Knight-Errant: November 2006

Sea Ice Map

Here is a map of where we fueled the other day.

We fueled at camps 8, 14, 3, and 10 (Hutton Cliffs).

Fueling Fish Huts

Today I fueled fish huts with fellow GA Bamma. "Fish hut" is the euphemism for a little wooden box on the sea ice in which people congregate. They have diesel heaters and we filled the tanks. There are 4 huts spread over many miles. We burned 128 liters of gas in the pisten bully. The tank holds 130 liters. It was a long day.

Fellow GA Bamma hails from Las Vegas. When not in Antarctica, she cuts down trees that are on fire (USFS fire fighter). This she likens to large scale gardening. At 5'1", the saws are sometimes longer than she is tall.

Here I am in the PB. Lisa wants proof I have a beard. Here is proof.

The first stop was 13 miles outside of McMurdo. Hutton Cliffs is a field camp where seals are studied. Take a look:

One of the grantees is Dr. Regina. To further our collective knowledge, she wrestles the seals into bags and weighs them. The weddell seals are unusual in part because of the duration of lactation. The pups will nurse for up to a month and the mothers will lose 40-60% of their weight. This is interesting, and interesting things cause lots of confusion results amongst scientists. One of the seal wrestlers got hurt pulling a pup out of a crevasse, so at the end of the day we came back here and took him into town. Coincidentally, this seal-saver also has a blog. Check out the blog of Dan, a fellow birder. His seal pictures are better than mine. Hey, I only had a few minutes to snap with my little camera. Take it easy on me. Here is Regina. She is German, so we expect that she would wrestle seals.

On the way to the next hut we passed by the Delbridge Islands and the Erebus glacier tongue.

Throughout the day we saw animals. Take a look at the bird life - a skua.

We also saw mammals. I walked right up to this guy while he was asleep. This fella clearly has no natural land predators. I was a couple of feet away.

And here is the cuteness alert. That's a nursing pair in the background.

Catch Up Pictures

Statue of Mary "Our Lady of the Snows." One of the historic monuments on Ross Island.

McMurdo. Part mining town. Part college dorm. Part research institution.

View across McMurdo Sound from atop the Hut Ridge Trail system.

Catch Up

I had my first 2 day weekend this weekend, and I slept the sleep of the post-Siple Dome traveler. I went on a hike - the Hut Ridge Loop. It goes by Scott's Hut and up a nearby ridge. The winds were pretty strong. I could lean about 30-45 degrees into them and stand still. I spotted a couple of seals basking in the sun by the Scott Base (NZ) pressure ridges, and more skuas were in the area. They are extremely bold. One landed in the road in front of the galley and stayed there for over 10 minutes. It simply sat in the road as all sorts of people walked within feet of it going to and from dinner.

On Monday I unloaded pallets of food on the loading dock. We eat lots down here. Every day we probably get between 5 and 10 tons of food brought in. I got to sample many desserts in the kitchen, and I got 3 bread recipes from the bakers (straight from the Bread Bakers Guild of America 1994 Baking Team USA formula book). On Tuesday, I had taxi cab training for the scientists on the Andrill project. I have to make one run in the shuttle on Saturday night to drop some of the beekers off at their drilling site, and then pick up a batch of folks a little while later. In the afternoon I flagged more of the road out to Willy Field. We made a special effort to guarantee that all the flags are colinear and that the flags across the street are placed perpendicular to our reference line. Our flags are straighter than the road we are marking.

I got a new roommate Monday.

Last night someone pulled the fire alarm. I slept through it mostly. It was easy to sleep through, due to the constant tone of the alarm. It drowned out the other sounds that are more likely to wake a guy. So, as long as folks keep pulling the alarm, I might get some sleep.

Fueling today out on the ice.

Pictures coming. The card readers are down.

Siple Dome

I got back from Siple Dome today. The weather wasn't too bad. We worked hard every day. 5 workers and 5 beakers (scientists) departed on November 1 on a ski-equipped C-130. We landed at Siple Dome after circling for 45 minutes while waiting for fog to clear. The scientists flew to the Fosdick mountains the next morning. Our stay was scheduled for 5 days. I stayed 10 days with one other carpenter - Graham. We each had our own tent. The 3 other carpenters left after 2 days. We put up a jamesway, which serves as the heated cooking / eating / lounge area for the camp. We also built a freezer cave. The cave was 8' deep, 20' long, and 6' wide. In the additional days, Graham and I did other work around the camp. The largest task was to survey and reflag 6 miles of skiway. It is now perfect. All flags are correctly aligned an everything exceeds the code for skiway layout. I got to ski solo a few evenings, staying out until past 1:00am. I have now skied, camped, barbequed, and baked cookies in the deep field in Antarctica. A twin otter picked us up and brought us back to McMurdo this evening. On to the pictures...

Sleeping quarters.