life under the Antarctic Sun

And the Sun sets again

2007-02-05T18:29:00.000+13:00

Antarctica’s brief summer season is over.

Temperatures are now tumbling back toward the sub-zero numbers with which the continent is most comfortable, and the sun is sinking lower in the sky. The day that began in October is almost at an end. Soon, 24-hour-a-day sunlight will turn into months of complete darkness, and the Antarctic stations will be all but abandoned.

As the sun prepares to leave for the winter, so does the Sun staff. We will be headed to New Zealand this week. I’ll have a few days to enjoy the sites, smells and food that come with warmer climes before Bethany arrives. Then it is off to China!

We’ve got lots of options up in the air right now for what comes next. It’s wonderful to have time to enjoy the freedom this job provides. We live everywhere and nowhere all at once, always on the move and always together.

We give up a lot of “stuff” that other people have, but we are paid back in things that make it all worth it – amazing experiences, opportunities to explore interests, and time together (especially during our time away from Antarctica, when we spend every minute of every day together).

Bethany and I have had a great year together. We’ve broken off the typical track and made the year for ourselves that we wanted. Now it’s back to New Zealand and on to good food, warm weather, nighttime skies and whatever adventures we set out on next.

Thanks for taking part in this season on the Ice!

(Bethany plans to post a comment to this entry in the next week, so be sure to check back soon.)

Cruising the sound

2007-01-29T17:23:00.000+13:00

Well, we just saved $60,000.

Yesterday, we took a three-hour cruise of the McMurdo Sound. A cruise to our area of the world carries the hefty price tag of about $30,000 a person. Luckily, our cruise was offered as a free moral trip to about 400 people on station.

We took the ride on one of the two icebreakers that created the shipping channel through the sea ice to McMurdo Station this season (in preparation for the re-supply and fuel vessels that will be here in just a few days).

We saw penguins, seals and several minke whales during our trip. We even got to do a bit of icebreaking. We’d ram the ice, slide the bow up on top of it, and allow the boat to break through the 10-foot thick ice.

I really want an icebreaker now.

Anyway, my redeployment date just got moved up a few days, so I should be in New Zealand in less than two weeks.

The people in charge of getting all of the summer personnel out of here before winter arrives (at the end of February) have been shuffling people around even more than normal this year.

Getting us all out of here is tricky task. They can’t pull people as long as they’re needed, and they can’t fit everybody on one plane at the end of February. So, they strategically whittle away at departments during the last month of the summer season.
What complicates the situation even more is that one of the events that requires the most manpower each year occurs right before the station closes – vessel offload. And because so many departments are involved, the people not involved (i.e., me) are typically ushered out before offload is complete to free up room on later northbound flights.

And so, the summer ends three days earlier than expected for me this year as the flight I was scheduled on appears to be the first after the cargo re-supply vessel leaves.

It looks like Bethany will be leaving a few days after me, and we’ll meet up in New Zealand for several days before heading toward China and the rest of the adventures that the off-season will hold for us.

Looking forward

2007-01-20T17:47:00.000+13:00

The next few weeks are going to go by extremely quickly. One month from now, Bethany will be celebrating the Chinese New Year and our one year wedding anniversary in China.

We’re still enjoying our time here in Antarctica, but our thoughts have shifted largely toward our plans for the next few months and our upcoming vacation to China.
We’ll know more of the details of our plan as we get closer to the trip, but it looks as though we are going to forgo many of the iconic sites (like the Great Wall) of China during this trip and venture into areas of amazing scenery and small, diverse villages.

This trip should be amazing, as well as challenging since we won’t have any way to communicate with most (if not all) people in the rural areas except by playing Pictionary or charades.

(I’m already running into some problems stemming from the language barrier. For example, clicking the “English version” button on an airline’s Web site, which I really need to access, results only in a pop-up window containing a cartoon bluebird and some Chinese characters. I have no idea what that means.)

In some of the areas we’re looking at, negotiating a bed (and a meal) from a family is the only accommodation available. We still plan to travel through a few more developed areas, but we’re starting to eye up the unique opportunities that lie in rural China.

We’ve been trying to devote regular time toward travel planning, but our jobs and activities here are keeping us very busy on their own.

Bethany continues to work a couple nights a week in the station’s store and just finished up a silversmithing class (during which she made a very nice pair of earrings). And this Tuesday, we are signed up for a pottery wheel class, which is something I’ve always wanted to try out.

End-of-summer operations will begin around station soon. The cargo vessel and fuel tanker will both arrive shortly, and two icebreakers are currently busy creating and maintaining the shipping channel so that the two re-supply vessels will be able to access McMurdo when they arrive.

There have been several whales spotted from station over the last day or two. They have been popping up in the shipping channel right by McMurdo, so everyone’s had their eye fixed on the icy water to try and catch a glimpse of the whale’s next appearance.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of New Zealand’s Scott Base, our only neighbors. In honor of the occasion, the prime minister of New Zealand and Sir Edmund Hillary (as well as a number of U.S. officials) joined us on the Ice this week. Hillary was the first person (along with a Sherpa mountaineer) to summit Mount Everest and is a legendary mountaineer. If you’re not familiar with him, here is some info.

Penguins at the point

2007-01-12T16:08:00.000+13:00

Life here at McMurdo can be surprising normal – working, watching movies, writing blogs.

But I have also experienced purely Antarctic moments in my time here that could not be replicated anywhere else in the world – snowmobiling with seal researchers, standing at the actual point that is the geographic South Pole, staying in a tent during a week on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This week I got to add another experience to that ever-growing list.

Bethany and I walked down to Hut Point on Sunday (about 15-minutes from our room) after hearing a rumor that there were Adélie penguins near the land.
When we crested the small hill by Scott’s 1910 Discovery Hut, we looked down to see about 40 penguins. Bethany and I walked a little closer and found a place to sit. We barely moved for the next hour and half.

Penguins in our area of the continent have no predators and few (if any) experiences with humans. The Adélies went about their lives fairly indifferent to our presence, occasionally wandering right by us. One of them walked up and stared back at me with as much interest and curiosity as I showed toward it.

The experience was a defining point of our season here, and I was so glad that it happened near town so that Bethany and I could share it (and not out in the field while I was on assignment).

In other news, the package of stories from my trip to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet came out in The Antarctic Sun this week, which means that I was responsible for most of the stories, photographs and layout. Be sure to check it out here to learn about the life and science at WAIS.

Bethany the Antarctic camper

2007-01-05T07:41:00.000+13:00

For this week's entry, I have a special treat for you. Bethany's first blog! Enjoy.

In the world of janitoring there isn’t much variation in day-to-day activities and, in general, there isn’t much opportunity to get off station and actually see Antarctica, unfortunately. (That’s why Steven’s always writing the blogs. His day-to-day activities are usually more interesting to readers than mine.) However, every once in a while, we janitors get to do something cool off station and we call that a boondoggle (think fieldtrip). Most of the time the boondoggle ends up being “Happy Camper,” or snow school, which is basically a 2-day survival course where you get to learn all about extreme cold weather survival and build shelters out of snow and sleep and eat and live outside in Antarctica for about a 24 hour period (Check out Steven’s happy camper experience last year here.)

When I first got here, I was not too excited about the whole Happy Camper possibility. As many of you know, I am a summer type of girl and usually am a big wimp about the cold. But as time went on and I got more used to Antarctica and the cold, I started to get excited to try camping out there. (Random crazy thing about Antarctica: it is the norm for body temperatures in Antarctica to be several degrees below 98.6. My friend in medical says 95.5 isn’t out of the ordinary. I’m planning on getting my temperature taken in a few days just to see.)

So, anyway, last week when I found out that my name had been drawn and it was my turn for a Happy Camper boondoggle, I was very, very excited! I know, I was kinda shocked at how excited I was! Despite my usual preferences for warm weather camping, I was definitely into it!

Thankfully, I was lucky enough to go on a BEAUTIFUL day. The sun was shining and it was probably about 13 degrees with no wind. It was pretty comfortable. So it probably wasn’t the ultimate test of strength for this summer-lover, but still. We were busy all afternoon. We built a wall out of blocks of snow that we had sawed right out of the ground ourselves…this was to keep the wind out of our camp. We even made a little 3 ½ sided roofless structure for our “kitchen.” Then we pitched the tents and constructed a quincy, a kind of a snow mound that you hollow out and dig a tunnel entrance into. We learned a few survival tricks and had about an hour before we needed to make dinner. Dinner proved to take a little bit longer than expected (fyi, it takes water a loooong time to boil outside in Antarctica). After dinner, I was exhausted. Most everyone went to bed pretty early. I took a walk with one of my happy camper friends to warm up and then went to bed.

I decided to sleep in the quincy because it was very cool looking and was a pretty shade of ice blue on the inside. It was actually pretty warm, with two sleep pads, a sleeping bag with a fleece liner, my long underwear layer and fleece layer, wool socks, hat and hot water bottle! I woke up a few times cold but I pretty much rolled over and went back to sleep and I was ok. The next day it was taking down camp, more training and then heading back home.

OK, the night I got home I was SO tired I almost literally passed out at 9:00 at night. Steven was in our teensy room for about 3 hours after I had gone to sleep, watching TV, up moving around, coming and going, and I had absolutely no clue. And I slept ‘til 9:00 am. 12 hours. Its amazing how being outside here can just zap all of your energy, especially if you have been busy constructing a snow camp all day. Oh, and I put on lots of sunscreen but I still got a little burned on my face. Because of the snow, I got burned in some weird places, like under my chin and on the bottom of my nose. Now I have freckles there too!

The fleeting season of summer

2006-12-27T17:31:00.000+13:00

I think it's fall.

It is a little early this year, but the weather has started the slow decline back toward winter weather.

It really is strange; few things are as fleeting as summer in Antarctica. For the first half of the season, the average weekly temperature gets a little higher each week. It then comes to a very sharp peak and begins the steady decent back into winter. It is a reminder that the relatively mild, blue-skied days of summer are just a small piece of the Antarctic year and don't represent the natural state of the continent’s wicked weather.

In contrast to our weather as of late, Christmas Day was beautiful, and Bethany and I really enjoyed the time together. The holiday itself was wonderful and special as few people can say they spent their first Christmas together in Antarctica.

We had off Sunday and Monday for the holiday and really enjoyed the long weekend. We went to the station Christmas Party on Saturday night, had a big Christmas dinner (including beef Wellington and lobster tails) on Sunday and spent a quiet Christmas Day at home.

