He Gives Water

LDB is the acronym for Long Duration Balloon. The LDB is the name of the camp, a few miles from McMurdo, where the balloons are launched. They carry payloads of instruments such as neutrino detectors and telescopes into the upper atmosphere (~129,000 feet).

The camp runs low on water. Today I brought water to the camp. Delivering water in Antarctica is not trivial. Everything freezes quickly. I worked with a woman named Anne. We took the Delta to the water plant and thawed the tank valves. Then we filled it with 500 gallons of water. On the way to the LDB we passed by the New Zealand base:



By the time we reached the LDB, the output spigot was frozen. We took care of that with a Hermann-Nelson, and then found out that the hose (stored inside an LDB jamesway) was also frozen.



So we bundled everything under a wool blanked, put the HN on it, and had lunch. Afterwards, water flowed. The excess water that we transported was sprayed on the snow. It didn't form ice. Rather, it simply soaked right through. Interesting. Dry snow capillary action.

The cooks out there have an interesting freezer. I shoveled off the doors so they could access it again.



At the end of the day we had a meeting. I found out that I'm heading to west Antarctica - to Siple Dome, to help carpenters set up jamesways.