe it showed the true life down here with the large amount of drinking they did in the movie ;).
Saturday night was a night at the drive in at the big gym. For this a big screen was put up, popcorn was made and people dragged in couches, chairs, mattresses, and blankets to watch Indian Jones and Star Wars. I only watched the first movie, but it was entertaining to have people come by each “car” and give out free Jello shots. It was also funny when halfway through the movie the emergency exit door to the gym opened and ~12 people came in half dressed in their ECW. They all lined up in front of the screen with their backs facing us and dropped their pants and mooned. Then they all filed out as we clapped and went back to watching the movie. Just another normal night at the South Pole.
Sean and I one day took a quick break from work and wandered into the Dome. This is the old station that will be torn down next year. So far all the structures have been removed from the inside area and is now used for food storage.
While staying here I have had the experience of living in “summer camp.” It has made me feel like living in a MASH unit. From the picture above you can understand why. These are old military Jamesways. They are warm and I have my own “room” and even have a window. Sound travels very easily in here as I learned the first day when my neighbor went to use his “P” bottle.
I don’t fully understand some of the science here, but two of the major projects include Ice Cube and South Pole Telescope. For Ice Cube, scientists are using doms (pictured top) to study neutrinos (subatomic particles). Ice Cube is drilling 86, 2.5km holes and putting 60 doms down each holes. Each dom cost about $8,000-$15,000. The total project is estimated at about $260 million. SPT (pictured bottom) is being used to view far off galaxies and the beginning of time, or something like that. They are still trying to get it up and running and work out all the bugs.
Since being here we have had many visitors. Most exciting to me was the South Pole Traverse People showed up on the 8th. If you remember, a few months ago I got to help this team load their food for the long trek here. Well they made it and now they only have to make the trip back home. We have also had a number of people ski to the pole. Trips take anywhere from 8-60 days depending on where they start from. For some reason I don’t think this sounds like fun. I remember as a kid being taught to look both ways before crossing the road. Well, at the South Pole you are taught to look both ways before crossing the landing strip. On either side of the runway there is this sign and a red beacon to help inform you when a plane is landing or taking off. It works similar to a railroad crossing.
After two weeks of fun at Pole it was time to come back to McM. Originally I was going to be the only passenger on my flight but due to bad weather in McM everything was changed around. The flight I left on was a medivac flight for a guy that broke his angle. From the airfield in McM he got to take a helicopter ride into town. Due to the weather delay and the medivac, we didn’t get back to town until 0415 this morning. It made for a long night, but the good news is that I get today off.
The best part about being away is when I got back I had a ton of mail! Thank you everyone for everything. I am truly the luckiest person on earth, even if it no longer revolves around me.