We're back at work now but have one last two-day weekend for New Year's. After that, we just have about a month and a half left until we are headed to greener places.

Work is going well. The big package of stories from my trip to WAIS should be out on Jan. 7, and I just finished my last of eight stories and sidebars that will appear in that issue.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and thank you for being part of our blog family.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-26T08:34:00.000+13:00

Merry Christmas from McMurdo Station, Antarctica!
Bethany and I send our warmest holiday wishes from the bottom of the world to our friends, family and blog readers.

Life in the field

2006-12-16T16:43:00.000+13:00

It was amazing.

I am back in McMurdo after my week at WAIS, and I had a great time living at the field camp. It was neat to experience life away from the bustling dirt roads of McMurdo and get closer to the science and to the continent itself.

I lived in my own tent for the week and got to travel away from camp a few times. Getting away from camp was an incredible feeling. I was on a sled being pulled the scientists’ snowmobile. I think the best way to describe what it feels like to be the only speck on the huge white ice sheet is to imagine yourself in a rowboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was a strange feeling to see nothing from horizon to horizon. I’ve been in the field on the continent before, but I’ve never experienced the emptiness of Antarctica like I did this last week.

The world feels so crowded from most vantage points; it’s nice to know there is such a large, untamed area of nothingness. No people. No trees. No animals. No smells. No sounds. Just a few scientists trying to use the history contained in the ice to figure out what’s been going on with the world for the last million years.

It’s been great to get back to McMurdo and Bethany though, and we’ve have a nice time just sharing meals and regular life together again.

I’ll be having a quiet day off though as she is working in the store on Sunday. Bethany’s been picking up a few hours here and there with increasing regularity and has been enjoying the side job.

I loaded some pictures from WAIS today, and I’ll load some more over the coming weeks. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when the WAIS package of stories comes out (looks like it will be a few weeks), so you can see what came of my time there.

WAISward bound

2006-12-05T13:58:00.000+13:00

Well, I’m headed to WAIS.

WAIS stands for West Antarctic Ice Sheet and is the U.S. Antarctic Program’s most remote field camp. It’s a new camp, only a couple of seasons old, and it is soon to be the home of an ice core drilling project aimed at learning about the Earth’s climate over the last 800,000 years by studying the information contained in the snow layers. (Check out the Web site for the main drilling project.)

I am scheduled to fly tomorrow and will spend a week living in a tent and writing stories about the work going on there. Only a couple hundred people have ever been to WAIS; it will be neat to add myself to the list of frontiersmen.

All in all, not a bad business trip.

Bethany and I both had the chance to get off station on Sunday and wander among the pressure ridges in front of Scott Base. Pressure ridges are formed when the sea ice buckles under stress near the coastline, sending sections of jutting out above the surface. The blue ice, white snow and strange shapes made for an otherworldly walk.

I got to search through unexplored pressure ridges last year while working with seal researchers, but Sunday’s outing was along a safe and regularly checked recreational path. Immediately off the flagged route, however, the terrain becomes treacherous with snow-covered cracks leading down through the 9-foot-thick ice to the ocean below.

The pressure ridge walk is reflective of our entire existence in Antarctica – safe, as long you don’t wander from the path. The precautions we take in the program protect us from the dangers of the most hateful continent on Earth, but they don’t remove those dangers. The entire continent is a deathtrap. But with a little bit of technology and a lot of knowledge passed down from the continent’s early explorers we survive here at the world’s most inhospitable location.

(As remote as the WAIS Divide camp is, a satellite passes close enough to have access to communications for a few hours a day. So, with any luck, my next entry will come from middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.)

Giving thanks for a long weekend

2006-11-28T14:11:00.000+13:00

We’re well-adjusted to this whole six-day-workweek crap, but the two-day Thanksgiving weekend was blissful.

In contrast to what most people assume, there are countless things to do with your time in Antarctica (not least of which is taking some down time), and it was really nice to have more time to play with this past weekend.

Antarctic Thanksgiving is celebrated on our Saturday (Friday in America). There is too much going on here to take a day off in the middle of the week, so all holidays take place over the weekend.

It works out well though and really doesn’t feel any different because everyone celebrates it on that day. (Besides our Thursday is Wednesday in the States, so it really doesn’t make any more sense to celebrate it then.)

Dinner is served in the galley, but we were invited to fill our plates and eat with a small gathering of friends elsewhere on station. The lights were low, the place was decorated – it felt much more like a holiday at someone’s house than it would have otherwise. We had a really nice time.

On Sunday, we went for our first ski of the season and took a cross-country trip on the sea ice to McMurdo’s nearest, and only, neighbors – Scott Base. This was only my second time cross-country skiing and Bethany’s first, so progress was slow. We had a lot of fun though and a beautiful day for being outside.

Our room continues to get homier as we find more decorations for our newly renovated room. We’ve added a lot of things to the walls now, and the room really has a nice feel to it.

Last night, we heated up hot chocolate, turned on Christmas music and decorated our room for the holidays. We were able to skua a little Christmas tree and bunch of other decorations we turned into ornaments. We also decorated our room with other Christmassy things, including hanging Christmas lights around the door to our room.
It’s hard to believe December is almost here, bringing Christmas, New Year’s Eve, my birthday, and two more two-day weekends.

And the prison becomes a palace ...

2006-11-22T12:46:00.000+13:00

Our huge bed in a tiny room has become a tiny bed in a (relatively) huge room.
In a desperate and spontaneous moment, Bethany and I decided to dismantle one of our coupled twin beds and just sleep in one of them.

The problem is that the two twin beds together made a bed fit for a king and our room size is more suited for a thief that the king plans to have executed. (See my first blog on this subject here.)

The only place you could walk was immediately in front of our bureaus. We tried think of it as cozy, but torturous just seemed like too good of a descriptor.

So, we took apart he bed frame, doubled up the mattresses, rearranged the furniture, and invited a few friends over tonight. Problem solved.

Of course that also created the new problem of having one too many people in my bed. But we decided that we would be able to adjust. Three nights later, it seems we were right.
The first night, we both woke up at least five times. The next night about two times, and we both slept straight through last night.

The small bed really isn’t as bad as you’d think, and the extra space we created has been amazing. Having that extra space to walk around in and having the ability to open bureau doors without making sure the desk chair is exactly in the right position has really made our life here better. I still smile each time I look at it from my overcrowded bed.

Outside of Profaizer Palace, the season continues to chug along. Work is going well for both of us, and we have a long (two-day) weekend ahead. Our current plans include a nice Thanksgiving dinner and a cross-country ski trip on the sea ice to the New Zealand Antarctic station.
Having a long weekend is a nice treat when it gets here, but it keeps me running around until it does. We still publish the Sun on short weeks, which means one less day for me to accomplish the same amount of work.

I turned in one story this week, which may run in this issue (but most likely will not). It’s on the German director we neglected to invite to our dinner table last week, Werner Herzog.
Not only did I interview him for him for the story this week, Bethany and I saw him sitting at a table by himself one night and did not make the same mistake twice. Dinner with Herzog was wonderful.

Dinner with(out) Herzog

2006-11-14T09:11:00.000+13:00

Well, we blew it.

This season, Werner Herzog (as in the world famous German director of movies like "Grizzly Man”), is here on station for a few weeks to film a documentary about life in Antarctica. Last night, he was just a man standing in front of Bethany and me, looking for a place to sit. And no, we did not offer him one of the two spots open at our four-person table.

There goes our chance to pitch, "Antarctica: The Story of Steven and Bethany."

To our credit, we figured he was looking for someone (which he was), and we were just trying not to be obnoxious. But in the end, the man just needed a place to sit and eat his food. Right before we were about to call him over, some jerk offered him a spot at his table.

Luckily, I did get to spend about 15 minutes talking to him on Sunday, and I do plan to interview him for the paper. But, it would have been really cool to sit down and just share a meal with Herzog. He has had a very long career of making great films in amazing places.

His most recent film, "Rescue Dawn," is not yet out, but it will be released in theaters next spring. Herzog is going to present it to us here in McMurdo on Thanksgiving weekend though, making us only the second group of people to see it.

The documentary he is making about Antarctica is also scheduled to be released in theaters next year. The film will then run on the Discovery Channel. It will be really cool to see a film about life in Antarctica made while we're here.

Luckily, bowling went better than our opportunity to have dinner with a famous director, and we actually won. The teams were equally horrible, but we came out on top (at least partially in thanks to my score of 113, up significantly from last week).

The weather has been beautiful here this week. It’s still cool at about 18 degrees, but the sky is blue, the sun is warm (thanks in part to a record-breaking ozone hole this year), and the wind isn’t blowing … that hard.

I’ve got the big story in the Sun this week. It’s a story I wrote on neutrinos and three science groups who are currently working on very different ways to detect them here in Antarctica.

I just started to look at information for our big trip after the Ice this year. We’re thinking about simplifying it a bit because it is going to be incredibly difficult to organize no matter how we do it. There’s just no way of explaining all the work that will go into setting this up in any type of concise fashion, but I’m sure you’ll hear more about that as our plans develops.

Live from McMurdo

2006-11-10T08:03:00.000+13:00

I just wanted to let you all know that one of the scientists here, Gretchen Hoffman, is scheduled to be interviewed by Diane Sawyer live from McMurdo. The interview will be on Good Morning America (ABC, 7-9 a.m.) on Monday, Nov. 13. I have no idea what they will talking about or for how long, but it's still pretty neat. So, set your recorders/alarms!

Gutter balls and rocks

2006-11-07T08:40:00.000+13:00

Things did not go well for the Bumper Bowlers in our first league game.

There were gutter balls aplenty, and we were beaten soundly. Our four-person team’s total score was just out of range of a top notch bowler.

This week, we square off against Janitorial Artists United – four of Bethany’s co-workers. I really hope they’re much worse than we are. It would be nice to be on the other side of beating a team’s self esteem senseless.

In the working world, our second full edition came out Sunday. I think it turned out well, but I again only had one story in it. I have a few written that haven’t made it into the paper yet because the other stories have been more timely. It looks like I might have several in this week’s edition though.

I got good news this week about one of my big stories later in the season. I might get to spend a few days in a deep field camp on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is further away than the South Pole from here. It’s a small camp in the middle of absolute nowhere, but they are gearing up for a big ice core drilling project over the next few years. It looks like I’ll probably live out there (in a tent) for several days and write a few stories on the work out there. Pretty cool stuff.
I have a few other trips I hope will pan out as well this season as well.

