Ice Stock

News Years Eve weekend is Ice Stock. Bands performed throughout the afternoon and all the cargo containers surrounding had different groups competing in the chili cook off. Video of one of the bands. We had all sorts of acts, even one really good blue grass band.

Plane Crash

Wow,

A couple days ago the Ken Borek folks had the Basler Turbine DC-3 made what we heard was a hard landing. From what I gather Im not sure if they lost engine power shortly after take off or if the skis got stuck on the ice. Either way the plane is severly damaged but none of the passengers and crew where hurt beyond some cuts and bruises. Here is a link from one of the passengers blogs with good pictures. http://mitchell-antarctica.blogspot.com/

They are saying that they will try to fix the airplane and fly it back but I don't know. Back when I worked in the maintainence shop at centennial we fixed an airplane that had been in a similar wreck. It took us a long time with the airplane on jacks just to get it flyable. Not to mention the weeks of work after that to get it back into looking good again. Just from the pictures I can see there is a couple months worth of work to do, and they don't have a hangar to work in or a good place to jack the airplane. Since both engines hit with the power on they are going to need new engines and props, the landing gear was torn out so that means major structural work, as well as skin damage which means more major strucural work. The engines on that plane run for about a million each, plus new five blade props, landing gear etc. This particular plane was made in 1942 so there might not be an abundance of parts. I think the airplane is going to be left where it is.

Medevac

So early this morning instead of sleeping in on the towns day off I got a 6 am wakeup that I would have to go to work. It seems some idiot at the south pole station got drunk, started a fight and got his jaw broken. The story is that this is not this persons first alcohol problem. So they are going to spend about $250,000 to bring him home. He is currently en route from the pole, he will then land here and get a helicopter ride into town where they will treat him at the hopital here. Then another helo ride back out to the airfield where they will ship him back to Christ Church.

Now the rumor mill is turning. The rumor mill is working overtime. The stories have already begun to float around about how they will make the station dry, they will fire those caught drinking, blah blah. We'll see. I have observed that the rumor mill down here works exactly like this: wild speculation -> rumor-> certain fact. For example I could speculate that Santa Clause might come to town (wild speculation), the next person will say that they have heard Santa will come to town (rumor), by the time it gets back to me I will be told that Santa is indeed coming to town (certain fact). The rumor mill is also good at combining different events into one grandiose story. Over thanksgiving a hole was put into one of the walls in the dorm and the fire department showed up to look at a girl who was not feeling well. Two unrelated events. I know this because it happened in my hall. But later that day someone told me they had heard (rumor) that a girl had gathered up a big head of steam, while unconscionably intoxicated mind you, and plowed head first into the wall. She was injured beyond repair and was to be sent home. 'Thats what happened?' I asked. 'Yes, thats the story' was replied (certain fact).

The town Christmas party went down last night. Good times.

Baloon Launch

The nice weather allowed the baloon folks to get one of the three launches planned for this season. The unique weather around the continent will allow the payload to circle the continent. This was taken before it was filled all the way. After it was full, I'd say it was about 10 stories high. The payload was the size of a big van.

Same old stuff

Well, nothing really new to report. The season is going along smoothly. Several of the research groups are pulling out in time for Christmas, some of the people here have quit in time for Christmas but the rest of us are going to tough it out. The weather has warmed up considerably. Average temps are in the high thirties with a few days over 40. With no wind you can go outside with a swetshirt and jeans. There is alot of melting going on, a few mini rivers formed around town. The sea ice is starting to melt and get thin, we may even see open water soon. With about 2 months to go travel plans are starting to be made. Christmas is right around the corner, we have a big meal and a few days off planned.

Im switching jobs. Starting Jan 1 I'll be working in the shop in town. Working on the equipment should be better than dragging it around the airfield like I normally do. The only downside is I won't have access to the snowmobile like I did out at the runway.

Cyclo-Cross

We had the town bicycle race last weekend. 2 miles around town with hills and stairs and obstacles to boot.

Not many racers did well on the stairs

Will I wreck on the stairs like those guys?

NO! HUZZAH!

Turkey Trot

Me in background

Wedell Seal scratchin'
Skua Bird

Cape Evans and Pegasus

Scott and Shakeltons 1911 hut

Wrecked airplane from 1970's

Airbus A319

The Australian Antarctic program decided to get into the air transport game down here and built their own runway. The next logical step was to land an airplane on the runway. They came to McMurdo to practice and see just how well the air bus would do on packed snow and ice.

Mail

I've had bad luck getting packages down here. The weather has not helped either. When we get a weather delay the science stuff takes top priority and package mail gets last. Currently the lag time is about a month.

I hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving. We didn't celebrate yesterday like everyone else. Holidays here allways happen on a weekend. We have our big dinner tomarrow.

Cold

Every so often I get the urge to complain about the constant cold, or the constant light. Then I remember where I am...

Work

Some folks have been asking just what it is they pay me to do here. Here it is. When a plane comes in it can be so cold that they need heat on the engines and brakes. This keeps them from getting condensation and locking up. The C-17 below can only stay so long. After a few hours it needs to move or it will start sinking into the ice. Over the course of several hours the ice will actualy bend below it. C-130s are light enough to stay indefinitely.