Bethany, my co-worker Steve, and I went on a very nice hike last night. It was our first time getting out of town in a while, and it was a perfect night. The trip took us about two hours, and we got to walk along a ridge on the coastline. We even spotted a seal! (Before we realized it was actually a big rock.)

And the Sun rises again...

2006-10-30T17:58:00.000+13:00

The Antarctic Sun has officially risen for another season.
We distributed our first issue on Sunday to rave reviews (… or at least to no complaints, which I’ve learned is the equivalent of rave reviews in journalism). It should be online by the time you read this.

At the end of last week, the e-powers that be added a feature to our Web site – the ability to receive e-mail reminders when a new issue is published. If you want to sign up, go to our Web site ( antarcticsun.usap.gov ) and can click on the "subscribe" link on the right-hand side of the page. You'll get a little bit of teaser text and a link each time a new edition goes up on the Web.

I should have three stories in the next issue of the Sun, including a long one on everyone’s favorite subatomic particle – neutrinos! The scientists and people who have read it really like the story, so hopefully you will too. It’s a heavy topic (particle physics and neutrino astronomy) but a relatively light read.

Bethany and I are all settled in now and really enjoying ourselves. The weather continues to warm and the nights continue to get brighter.

This Thursday, we have our first game in the bowling league we entered. Anyone who has bowled with us knows that “Bumper Bowlers” is a fitting team name. We have combined efforts with two other non-bowlers, so we’re aiming for mediocrity.

McMurdo has a two-lane bowling alley that’s been around for a very long time. It even has two human pinsetters who place your ball in the return shoot and pick up knocked-over pins. It makes for a very cool bowling experience on some fairly warped lanes. We’ll play five games in the next ten weeks. The top teams will then face off for the championship; the bottom teams will stop playing; and the middle teams will compete in the “Toilet Bowl.”

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that even the title of Toilet Bowl Champions might be well, well out of our pathetic bowling grasp.

Weird place, normal week

2006-10-24T08:47:00.000+13:00

The sun has risen on the longest day of our stay in Antarctica. And it won't set again until after we leave in February.
We're now into the five months of 24-hour sunlight that serves as the balance to the five months of darkness during the winter.

What a strange place.

Despite the oddity of the day-night cycles, life continues relatively normally for us here at McMurdo.
Last week brought our first deadlines, and we distributed out "teaser" issue on Sunday. It was just a two-page introduction to another year of The Antarctic Sun. This Sunday brings our first normal issue.
Our Web site is not up and running for the season yet. (We are waiting for IT to update it.) But I'm sure they'll have everything taken care of soon. I'll let you all know when we're online. I think they'll probably go ahead and put the teaser on there as well.

Well, we're in a bit of a heat wave at McMurdo Station. It's been very cold so far this season and hasn't been warming the way it typically would in the summer. We've been struggling just to get the occasional day where we make it into the positive temperatures.
Over the last day or so, things have suddenly got much milder, and the forecast high for today is 9 degrees. Unless you've spent a few weeks at 30 below zero, you can't appreciate what a nice day that is here. It's not that it's warm or anything, but its so much warmer than normal that it really feels about the same as that first day in spring were you can tell that the season is changing – cool but full of promise.

If frostbite and hypothermia weren't still an issue, I might just have a picnic.

Getting out of town

2006-10-17T16:36:00.000+13:00

Our first week has already whizzed by and all is well at McMurdo Station.
You wouldn't think a six-day work week could whiz by to save its own life, but the mix of a lot of work and a lot of fun is a powerful time accelerant

Life at The Antarctic Sun is in full swing. Our first real deadline is tomorrow, and I completed my first story yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find my ability to perform my job had not been lost in my time off.

I’ve been busy, but it’s been a great week. I even got a nice surprise last Saturday when I was asked to help out a team of divers who were headed below the ice of McMurdo Sound. My duties mainly consisted of heavy lifting and helping the divers on with their dry suits, gloves and masks. It was pretty amazing to see how much gear they wear to protect themselves from 26 degree water, however when I dipped my hand in, I still wondered how they can survive the 45-minute dives. The water is of course below freezing and several layers of insulation are all that keep their bodies from shutting down. With all their gear on, they are actually very reminiscent of the slug-like Weddell seals that live in the sound – terribly awkward on land but surprisingly mobile in the water.

We drove out about and hour and a half on the frozen ocean surrounding the island we live on. With ice completely incasing Ross Island, it’s almost hard to believe that we’re actually looking out at the ocean every day and not snow covered plains.

It’s really neat to drive around the coast and actually be able to tell we’re completely surrounded by water (even if that water is frozen). It’s not a tropical paradise any means, but an island none the less.

We eventually arrived at the tiny, heated (thankfully) dive hut positioned over a 4-foot hole in the six-foot think ice. In about an hour, all four divers were swimming somewhere beneath my feet, and I was left alone with the indescribable silence only Antarctica can offer. With no civilization or trees or animals of any kind above the ice (and on this day, no wind), when you’re alone in Antarctica you know it.

The team made two 45-minute dives into another world none of us can understand. Beneath the ice in Antarctica is supposedly an untouched world of unparalleled beauty, but it is a world very few will ever know.

When the divers came back to the surface, they told stories of ice stalactites with schools of fish living among them and of a seals showing off their underwater acrobatic routines.

Despite my experience with the below-freezing water, I longed to dive in.
But the thought of immediately freezing to death kept me at bay.

Although I wasn’t able to dive down and spend my day amongst the creatures of McMurdo Sound, one did come up to me. As we were packing up to leave, a seal stuck his head through the dive hole in the floor and watched for several minutes as he breathed in deep before returning to a world I’ll never comprehend.

Getting back to the grind

2006-10-10T20:29:00.000+13:00

While the sights around McMurdo are much more familiar than foreign this time around, the beauty of this place has again caught me off guard.
For most of each season, the station looks exactly the same at any time of the day – 6 a.m. might as well be 6 p.m., midnight might as well be noon. The sun just circles overhead with no regard for its normal arrangement with the moon.
But for the first few weeks of each season, the sun still dips below the horizon and casts near-endless sunsets into the sky. They can go on for a couple hours before giving way to dusk, and just when you can almost see the first star, the sky begins to warm again and another unnaturally long day in Antarctica has begun.

Yes, we have indeed made it to McMurdo and are already making our way through our first week of work. Bethany’s flight was combined with mine, and we flew in together on Saturday.

Luckily, Sunday is our day off so we thoroughly enjoyed the last two-day weekend we’ll have until Thanksgiving. However, one activity that filled a good bit of our weekend, I’d have to keep out of the “thoroughly enjoyed” category – moving in.

Our room is fairly nice and fairly tiny, but it actually isn’t too bad. The problem is that things are not bad enough in our marriage to want to sleep in bunk beds (which is a fairly good problem to have). And when we place the beds side by side, it gives new meaning to the word BEDroom.
Moving in was very much like one of those tile puzzles that have one empty square and you have to slide all the pieces around as you try to complete the picture. Our failed attempts ended in a bureau you couldn’t open, a bedroom you couldn’t exit, and a desk you couldn’t sit at.
A few tries later, all the tiles fell into place and we had our new home.
One great thing about our room is that it’s in the smallest dorm. (It only has about 16 rooms with two people in each). And while we’re still just meeting our new neighbors, and many of them haven’t even arrived yet, the place has got a great small community feel. I think we’ll end up being really happy with it.

Work is going well for us both so far. We’ve got two days down, which puts us a third of our way through our first week. And Bethany is making serious headway in befriending the entire station.
I’m back at the desk I left just a few months ago and busy working to get the paper moving again. Peter also returned to the Sun staff this year, and we’ve got one knew guy, Steve, who should be a good addition to the team and a great source of complication when it comes to figuring out who some one is calling for on our office phone.
Tomorrow I get a reprieve from desk work to attend a full day of sea ice, helicopter, and survival training. So I should be approved to leave Station by this time tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for a while yet, but it looks like I’ll be headed out to the field in about one month.

I’m hoping it warms up a bit by that point though as it’s well below zero with a wind chill of -50 today.

Things are going well, and there’s a lot to look forward to. It’s great to be back in McMurdo.

40 hours later

2006-10-04T16:40:00.000+13:00

Four more flights and 40 hours later, we are in Christchurch, NZ. Bethany should have left for the Ice early this morning, but the two flights ahead of us (the first two of the summer season) have yet to leave due to bad weather in McMurdo.Antarctica has been flexing it's muscles over the last few weeks. During that time, they've had about 300 hours of "Condition 1" (the worst level of weather conditions) -- when even movement between buildings on Station is prohibited.This is one of the few times in our lives though that we are actually excited about a flight delay. The first reason is that it looks like we'll get there on the same day. The second is that we are on paid vacation until we go, and with several months of cold, work and isolation on they way, we are living life to the fullest here in beautiful New Zealand.Our Ice flights are currently scheduled for Saturday, and the weather appears to be improving. But I've learned it's better to never presume to understand what Antarctica's thinking -- just go with the flow and the continent will cooperate in its own good time.

Year two begins

2006-10-02T15:31:00.000+13:00

Welcome back, everyone!
As you’ve probably surmised, I am headed back down to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for another season as a journalist at The Antarctic Sun.

Life since I left the Ice has been wonderful. It was both thrilling and overwhelming to arrive in New Zealand after almost five months in Antarctica. My return was something I anticipated for months, but it was a little strange to be back among people who had no idea McMurdo existed since it was my entire existence for so long.

Two days after arriving in Christchurch, I was joined by Bethany, who flew over from the States. And, as many of you know, it wasn’t long after her arrival that we got married.

Since then, we have had an amazing time together. We spent the first four months of our marriage traveling New Zealand. It is a shockingly beautiful country filled with welcoming people, incomparable landscapes, and sandflies. We’ve added pictures of our trip to my online photo library, which you can access by clicking on the “More of my photos” link toward the top of the sidebar along the right-hand side of this page. Once you click on the link, my photo library will open and you'll see the words "New Zealand" off to the upper right hand side. Just click on that to access the set of pictures from our trip. We’ve taken the time to write a little description for each photo, so you can get a nice overview of our New Zealand travels by looking through those pictures.

Bethany will be coming with me to Antarctica this year and will be joining the support staff around McMurdo. She and I are scheduled to arrive in McMurdo on Oct. 5 and 6 respectively. (Those dates and all dates on this Web site are based off of McMurdo time. To see the time difference between your time zone and ours, click on the “World clock” link in the sidebar.)

While I will be maintaining our blog in my free time, Bethany will be commenting on the entries I make. This brings us to our first new feature of this blog – comments. Starting today, you can post a comment or question for me and the rest of the blog readers to read and respond to.

At the bottom of each of my entries is now a link referring to "comments." You need to register (which is both quick and free), but you will then be able to say whatever you want in response to each post. Every comment will be sent to me first for review so I can avoid ads and other unwanted content, but I check my e-mail throughout the day and your comment will be up there very quickly.

You can also just view comments if you’re interested to hear what other readers said about any given entry. Like I said, Bethany plans to post comments, observations, and her own thoughts on most if not all entries, so it’s definitely worth keeping your eye on the comments section. The link to view comments is at the bottom of each entry near the link you use to post. Bethany’s already got her comments in for this entry, so give it a try!

There are several other small changes, but the last one worth mentioning for the time being is the new search bar at the top of the sidebar. Just plug in whatever you’re looking for and you can search all of my blog entries instantly.

I’m really looking forward to sharing this season of life in Antarctica with you. Last season we dealt with a lot of the basic questions one might have about Antarctica, which leaves us free to go a little deeper into the Antarctic experience this time around. (All of the old entries are still available by looking through the links under the “Archives” heading in the sidebar.)

I’ve already been able to help put together a basic story list for the year, and my assignments include everything from huge telescopes and neutrino detectors to a certain ex-presidential candidate and a famous documentary filmmaker.

Please feel free to write Bethany or me at any time if you have our e-mail addresses. If not, I’ve provided an “E-mail us” link toward the top of the sidebar that goes to an e-mail account that gets forwarded to us.

Lastly, we do have an APO mailing address in McMurdo. Mail takes anywhere for two weeks to two months to arrive. If you’re looking to send anything our way, just e-mail us for directions and details.

Everything appears to be on track for another great season in Antarctica, which is good news because Bethany and I should be in McMurdo in just about four days.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming season of Life Under the Antarctic Sun. I normally write at least one entry a week, so check back often for new photos and stories from our life on the Ice.

Thanks to you all for your support! Enjoy the blog!

The bustling metropolis of McMurdo

2006-02-01T22:31:00.000+13:00

I’m all out of Wednesdays. I will be in Christchurch by this time next week.
As my time here draws to a close and work finally starts to slow down, I’m catching up on a few of things I have somehow managed to not do over the last four months.
I’m planning a long hike for Sunday on the one trail I have left to do. It’s the longest one and takes about six hours to complete (which is a lot of time to give up on the one day each week that I’m not working for 11 hours). It should be a nice walk and a good chance to take in the beauty that is so prevalent here.
I got to take another hike around McMurdo earlier this week, and I really enjoyed it. There were some areas with a massive amount of accumulated snow from a several-day storm we had over the weekend. It’s been a very long time since I’ve got to wade through waist deep snow.
When we got up to the ridge on the outskirts of town, we could see four ships (which is shocking since we have been so incredibly alone here until about a week ago). Only one was close enough to really see and was a U.S. Antarctic Program research vessel. The others were just dots on the horizon but were the icebreaker, the fuel tanker and the re-supply cargo freighter.
This time of the year is really the storm before the calm.
In the last few weeks of the season, the station population swells. We have several hundred more people here than we have had all season, which makes a huge difference when you normally only have several hundred people to begin with. Most of them are from a special cargo handling battalion the Navy sends us each year. But a lot of them are people either coming in for the winter or leaving Pole for the season (all U.S. off-continent flights go through us).
It seems like our tiny piece of civilization is now busting at the seams.
But very soon and very suddenly, the vessels will come in, the ships will be offloaded, and everyone will immediately start to leave.
Once McMurdo reaches the near-breaking point it quickly deflates down to the winter crew of less than 200. Those people will spend the next seven months keeping things running and awaiting the return of the sun and the rest of the program participants in October.

The eminent end

2006-01-26T22:34:00.000+13:00

Although my job shows no signs of it, the rest of my life here in McMurdo screams that the end is near.
The annual fuel tanker and re-supply vessel, although out of view, are waiting for the divers to repair the Russian icebreaker (the Krasin) that cut the channel to McMurdo. Unfortunately, that ship has met the same fate at the Coast Guard’s icebreaker last year and suffered a broken propeller. The ice around McMurdo has been acting very strangely the last several years and grown extremely thick – even the icebreakers can’t handle it anymore. The ice rules the waters around McMurdo for the time being.
The ice is continually trying to heal itself by closing the Krasin’s channel, and the massive vessels bringing next year’s supplies cannot make it to McMurdo until they can be guaranteed safe passage in and out of the channel.
It’s unknown when the Krasin will again be operational, but the Coast Guard’s icebreaker has been ordered to start the 30-day journey here, just in case the repairs don’t go as planned. There is no choice but to get the boats in before winter comes whipping back across Antarctica and all transportation in and out of the continent stops for seven months.
And winter is definitely on the way. The days are getting colder, and the sun is getting lower in the sky. Soon our never-setting sun will be gone, and the moon gets its turn to reign over Antarctica. It will be months before even a hint of light on the horizon will be seen.
Personally, I welcome the return of the moon. I have not seen night since I made it to Antarctica about four months ago. As I right, it’s almost 11 p.m. on my watch and looks like about 11 a.m. out my window. I can’t help but smile every time I think about the New Zealand night sky awaiting my arrival. The stars, the moon – they’ve all been missed.

The Deep, Deep South

2006-01-22T23:52:00.000+13:00

I stood there looking around. In one direction there was nothing but white. In the other was the new station under construction.
I had made it. I was standing at the South Pole.
The exact location is marked with a metal pole that is moved each year due to the shifting ice that covers the continent. I stood alone there, looking around – it couldn’t have been more surreal. Then Sen. John McCain asked me to take his picture.
OK, let me explain.
I have actually been to the South Pole twice now, but the first time with a group of about 15 members of Congress. They were all part of a congressional science delegation and the National Science Foundation (the government organization responsible for the Antarctic program) invited them down to see how we’re spending your hundreds of millions of tax dollars. There were several well-known legislators there; the most high-profile being John McCain.
NSF asked me to travel to the South Pole with the delegation as its official photographer, so I toured the new station and outlying science facilities with the group, snapping photos as I went. It was an amazingly fast-paced tour. In just a few hours, however, we had seen most of the major sights.
First, we walked through the new station, which is scheduled for completion next year. When it opens, it will be a historical event, and I imagine you will hear about it in the news. It’s replacing the South Pole Dome, which is the long-outgrown station used by the program since the early 70s. The station itself is very nice inside and out, and it is far better than anything we have in McMurdo.
Second, we visited the Clean Air Sector. This location is home to the cleanest air in the world and an atmospheric research facility.
We next headed out to IceCube – a very cool project I am writing a story on right now. It is currently under construction and will be the world’s largest scientific instrument in the world when it’s complete. IceCube is a sensor array located about a mile under the ice. The device will be used to detect neutrinos streaming through the Earth from across the universe. My story should run in the Sun this coming Sunday (Jan. 29).
We then stopped by the Dark Sector, which is the location of the radio telescopes at the Pole. It is also the site of another major construction project, a radio telescope that will dwarf any other similar devices in Antarctica.
We finished up our tour where this entry started, the geographic South Pole. There are two markers about 30 feet apart. One is the ceremonial South Pole – a fat, striped pole with a silver ball on top that is surrounded by flags of the nations who signed the Antarctic Treaty (which established the continent as a place devoted to science that no one could own). The second pole is the one I mentioned earlier – a thin metal pole with a decorative top. On Jan. 1 of each year, they move this pole back to its place exactly over the South Pole (again, the thick ice covering the continent moves around by about 30 feet every year). It was really cool standing there and thinking I that I was the one person in the world hanging upside down at the geographic South Pole. I could just hang there slowly spinning under the world, or do a lap around the world in about two seconds. I did some of both.
The trip was short, but I was lucky enough to get to go back again 10 days later to do the interviews and take the photos for my story on IceCube.
Through both trips I found that everything is cooler if you can say, “I’m ______ing at the South Pole.”
There were two major difficulties with the trip, however. One is the cold. It may be the middle of summer there, but it makes McMurdo feel like a tropical paradise.
The second is the altitude, although it’s completely flat there, it sits at about 10,000 feet and making the transition from sea level to that elevation in one day is very tough on your body. Besides not being able to walk up stairs without getting winded, headaches and sleeplessness regularly complicate visitors’ trips. I handled the change well but did get a little taste of all those symptoms.
But despite a little dose of insomnia, I couldn’t help but fall asleep that night thinking, “Wow, I’m sleeping at the South Pole.”

A day in the Dry Valleys

2006-01-09T22:08:00.000+13:00

Well, I made it to the Dry Valleys – one of the very few areas in Antarctica that is not completely covered by an ice sheet (which can be up more than 4,000 feet thick).
It is also one of the few places in Antarctica that sometimes has water in it. Because there is no ice covering, the sun can heat up the rocks beneath the snow’s surface and melt the snow, even if it is below freezing outside.
Activities in the Dry Valleys are very limited due to the area’s scientific importance and ecological sensitivity. The many regulations means a trip to the Dry Valleys comes with perks like peeing in a bottle and bringing it back out with you.
But, oh, the view. The valleys are overflowing with scenery that forces you to marvel at the forces at work in Antarctica.
As we took off from McMurdo in our helicopter, there were low-hanging clouds in the sky. We quickly climbed up into and over the clouds. Even at only about 800 feet, we were above them, and the sun was shining brightly on the mountains that rose far beyond the clouds’ reach.
We made it to the edge of the Dry Valleys in about 40 minutes. By the time we got there, the clouds cleared and revealed a side of Antarctica I had never seen. Massive glaciers spilling into the valleys were frozen in place and dark brown earth surrounded the almost completely frozen ponds and lakes. Impressive foothills rose up all around us, and I could see the Transantarctic Mountains in the background.
We reached Lake Fryxell in another few minutes, and I was surprised to see we we’re going to land on the lake itself. I was even more surprised when I saw the lake’s surface, as it was incomparable to anything I have ever seen. The ice was not flat but carved into bizarre formations that ranged from a foot to a yard tall. There was not a flat area of ice anywhere in sight. (These structures are formed by dust and rocks that get blown onto the lake, heat up in the sun and melt the ice into these bizarre pieces of natural artwork.)
To land on the jagged surface, the helicopter pilot found a spot, hovered above it, and slammed the helicopter down the last three feet on the ice. He then lifted up about three feet again and slammed down about five more times to pack down the ice so the helicopter wouldn’t suddenly shift while we were out unloading under the giant spinning blade.
We piled up the scientists’ equipment and lie on top of it while shielding our eyes until the helicopter took back off.
I spent the 12-hour workday there taking water samples though a large hole that had been drilled through the nine feet of ice on top of the lake. After the samples were complete, we had several pieces of (heavy) equipment that had to be carried about 30 minutes to the shoreline. This was made much more difficult by the ice sculptures that covered every inch between the shore and us. Walking was treacherous as there was no marked route and a bad step could mean a wet foot, at the least. While we don’t think (and hope) that those melt pools were connected to the water underneath the ice, it was at least deep enough for one guy to fall in up to his waist. Luckily, I made it across (and back again later) with my boots still dry.
There was about 30 feet at the edge of the lake that was completely melted away, and we had to use a small boat to get across the last little stretch.
We were able to spend about an hour walking around to search for small salt deposits among the rocks on the coast. I was even able to see a naturally mummified seal that was thousands of years old and very well preserved (considering it was thousands of years old).
The ground was very strange; there were rocks but no real dirt. Instead, there was very fine, very soft sand that was made of grainy powder from the rocks covering the landscape.
It was the hope of days like this that drew me to Antarctica, and it was great to have an experience that by itself made it worth the long journey to get here.