We use either trucks or a tracked caterpillar to drag stuff to and from the airplanes. They always need a power cart which is the more orange looking box above. Below is a picture of the airfield from ob hill. There are no planes. You can make out the runway on the far edge of everything. The road out is in front. I've been running back and forth to work recently. Road out there is about a mile but its hard to tell, there nothing to gauge it by.

So about 75% is dragging heaters and power carts around to airplanes. The rest of the time varies. We inspect the runway a couple times a day. If the planes break we get the National Guard the stuff they need to work on the airplanes and we empty the toilets. Thats it. We spend some days fairly busy, others we wait around for something to do.

On another note. Just outside of town, very close to the ice pier is Scotts hut. Built in 1902 and used by several expeditions. Due to the dry air here nothing rotts so the hut a very well preserved. They never used it for shelter, it was a design that got used alot in the outback so it held heat very poorly.

The food they left out is still there and some of the seals and penguins they had killed are mumified.

These dog bucuits looked almost good enough to eat, almost.

Heres one from scott base nearby. The winterover crew did a perfect recreation of the last supper for thier yearly picture. This one isnt that clear but you get the idea.

Happy Camper

So a couple days ago I spent my weekend out in the field at a mini snow survival course. For two days a group of about twenty got trucked out on to the permanent ice shelf west of town and we spent a night.
Building a snow fort is not only fun but a good way to survive when its freakin cold out. One way to do that is to have everyone pile their gear like so. Then, cover in snow.

Pile a crap load of snow on the gear then beat it copiously with shovels. After you have about 2 feet of well beaten snow, dig a tunnel under the gear and pull it out, sleeps 4.



The weather was not always pleasant.
But snow walls keep the wind down. The all blue rig was where I spent the night. The triangle shaped tents are called scott tents. Its an old double walled canvas design but it stays quite warm and stands up to hurricane force winds. The night was actually pleasant and I stayed warm enough. The downside of all this was after you do alot of hard work building walls and setting up camp you have to go back home. It would have been nice to hang out a while longer.

24 hour day light

Some folks inquired about 24 hours of continuous sunshine before I left so I thought I would share what thats like.

We had our last official sunset on October 20th. At that point though the sun was just barely dipping below the horizon and we had 24 hours of light, just not direct sunlight. Currently the sun is overhead nearly24 hours a day, it goes behind the hills near town for a bit. One odd thing though, being from the northern hemisphere we are accustomed to seeing the sun linger in the southern half of the sky. In the winter its lower and in the summer it can get nearly overhead. Here the sun stays in the Northern half of the sky and because of this, and it sounds weird, the sun seems to move the wrong direction.

Whats also weird is the you can tell time by the sun but not like home. At home you can tell that the sun is near rising or setting, or even directly over head. It moves 15 degrees per hour so you can reason that if its a certain height in the sky its a certain time. Here the sun never goes down it swirls around in the sky. But, I know the if it's shining over Scott base (the Kiwi's base) its morning, if its over Mt Erebus its getting towards dinner.

The sun being out all day play tricks on you mind some times. When I wake up in the middle of the night and see the sun shining through the cracks around the shudders it's hard no to think the its the middle of the day and I should get up. Just the other day my roommate was sleeping, woke up and saw 8:25 on his clock. He saw me with a coffee mug and assumed that it was morning and he was really late for work. He went into full spaz mode trying to get all his clothes on and run out the door. When I told him that it was infact nearly eight thirty at night and he had slept through dinner he was dumbfounded.

We won't have another sunset until March 20th, long after the station closes and I leave. So this means that I won't see stars until late February when I get back to New Zealand.

More pictures

We had a penguin wander up near the runway today. They have no land based predators so they have no fear of man. This little guy was letting us walk right up to him. He was actually very calm, just sitting there looking at us and town. This is an adelie, emperors should come later, they stand about waist high. It was about -15F out but the dry air makes it pretty manageable as long as the wind stays down.

The day before that I volunteered to be a part of a crew to maintain a couple of the trails near town. For my efforts I got a trail marker that they don't sell, so its kind of a neat thing to have. I don't have a picture of it but here I am looking busy. (Grey fleece).

Above is town fro observation hill. As the season has gotten going I've had more free time. There is not a terrible amount to do in town besides read and watch movies, during the day anyway, so I've been out doing some walking as much as I can. Below is the back side of ob hill facing the permanent ice shelf. Scott base, run by the Kiwi's, is in the center.

Roll cage mary. Most of the tops of hill around town have some sort of monument or cross. This particular version of Mary has its own roll cage. Ob hill in background

The black dot is a seal. He just layed there, pretty boring.

Each picture takes about 5 minutes to load so Im going to take a break for now. I have more to put up so check in tomarow night. We have reasonably fast internet here but the problem is everyone have to send and recieve through the same pipe line so it can get slow some times. Right now its getting to be dinner time so the connection bogs way down as folks get off work. I've been on a rotating three 12 hour shift, two day off schedule. Most of the folks here work six nine or ten hour days with Sunday off.