A very nice end to year 22

2005-12-27T21:36:00.000+13:00

This will be a pretty tough week to beat.
Two-day weekend. Christmas. Helo (helicopter) trip. Helo trip to Marble Point. Helo trip to the Dry Valleys. My birthday. Another two-day weekend. New Years.
I sometimes joke that everything good happens to me in the week that contains Christmas and my birthday (on the 30th) – and that I then spend the rest of the year just trying to survive until that week comes back around again.
The theory certainly holds true in Antarctica as well. Two of my remaining three trips worked out for today and tomorrow, and I’ll be making up for it by spending most of the rest of the season around McMurdo.
Today’s trip was to Marble Point – described by those who run it as a “truck stop for helicopters.” It is positioned at the edge of the Dry Valleys and serves as a lunch stop, a gas station, a relay point for cargo (including passengers), and a place to wait out bad weather.
Two people spend the season there and a third rotates every three weeks.
One of the two season-long residents is a cook, and I was welcomed into their little hut today by the smell of chicken noodle soup, warm cookies, fresh-baked bread and ice cream – all homemade.
Outside the hut, there is no question of where you are. A large glacier terminates a few hundred feet away. Icebergs stick up out of the sea ice, frozen in place. And the ever-present wind whips across your face.
Inside the hut, however, a kitchen, dining room and living room make you pinch yourself to ensure this isn’t just one of the hypothermic stages you were warned about.
I was flown out there to write a feature story on Marble Point, and I ended up having a great time and a tasty meal in the process.
It’s a wonderful little oasis for the pilots (and journalists) lucky enough to have a reason to stop there.

Feasting on freshies

2005-12-20T22:24:00.000+13:00

They weren’t frozen or canned or pickled. They were fresh, and they were delicious.
A lack of fresh vegetables is one of the first signs the planes aren’t flying.
Getting things to Antarctica isn’t easy or cheap. This means that every pound that comes to us from New Zealand is accounted for and prioritized. When bad weather or just a large amount of cargo comes along, the freshies feel it first.
But last Friday, after almost a month, they made it.
It’s pretty amazing how much you miss them. No lettuce for your sandwich. No salad with your steak. No potatoes not from a box. No eggs not from a jug.
I’ve found that I could more or less live without them, but I was amazed at how wonderful it was to have them back. Peppers crunched in my pasta. An orange squirted juice, as I peeled it apart. And a huge salad filled a craving I had taught myself to ignore.
It’s interesting how big of deal they are here. You hear the freshies are coming through the rumor mill long before you see them. Word spreads quickly, and people treat them with respect reserved for no other food. When they do finally show, people pile their plates high and marvel at the colors and smells that preserved foods just can’t provide.
Unfortunately, we ate them all.
But Christmas dinner is a big deal here as well, so freshies (and packaged mail – the other runt on the priority list) get bumped up in importance later in the week.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a big plane come in (about three weeks), but one is due on Friday and should arrive loaded down with an extra helping of freshies and mail.
And the impending arrival of freshies is enough to turn a bunch of adults (with an average age on station somewhere in the mid 30s) into kids again, giddy for Christmas.
As someone said to me today about the incoming plane, “Forget my presents, I can deal without them for a few days. I want the freshies.”
Personally, I welcome both.

Halfway and happy

2005-12-15T23:20:00.000+13:00

We are now halfway through the Sun season (it took us a few weeks to get set up and running), but everything is going well. I’ve got a plate of mostly interesting stories right now, so that’s very encouraging. I had a few weeks with mostly stories about incomprehensible science. Those stories are very challenging because I first have to understand the project and the science behind it before I can explain it to the readers.
My main story last week was on killer whales. It was nice to be in the world of charismatic macrofauna again. By the way, a week ago I didn’t know that word existed either. It basically means “zoo animals.”
While biology can still be very technical and difficult to understand, I have a basis for understanding, i.e. I have seen Free Willy. When it comes to aeronomy (another word I didn’t know existed before coming here – read it as “studying the upper atmosphere”), I have almost no basis for understanding, i.e. no one has yet made a movie about the mesosphere.
Sometimes you just have to start the conversation off with, “To be honest, I know nothing about the dynamic properties of the mesosphere, please speak to me as if you were explaining to a child or very, very old person.”
It’s been a great learning experience though. I was thinking today about how much I have learned since I came down here. I can’t claim to completely understand the subject of any of my stories, but I do come to a solid understanding of the basic principles and the importance of much of the work down here.
That’s one of the greatest perks of my job, I get to dip my hands into almost any science project I want on station and take the understanding I get from these leading scientists home with me.

Looking toward part two

2005-12-08T10:50:00.000+13:00

I have spent two months in Antarctica as of this week, and I am now at the halfway point of the season.
It’s been a great experience so far, and I have a lot left to go. The newness will not be the same in the second half but much of my payoff lies there.
December should bring the Town Christmas Party, my birthday, a probable trip to the Dry Valleys, and TWO two-day weekends (Christmas and New Years).
January likely holds another Dry Valleys trip and, hopefully, a trip to the South Pole.
Going to the South Pole was a trip I thought I would be OK with if I missed. I was wrong. I really want to go now. Relatively few people have ever stepped foot on Antarctica, but the numbers go down dramatically at Pole. Only about 20,000 people, in the history of the world have ever seen the South Pole. I think it’s a real privilege to make it there.
It is especially difficult to get there this season because they have two major projects going on right now and are well over capacity. The first is the construction of the new station. The old one was the first to ever be built there (in the 1950s), and they are just transitioning to the new facility. It is being built on stilts so it can be jacked up to keep it above the drifting snow that is constantly trying to bury buildings at the Pole.
The second major effect going on right now, and the reason I would be traveling to Pole, is IceCube. I’ll hopefully be able to explain this better in the near future, but IceCube is a huge effort by many nations and institutions to create the world’s largest neutrino detector. To do this, scientists are dropping strings of sensors down 80 1.5-mile-deep holes that most first be drilled through the ice using a hot water drill.
It is a huge project and should make an interesting story to write.
Overall, it looks like the second half of the season should bring even more chances to explore Antarctica than the first.

A wonderful, and selective, celebration

2005-11-30T09:51:00.000+13:00

My first Antarctic Thanksgiving went well.
They do three seatings (3, 5, and 7 p.m.), and you sign up for one in advance.
Dinner was great – all the typical foods, lots of freshies and even shrimp cocktail. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are big deals here. It takes a much larger kitchen staff than normal to prepare the meal so they take volunteers all week to help with prep work.
I wasn’t sure how things would be with having Thanksgiving on Thursday and Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, but it worked out really well. They actually just pick up the whole holiday and move it. In Antarctica, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Saturday of the month and not on that Thursday.
The table I sat at was next to some of New Zealanders from Scott Base, who were having their first Thanksgiving experience. They enjoyed it but were a little surprised we would want to bring up the Native Americans after all we did to them.
I believe, “I think I’d keep that under the hat” was the phrase he used.
Someone spent a few minutes explaining to them we weren’t giving thanks for the small pox-covered blankets we gave the Native Americans or the muskets that allowed us to kill them after they helped us survive … although, after thinking about it, I concede his point a little. It’s definitely a case of selective celebration.
I guess it’s a good thing that kindergarteners’ dress-up-like-pilgrims-and-Indians Thanksgiving feasts at school end at the feast. It would be a little more disturbing, and probably a little more accurate, to then have the pilgrim children then act out the slaughter of all the Indians.
All that to say it was interesting to hear the view of a person from another country that didn't know too much about the holiday and the reasons for celebrating it.
Well, the two-day weekend was everything I hoped it would be. I put off the long hike I wanted to do because I had to a little bit of work to get done, but I did get up hiking up Ob Hill (Observation Hill) right near station. It’s about a 30-minute walk from the bottom to the top, and you can access the path from the other side of station.
It wasn’t a walk I had planned on, but I walked outside at about 10 p.m. and decided there could be no better time. It was stunningly beautiful. The harsh and constant winds were much calmer than normal, and it was steadily snowing. You may be wondering what the big deal about snow is in Antarctica, but it actually almost never snows here. Antarctica is by definition a desert. It gets the smallest amount of precipitation of any continent of the world. There is tons of snow around, but most of it has been here for a very, very long time.
A long, steady snow in Antarctica is like a significant rain in a desert that gets about four inches of precipitation a year.
Snow also means it is warmer out than many days here in Antarctica. Most of the time in the States, you have to wait for it to be cold enough to snow. Here you actually have to wait for it to warm up. The temperatures for most of the year are too cold for snow. The extreme cold actually freezes the water vapor out of the air and prevents snow from forming. It is really only in the warm summer months of above-zero temperatures that we have a good chance of snow.

Holidays and heroes

2005-11-23T23:59:00.000+13:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving according to our calendar, but just like Saturdays, it doesn’t mean much here.
We do however have a two-day weekend in honor of the holiday. This is great news, except for the fact that it gives us one less day to do a full week’s worth of work. The paper is no respecter of holidays after all.
This accelerated schedule of deadlines is keeping me at the office later than I’d like, but I’m happy to do it to have one weekend where my first day off is not also my last day off.
The work is very constant here, but I’m really enjoying what I’m doing (and considering I can still so easily say that after the day I had means a lot). Besides, there is still Sunday, glorious Sunday.
The toughest decision about Sunday is about how to spend the free time. After almost two months of six-day work weeks, movies and just relaxing sound unbelievably wonderful. However, you have to find a place to enjoy them where you can’t see the amazing views out your bedroom window luring you out into the cold and captivating outdoors.
I’m not ashamed to say I pulled the blinds shut and parked myself in my room for most of this past Sunday. I did, however, get one really cool opportunity.
Within sight of McMurdo Station, and about a 15-minute walk away, sits a time capsule left behind by some of the earliest explorers of the continent in the early 1900s.
This is not your traditional time capsule; it is instead a small hut used to shelter brave men from deadly continent.
Antarctica is the equivalent of the Fountain of Youth for buildings (and anything else not living). As long as the structure is strong enough to handle the continent’s extreme and nearly constant winds, they are essentially immortal here. The combination of cold and bone-dry air makes for the perfect preservative.
The building looks like it could have been constructed yesterday, and the explorers’ belongings that fill the building look fairly usable, if not very outdated.
Different than most time capsules, you do not open it to find a random selection of items displaced from their time. When you walk through the doors, you are what does not belong. Preserved seal carcasses lie where the explorers gutted them. Cans of food line the shelves. Crates stacked to the ceiling still hold the cargo that left England over 100 years ago. And on the walls, you can see the signatures of some of the men who were the first to set foot on this alien continent – a land that cannot be tamed, a land that would claim many of their lives.

Mmm ... Burger Bar

2005-11-18T19:32:00.000+13:00

Another busy week here at The Antarctic Sun.
Be sure to download the new issue this week. My big seal story will be in there, as well as my story on a thyroid deficiency people get from living in the extreme cold down here.
In just a few minutes, I am going to go eat at the Burger Bar. A few times a week they fire up a grill and sell very reasonably priced burgers. It can make for a nice change from the dining hall, where we eat every meal. Food is served cafeteria style, and some days are definitely better than others. Today’s dinner choices made Burger Bar seem that much better.
For the most part, however, I can hardly complain about the food. The chefs here are under some pretty tough conditions, and they are quite good at a number of menu items.
I have found the biggest issue with the quality of the food is the ingredients more than the cooks. When the planes are bringing us in “freshies,” a.k.a. anything perishable, the food drastically improves. We’ve had salads, prime rib, and rib eye steak with some frequency. But when the planes aren’t bringing us freshies, everything takes on a pale-instant-mashed-potatoes color and matching texture.
Sunday brunch is the culinary highlight of every week. The food is always fresh and delicious; everyone is always there socializing … and it is when we distribute the Antarctic Sun. That meal has a long tradition here at McMurdo, and it makes up for some of the more instant-mashed-potato-like meals.
On a normal day, there are four separate meals served – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midrats. I’m sure you’ve heard of the first three; the last one stands for “midnight rations.” McMurdo is running 24 hours a day, and this is the night shift’s lunch. It is also the best regular meal of the week, as cooks often can get something in in a small quantity but not enough to serve the 800 or so people who live here.
From midnight to 12:30 a.m. it is only for night shift workers, but after that anyone who is still awake can stop by and eat until everything is gone.
… All this talk about food (and the fact that it is about 7:30 p.m.) has me very hungry. I’m off to Burger Bar.

From a distance

2005-11-14T21:27:00.000+13:00

Some things are much better appreciated from a distance.
And as a skua attacked me today, I realized that they are one of those things.
The bird, which inspired a fairly sentimental blog entry Nov. 4, tried to steal my dinner today.
I’ve got to say, it caught me more than a little of guard. I took a few steps out of the dining hall with my (thankfully) saran wrapped dinner when all of a sudden I was being repeatedly hit the face. Imagine my surprise to find that what was dealing the blows to my face was the wing of an extremely large scavenger bird.
Oh and I think it was either trying to eat my finger on the spot or take it back to its home to feed its young. It was hard to see which, since its wing was in my eyes.
The struggle ended in a few feathery seconds, and I emerged victorious. I still have no idea where the bird came from, but I will be exiting the dining hall with a lot more caution (fear) from now on.
I had heard that skuas are regular and unwelcome guests at McMurdo, but I was still caught off guard – not only by its fearless attitude but by it disturbingly large size (a four-foot wingspan is very big when its occupying the four feet directly in front of your face). And if their size and attitude weren’t enough to contend with, they are also pretty smart. When skuas aren’t swooping down from the heavens to eat my plate of fried fish, they can be found stealing dinners from smaller birds, chasing other birds until they throw up their last meal (yes, they actually do that), and working in tandem to wrench a baby penguin chick away from its parent. To get the chick, one of them will go up and keep pecking the adult penguin in the back until it turns around to defend itself and its young. In that brief window, the other skua swipes the chick from its parent’s protection.
There aren’t many things alive on this continent. But through years of eating little birds, chasing their parents until they throw up, and feasting on tired people’s fried fish platters, skuas have managed to make every one of those things hate them.

Working on getting carpal tunnel syndrome

2005-11-10T21:48:00.000+13:00

This was a big writing week for me. Not for my blog, as you can see, but for the newspaper.
While the trip to the seal researchers’ camp was a form of payment for all the work I do, it came at a price a well – a 2,400-word story.
And it was time to pay up this week.
I’m glad to report, however, that it is completed and awaiting final edits.
It will likely be in next Sunday’s edition, so be sure to check it out.
I am also finishing up a story on the sea ice conditions here. This one sounds like a snoozer, but it’s a pretty fast-paced overview. There won’t be pictures of cute and fuzzy baby seals, but it should be good for you to get an overview of some of the realities of living here.
This week, by the way, I’ll have one story again. This one is on liquid helium used at the South Pole.
I’ve got another written, but it is in the “bucket” for the time being. (The bucket is a pile of stories that are completed and just awaiting their time to run.)
Enough advertising.
As the temperatures are much more moderate these day (-13 with the wind chill … trust me, it’s moderate), I am warming to the idea of a long hike. There is a very nice trail near here I’ve been longing to get out on, and I feel the time to do it is nigh. It’s about seven or eight miles, and you have to go with at least one other person. I’ve seen some photos, and it looks well worth giving up half a Sunday. It should be an amazing walk.
Last Sunday I tried out cross-country skiing for the first time. I went with a group of people who had never been, so it was a slow start. I’m not sure if my form was completely right, but I put the skis in the right places and got myself moving forward.
We went about four miles. The trail went straight out of McMurdo onto the sea ice and around in a big horseshoe to Scott Base (the New Zealand base).
It was mildly exhausting, but I really enjoy it.
It’s hard when you’ve only got one-day weekends to decide what to do with them. Good news is that Thanksgiving is coming soon, which means a two-day weekend for (almost) all of us here at McMurdo.

It's waste time

2005-11-08T14:58:00.000+13:00

Well, the time has come. There’s no way I can put it off any longer.
Today I empty my trashcan.
It sounds easy enough, but the process is much more complicated here than back in the states. After a month in McMurdo, however, I think I’m ready for it.
McMurdo operates on the backpackers’ principle: Pack it in; pack it out (which just means the program leaves no waste behind). All of the solid waste generated here gets shipped out in huge containers at the end of the season.
This means that all that waste has to be sorted so it can be properly stored and handed.
Residents are required to handle the initial general sorting, during which we have many options available. There’s food waste, burnables, mixed paper, light metal, non recyclables, non-regulated bio waste, and glass to name a few.
Basically, you fill up your trash can and then go sort it into these different bins.
Some things are easy, i.e. glass, while many things are not easily categorized, i.e. rubber bands and Saran wrap. If you mess up, some poor waste employee will have to go dumpster diving to sort all your bubble wrap out of the plastics bin.
Even clearing off your plate after dinner becomes much more interesting down here: scrape all your food and heavily used napkins into food waste bins and toss your lightly used napkins and paper products into the burnables bin. (All of the food waste leaves after we do, so they have to separate our food waste and keep it cold; otherwise, we would have thousands of pounds of rotten food waste sitting around by the end of the summer.)
Liquid waste, by the way, is kind of interesting. All liquid that comes through the sewer system is processed (including removing any solid waste and packing it up for removal from the continent), treated, returned to a clean-water state and released into the ocean.
Tonight’s trashcan sort is a kind of waste final exam. I’m sure all the waste technicians are rooting for me.

We've got the place to ourselves

2005-11-04T18:37:00.000+13:00

It sure was nice to get paid for the first time the other day. Not in money -- I had gotten a couple of paychecks by then -- but in experiences.
No one here, including myself, works for the money. In fact, while it will be very nice to have in a few months, it means very little right now. Bills are almost non-existent, and almost everything is provided.
Since I got back from my trip, I've just been trying to hit deadline after deadline. (There are only three days a week that I don't have a major one looming.)
I've settled in to my new home now. Most days I just busily shuffle from my dorm to my office and back again. But every couple of days I have a holy-crap-I'm-actually-in-Antarctica moment. My most recent reminder was brought about by a lone skua - one of the very few birds (besides penguins later in the season) that you will ever see this far south.
Birds aren't something you think you'd miss too much. And skuas are just about the worst bird on earth.
I actually haven't had a real interaction with one yet, but imagine a seagull at the shore. Got it? Ok, keep the brazen demeanor and annoying desire to eat whatever you have. Now make it double in size. And finally, make it mean ... real mean. That's a skua.
I'm sure I'll be a lot less happy to see them in a few months when they are swarming the exit to the galley and dive-bombing me every time I walk out in hopes of scoring an easy meal of cafeteria food. For now, however, seeing it made me pause in mid-stride, hunkered down avoiding the wind and the cold.
It was the first non-human, alive thing I had seen around station, and just having it fly overhead for a second made me realize how alone we are here. Suddenly birds were conspicuously absent from my life. As were bugs and dogs and squirrels and every other living thing on earth.
With so many people immediately around me in McMurdo it can be easy to forget that we are all there is. We live were the birds, bugs, dogs and squirrels do not, where they cannot.
We are the only land-based creatures in Antarctica.
And as I watched the skua disappear out of sight, I realized it was nice to have company.

What an amazing place

2005-11-01T18:16:00.000+13:00

Today was of the coolest days of my life.
I spent the entire day snowmobiling around and studying seals with a scientist for a story. (For those paying close attention, this is the thing I eluded to last week.)
I can't say I've had a more surreal experience in my life.
I got to drive my own snowmobile out to his camp (about 40 minutes away) and spent the day interviewing him and searching for newborn seals.
The scientist is currently in charge of a 30-year-old project studying Weddell seals. His team keeps detailed records of every seal born in Erebus Bay in order to study the population as a whole.
There's plenty to tell about this, but I'll let you read my story when it comes out in a few weeks.
I got back right before dinner and am absolutely exhausted. Being in the cold for so long really takes a toll on your body as it burns through anything it can find to keep you warm.
The good news is that one way to help keep yourself warm is by eating chocolate. High fat and high calorie foods are some of the best fuels for your inner-furnace.
By the way, I added one picture from my day out today. I'll upload several more tomorrow.

The Sun has risen.

2005-10-30T15:18:00.000+13:00

Our first issue of the newspaper is in McMurdo Station’s hands.
Copies are currently making their way to the South Pole Station, Palmer Station, Scott Base (New Zealand owned) and the many American field camps on the continent. A text-only version has been sent by satellite to the two large ships that belong to the program. And the rest of the world will be able to read the paper via the Internet sometime Monday. (Personnel in Denver upload it to the Web site.)
So, if you're interested, check out the "Antarctic Sun" link on the right side of this page. Remember it will probably be Monday afternoon or so before they update it. I have one story in there this week; it's on a group of French scientists studying ozone depletion over Antarctica.
Anyway, yesterday was the big Halloween party here at McMurdo. I was shocked by the quality and originality of so many of the costumes. I had heard the party was a popular annual event and that many people got really into the costume contest.
I heard right.
Most of the costumes were made here on station, and it's really neat to see what some really creative people can come up with. I can't even imagine how long some of the costumes must have taken to make (i.e., a huge volcano costume that was covered in tissue-paper flowers [like a parade float] and came with a matching headpiece filled with dry ice to make it erupt).
In contrast, there were a lot of very clever, simple costumes as well. One of my personal favorites was a group of three girls in regular clothes carrying random electronics, like stereos.
They were supposed to be Hurricane Katrina looters.
Well, today is my one day off, and it is a beautiful Antarctic day here. To top it off, we are in a bit of a heat wave; today temperatures got up to near 10 degrees (with a wind chill of -30 degrees) -- that's about 30 degrees warmer than when I first stepped off the plane.
You wouldn't believe how warm 10 degrees feels these days.

All's well that ends well

2005-10-27T22:40:00.000+13:00

Well, I did everything I could to fix my precious iPod.
I read the Web site; I Googled the error; I explored every option.
And nothing worked.
I couldn’t even get the thing to respond to me.
(And by the way, I’d like to thank whatever genius programmer decided to mock the users of his product by making the iPod error just display a cartoon iPod with a frown face instead of any type of helpful information, like what the problem is.)
I was completely convinced that, short of divine intervention, my iPod had played its last tune.
And then I got an idea. I’d do what I do to everything of mine that breaks and I can’t fix – I would hit it.
So I listened to the horrible grinding noise it was making one last time, and I smacked it …
The grinding stopped. The screen brightened. And the iPod came back from the grave.
I have hit and kicked so many things throughout my lifetime in a vain attempt to will them back into working.
Who knew one day it would actually work?
I said all those wonderful things I thought that I would never get the chance to say to my iPod again, and I went to bed happy that night.
The next day was filled with interviews and writing. Wednesday is our copy deadline here, so they are typically pretty hectic.
The one interview I got in though was a cool one.
It was an initial interview for a story that will definitely be one of the coolest ones I do here. I’ll keep you all in suspense about it for the time being. But if everything does well, I’ll get to do some fieldwork for it next week.
The sun is staying noticeably higher in the skies at night these days. When I first arrived, it would reach a dusk-like state right before I went to bed and stay that way for a couple of hours. Now the sun is somewhere around the late afternoon position at midnight.
In a few more weeks, it will be like midday all the time. I haven’t gotten used to having sunlight at night yet. I was amazed at how much my mind tells what time of the day it is by how light it is outside.
It’s one of those things you’d never realize it until something is wrong.
It’s kind of like that first couple days after you turn your clocks back in the fall. It’s suddenly dark out at 5:30 p.m., and it keeps throwing you off because it feels way too early to be dark.
It’s been kind of like that but all night long for two and a half weeks.
Antarctica really is a fascinating place. Nothing I know about nature seems to apply here.

But there is no joy in McMurdo --

2005-10-25T18:59:00.000+13:00

-- the mighty iPod has crapped out.
No idea what's exactly going on with it yet. So please understand: Tonight I blog from the depths of despair.
Anyway, on to happier thoughts...
Yesterday I finally got to do my driver's training. The coolest thing I got to drive was a PistenBully. We went over a lot of stuff about them, but I walked away with two main things:
1. Driving a PistenBully IS as awesome as one might think it is.
2. I suck at driving PistenBullys.
It helped that everyone else did to. The main problem is that the steering is amazingly sensitive and the gas is amazing unresponsive. It makes for a very slow journey with a lot of very sharp turns. (All of which happens to be the opposite of the tracked truck, which has about the same acceleration as a normal truck but the turning radius of a cruise ship. (I added a couple of photos of the vehicles, as well as a couple of other random shots from around town.)
Tomorrow, I get to do snowmobile training. So, iPod or no iPod, it should be a pretty good day.

What a difference a day makes

2005-10-22T19:23:00.000+13:00

First six-day workweek down; sixteen or so left to go. The 54-hour workweeks make the weekends (and by weekends I mean Sunday) very short, but work so far has been very enjoyable which makes the working schedule bearable.
Tomorrow, I have my second day off since reaching the Ice, and I have this overwhelming desire to make the most of it. Unfortunately, I also have this overwhelming feeling of having no idea what to with it.
I’m thinking about going for a hike on one of the trails in the area. There are several you can do by yourself, but there are also a few that require you to hike with a partner and carry an emergency radio.
There really is no lack of things to do here. McMurdo has a recreation department who plans and organizes events. In addition to the rec department’s activities, there are plenty of classes taught by people on station about everything from foreign languages to karate and crafts (I mean “karate and crafts” as in two separate classes, not as is in a class that teaches both at the same time – which would be pretty awesome now that I think about it).
Personally, I think I am going to start attending a class called “Survival Russian.” It’s basic Russian conversation and customs with an emphasis in traveling on the Trans-Siberian railroad. Sounds like it could be the groundwork for a very cool trip.
In addition to weekly classes and sports leagues, the are two science lectures a week held by a scientist talking about the project he/she is working on here. These can actually be very cool and are fairly popular (especially the Sunday one, as it is geared more for the masses who couldn't tell the difference between a neutron and a neutrino if it was staring them in the face).
In other news, our two-page teaser issue of comes out Sunday. Next week will be our first full issue (about 12 pages).
Happy Friday to everyone in the States. Enjoy your nice, long, two-day weekend.

Training session 972

2005-10-19T21:47:00.000+13:00

Another training session down.
I'm really in no rush to be rid of them though because you get to do some really cool things while they teach you how not to die doing them.
This was one of the cooler sessions and was all about the sea ice that surrounds the station.
Here at McMurdo, we actually sit on an island; however, we are connected by an ice shelf that is several hundred feet thick to the mainland of Antarctica. The sea ice in front of the island (facing away from the continent) is a different story. This sea ice weakens in the summer and is "only" several meters thick (thick enough on which to land the C-17 aircrafts we come in on). However, cracks and other dangerous flaws in the sea ice can make it very hazardous for travel (especially as the spring turns into summer and temperatures approach freezing).
We spent about an hour in a classroom learning about different types of cracks and how to safely navigate them before loading up in a Haggland, which is another very cool (and very slow) Antarctic vehicle (they are actually from the Swiss military - check out the new photos).
After about an hour ride, we made it out to some much smaller islands surrounded by sea ice that contains lots of different types of cracks. Once we stopped the vehicle, we actually were treated to one of the best warning signs of a large crack, a bunch of seals sitting on the ice.
We then started profiling cracks, which involves shoveling the snow off the top of the ice to access the crack and using an electric or hand drill to drill through the ice until you hit water and then measuring the depth. Ice is 10 percent lighter than liquid water, so the water will come up 1/10 of the way up the hole.
The drill bits come in one-meter sections, and after you've drilled down the full length, you add another bit onto the bottom of the current one to make a two-meter bit. You just keep repeating this process and looking at how wet the ice shavings are until you eventually make it to the other side.
After we finished profiling cracks, our instructor (who is a mountain guide back in the states) took us to the top of Tent Island, which sits next to Inaccessible Island, to see ice feature from above
Once we got to the top, he told us that each of the islands in the immediate area (including the one we were on) was part of the rim of an ancient, massive volcano. You can still make out the circular shape of the caldera from the location of the islands. Oh yeah – it was very, very cold up there. Everything (from our clothes to our cameras and our faces) was icing up.
It was well worth it, but earning that view was far from easy. There is no path to the top of the island so we very slowly and very cautiously made our way up the loose volcanic rocks and gravel that made up the island. I would take one step up and slide two steps back down. It was a real struggle to keep moving forward.
Luckily, there were some parts that weren't made of loose debris … Instead. they were made of a sheer ice slope running straight down to a little 15-foot cliff at the bottom. The guide had an ice axe he used cut a path for us through the icy parts, and I was happy to be contending with the gravel and rocks again.
About halfway through, I decided that while we were very high, the slope was gradual enough and the cliff close enough to the ground to live through a fall to the bottom.
I’m sure I wouldn't have been in very good shape, however, and probably found myself on the way to a hospital in Christchurch with a one-way ticket home.
Trying to stay positive, I decided the good news would be that I’m sure I would have been able to secure a spot on some type of guest speaker circuit where I would go to elementary schools and tell the kids about how I lost all my arms an legs in Antarctica.
They’d think I was awesome, and I’d let them touch my stumps.

Time to earn my keep

2005-10-17T21:59:00.000+13:00

Today was my first day of what I will call "real work." Instead of planning and organizing, I got to go out and do some interviews for my first story.
It is on a French science project studying ozone depletion through the use of LDBs (long duration balloons).
This was my first crack at an interview of something as technical as studying the stratosphere, but I found it interesting and challenging to conduct an interview on a subject of which I had very little previous understanding. You have to put half your brain in charge of conducting the interview while frantically using the other half to understand the great mysteries of the stratosphere being explained to you in formulas.
I actually rather enjoyed it.
Anyway, tomorrow I am off to Sea Ice School, where I will learn how to test the seasonal ice for thickness, how to navigate it safely, and how to prevent myself from turning into one of those prehistoric men who didn't pass Sea Ice School that scientists thaw out 10,000 years in the future and put on display for third graders to make fun of while on their field trip to the science museum.

Happy Camper (a.k.a. the longest blog entry ever)

2005-10-15T23:33:00.000+13:00

When your survival kit contains a medical kit named “The Optimist” you know it’s probably better to not put yourself in the position of needing to rely on it.
But for the last two days, that’s exactly what 19 of us here in McMurdo did.
Anyone whose job may require them to go into the field is required to complete Happy Camper School. The course is designed around the survival bag that is required to be on all vehicles and aircrafts leaving station. The bag contains the bare essentials for the survival of the unfortunate people stranded in the Antarctic to die a slower death or be rescued, whichever comes first.
The first piece of the course was classroom lectures on the contents of the kit (sleeping bag, insulation pad, dehydrated food, camp stove, fuel mountain tent, a few extra clothing items, a shovel, a saw, and a novel to pass the long, cold days).
We also discussed frostbite, hypothermia, and other banes for freezing to death before loading up in the delta (a very cool snow vehicle – check out the pictures) and heading out to spend a night in the field.
After driving about 30 minutes, we reached Snow Mound City (the Happy Camper training area), and after a little more instruction, we set out to put our skills to the test. First, we set up Scott tents (a tent designed by early Antarctic explorers and still the only tent able to be used on the continent without additional protection from the high winds – see photos). Next, we started building a Quincy (essentially a snow mound igloo – see photos) by making a huge pile of snow with the shovels. This was exceedingly difficult as the snow is incredibly hard in most places here.
After we made the pile and compacted it as much as possible, we gave it a few minutes to freeze together and started a quarry from which we cut snow blocks with the saws to build snow walls for protection from high winds and to allow us to use the provided mountain tents. (Even if staked to the ground, they would blow away without the wall to block the wind.)
After the mountain tents were up, we began digging a tunnel down into the snow next to the Quincy and then continued the tunnel up into the snow pile from underneath. (Once inside, we hollowed out the pile, leaving three feet of snow on all sides.) Once our Quincy was complete, our instructors went back to their shelter for the night. (It was about ¼ mile away, and the only thing anywhere around us.)
For most of the rest of the night, we cooked dinner, took walks, drank lots of warm drinks and tried to stay warm.
After sitting around for a while, a few people just starting cutting more snow blocks and piling them up a few steps outside of camp. One by one, people from our group came across the project and asked what they were building. The fact that they had no idea didn’t seem to stop any of us from joining in and before we knew it we had a throne fit for the King of Antarctica. So, we all took turns posing for pictures, while holding the royal scepter (a.k.a. an ice screw), on the top of our creation. (Check out the pictures to see my loyal subjects bowing before me.)
There isn’t much to do in the middle of Antarctica, by the way.
Anyway, it kept us all warm and busy, and it was actually a really good time. Everyone really got into it. It was neat because it was such a diverse age group (everyone from people my age to considerably older), and when we were done, no one that worked on it turned down the chance to climb all the way up the royal staircase to reign as King (or Queen) of Antarctica for a few glorious moments.
After taking a walk to get heated up before bed, we all retired to our respective accommodations. Personally, I couldn’t turn down the chance to try out the Quincy, and I found it to be warm enough to sleep comfortably (with all of the proper gear on and using all the tricks we had learned throughout the course). I did however wake up to near frozen feet as they had slipped off my insulation pad and were losing heat very quickly.
Overall I slept pretty well, waking up only a handful of time. Despite being relatively comfortable, it was really cold in there. My water bottle was frozen when I woke up, despite the fact it spent the night with me in the sleeping bag.
After eating breakfast, struggling to try to warm up after putting back on some of the very cold clothes I was sleeping on for insulation from the snow, and breaking down camp, we headed over to the instructor hut for more hands-on lessons (i.e., setting up and using the emergency high frequency radios) and outdoor scenarios (which included a very successful timed camp setup and a very, very unsuccessful attempt at a rescue in whiteout conditions.
Happy Camper School was two full days with a lot of learning and a lot of work, but it will definitely be a highlight of my trip.
I will, however, spend the rest of time here hoping I don’t find myself injured in the field where I am forced to turn “The Optimist” to save my life.

The world outside McMurdo

2005-10-13T22:33:00.000+13:00

Bad news is that I had to postpone my driver training until next week. Good news is that I postponed it to go take my first photos for the Sun.
Raytheon has created a new series of buildings away from station to house NASA and its LDB projects (long duration balloon). This is where they send a massive balloon high up into the atmosphere to provide information that can only otherwise be obtained by spacecraft.
The buildings had to be constructed a significant distance from the location they needed to be, so the architect designed huge heated skis that are permanently attached to the bottom of the building. Today was the day they moved the two largest buildings by pulling them across the snow and ice (the ice is about 300 feet thick at this location) with extremely powerful bulldozers. I added a couple pictures to the slide show from my day in the field so you can see what it was like.
After eating dinner, I took a 3 kilometer walk to Scott Base, New Zealand's Antarctic base and the only other structures anywhere near McMurdo. The Kiwis (New Zealanders, by the way) have American Night every Thursday, which is where they open their doors to anyone from McMurdo to come and hang out. I didn't really stick around for it tonight, but I dropped in for about 30 minutes or so.
The New Zealand base only has about 40 residents in the summer, so it is significantly smaller. It does, however, have a very cool sight that McMurdo doesn't have: pressure ridges. Pressure ridges are formed when the ice presses against itself like tectonic plates of the earth's crust. That pressure and rubbing forces the ice upwards at the fault lines. Pressure ridges are formed in the same way as mountains are but on a smaller scale and with ice instead of earth. Technically, McMurdo has them as well, but they are much more dramatic right in front of Scott Base. (I added some photos of them as well.)

Learning how to not die

2005-10-12T23:13:00.000+13:00

The first few days of life on The Ice have been filled with safety lectures that could all easily be titled, "Ways to Die and Leave a Mangled, Frozen Corpse Behind in Antarctica."
All of the classes so far have been classroom learning, but I have a couple of hands-on ones coming up.
Next Tuesday, I will have sea ice training to learn how to get around safely on the frozen ocean in front of station.
Tomorrow, I go to driver's training were we will learn to operate the main vehicles on station including snowmobiles, trucks with tank treads for wheels and a very cool looking, tank-like vehicle with a cab that can spin 180 degrees separate from the treads and go back the way it came (a pisten bully).
Friday and Saturday is my outdoor survival training, or "Happy Camp" which last for two full days and includes in overnight stay in the outdoors. Between the cold (It was -50 degrees with the wind chill this morning during our walking tour of station.) and the fact that the sun never sets here during the summer, I doubt I'll be getting much sleep that night.
I was amazed after spending that hour walking around outside today during the tour by how hungry you get as your body quickly burns through your food supply trying to keep warm. I'm going to line my big red parka with Cliff bars to eat in a futile attempt to stay warm during my overnight stay outdoors on Friday.

Tonight, I sleep in Antarctica

2005-10-10T23:34:00.000+13:00

I’m happy report that this is the first entry coming all the way from McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
McMurdo sits near an active volcano and several other hills and mountains, and while the station itself is nothing to write home about (or blog about for that matter), the view is amazing.
It’s hard to believe I’m really here, but a quick look at the surroundings rules out everywhere else on earth.
The flight went very smoothly, and we landed on The Ice around 2 p.m. There is no airport at McMurdo (or anywhere in Antarctica), so the runway we landed on today was actually just a section of the sea ice (frozen ocean). It’s amazing to me that it freezes thick enough to handle the weight of those huge planes landing on it. The sea ice is seasonal, and we will have to use another runway to leave at the end of the summer. For right now, however, I don’t think the sea ice is going anywhere as the temperature without the wind chill was about –15 degrees when we landed.

All dressed up and nowhere to go...

2005-10-09T10:02:00.000+13:00

Despite doing everything we were supposed to (getting up at 5 a.m., getting changed into our ECW, getting our bags weighed, going though security and loading onto the plane), the weather turned bad at McMurdo before we left the runway, and the Air Force canceled our flight.
We are scheduled to try again tomorrow, but the next wave of Ice People have made it through orientation and are also ready to fly tomorrow. This means they'll prioritize and some of us likely won't be scheduled to be on that plane.
The weather on The Ice, especially early in season, is always a factor, and it's not uncommon at all to spend more time than expected in Christchurch.
There are no instruments on the McMurdo runway to aide in landing, so the pilots have to land the huge military aircraft by sight and on-board instruments alone. That's the main reason why they will only land if the conditions (wind speed and visibility) are in the acceptable range.

Another day in Christchurch...

2005-10-08T17:15:00.000+13:00

... is hardly something to complain about.
The flight before us boomeranged (left New Zealand but was forced to return due to poor weather conditions on The Ice), so we are spending another day here in Christchurch awaiting our turn. It was nice to get a full night's sleep and spend the rest of the day enjoying myself around the city (especially since it's on Raytheon's dollar).
I've found it's not the sights but the sounds that really let you know you're nowhere near the U.S. while in Christchurch. The people are so friendly, and their charming take on the English language keeps me straining to catch bits and pieces of conversations as I walk down the streets.
I only wish NZ's weather was as hospitable as it's people. A few sun rays have fought their way through the clouds, but it's been the cold and the rain which have dominated my stay here.
Well, as friends and family regularly remind me, I'm in no position to complain about the cold yet.
With any luck, we'll make it to The Ice tomorrow, and then I can fill up this blog with complaints about the cold.

30 hours later...

2005-10-06T21:41:00.000+13:00

Almost there.
After about 30 hours of travel, I am in New Zealand and awaiting my flight to Antarctica. I am scheduled to leave Christchurch on the morning of Oct. 8 (local time - To calculate the time/date difference without getting a headache, click on the World Clock link on the right side of the page).
I was in Christchurch for the first time two years ago at the end of my semester in Australia, and it's nice to be back. I'm staying right on Cathedral Square (downtown) so shops and restaurants line every street in the area. It makes the little bit of down time I have very easy to enjoy.
Barring any delays due to weather conditions, we should make it to The Ice in about five or six hours.
Work will be keeping me pretty busy over the next five months (56-hour, six-day work week), but I plan on using this Web site to provide regular updates and new photos (use the "My Photos" link on the right to see a more complete collection).
Be sure to drop me an e-mail every once in a while to let me know who's reading.
Well, I'm off to find a bite to eat and get to bed. As I haven't gotten much sleep over the last few days, I'm beginning to feel like I just swam to New Zealand.