BONUS POST

12 reasons life in McMurdo reminds me of Burning Man:

1. For the most part people come here, because they really want to come here. A lot of times the trip involves serious multi-year planning. But sometimes is sort of happens to people, they never planned it through, but the stars aligned, and here they are. In any case there is this weird sense of belonging in a place where people don’t really belong.
2. "Leave no trace" is taken seriously. People do sort out their trash, pick up after themselves and each other and respect the environment they are in. 
3. At the same time (unfortunately) people burn fuel like crazy - a lot of extra lights/heat is out there to provide comfort beyond the reasonable minimum.
4. It is really-really dry here. You have to apply lotion throughout the day. And hydrate! Everyone is carrying a water bottle everywhere you go.
5. The sun will burn you out if you don't put enough sunblock on exposed skin. Sunglasses/goggles/special eyewear are a must.
6. After a couple of minutes of walking around the “city” your shoes change color to the color of the dirt. They will stay that way for the rest of your time here, whether you try to fight it or not.
7. Weather can change quickly and visibility can go from "all clear" to "barely can see my own hand" in no time. It is a good practice to leave your camp prepared, have extra clothes/goggles, carry water and food with you.
8. People dragged structures through really long distances to make sure this place is cozy/homey/workable. When you stop and think how much effort it took, you're just amazed. Pool table and bowling alley? Seriously?
9. You get to experience a lot of new things - something you don't usually even dream of, not to mention plan to experience.
10. You never know what amazing talents/skills a person you meet will have. People open up in a totally different way here. A lot of times you don't know anything about a person in a “real” life, but you somehow manage to connect in a totally unconventional way.
11. The concept of time is very different here. One of my greatest struggles was to accept that planning something is totally useless. Plans change all the time. Weather happens, delays happen. You just have to accept that it is beyond your control.
12. There is a lot of soul searching happening in this place.

Wrapping up our season

Lee and I made another attempt to get to Linda AWS on a helo. This time we did not even get to fly all the way to the station - the horizon was not clear enough to even try landing at the site. We did manage to get another station done - Minna Bluff. It is not far from McMurdo and it is on the pathway of strong weather systems, so we are really glad to have it completed. We did not do it earlier, because we were waiting for a broken wind direction sensor replacement part to come in through cargo for a long time. Due to poor runway conditions and lack of large aircrafts cargo and passenger flights are quite backlogged this season. Finally, the day we got back to the lab from the first unsuccessful helo flight, we got our cargo and flew to fix Minna Bluff the next day.

View of Mt Discovery from the helo

Our last working day here at McMurdo was February 7th. We made an attempt to fly to Lettau on a Twin Otter, but the weather was not good and we got canceled. Considering we had to finalize all of our back cargo and put everything else in the storage, it was somewhat good news for us. It is sad we did not get as many stations done as we hoped, but some things are just beyond our control. We spent all day running around McMurdo in cold and windy conditions, moving boxes and organizing our shipments, but we managed to pack everything on time!

At the end of the day I even went onboard Russian icebreaker docked in McMurdo for the day. I acted as a translator for a couple of my friends who wanted to come look at the ship with me - we got a small private tour of the vessel and a grapefruit (!!!!!). It was a lot of fun to learn about their work (and to speak Russian again!). And to understand our excitement about a grapefruit you have to spend two months eating only canned food. ;)

***

The getting off the ice saga begins now. As I mentioned numerous times, there is a backlog of passengers trying to go back North. Lee and I were scheduled to leave today (February 8) at 6am. We checked in our luggage the night before and are now left with one carry-on item each. We did not make it to the flight - they had to cut 9 people off, and Lee and I were among the people cut. As I was anticipating this, I packed spare clothes and other essentials in my carry-on. I called my parents today to share the news of not getting off the ice, and they commented that our reality is very different right now. I wonder how big of a culture shock I will get coming back to "main" land with children, animals, sunsets, trees and fresh vegetables to eat ;)

I originally had a ticket leaving Christchurch on the 9th of February, so I had to deal with changing my ticket and other plans all morning. Luckily, since the delay is totally out of my reach, I was not charged $350 for the ticket change. I was expecting this charge, so it came as a pleasant surprise!

Lee and I are both attending the AMOS annual meeting in Melbourne next week and we both have talks on Monday. So I also wrote to conference organizers to let them know about our rescheduled flight and possible delays getting off the ice. We have another chance to leave tomorrow (Saturday, February 9) and catch a flight from Christchurch to Melbourne on Sunday - but this would be our last chance to get to Melbourne in time to give our talks. 

I think of all traits that I learned during this field season, the most important one is learning to accept things I can not change!

My first helo flight!

Of all the flying I was going to do in Antarctica I was the most excited about helicopters. I have never been in a helicopter before and flying over the gorgeous landscapes of Antarctica seemed like a perfect opportunity.

Unfortunately the weather today was less then perfect - it was quite cold and very windy, making it feel way colder then it actually was. Our helo pilot checked with us before leaving to make sure we are eager to visit our site. The idea of servicing another station in our bumpy season seemed appealing, so Lee and I decided to give it a go.

During my security briefing I was told not to get overly excited and follow the lead of the crew and Lee, who is quite experienced with helo flights. I guess my face showed it all ;)

All buckled in and ready to go. Note that I am wearing my big red and quite a few layers underneath. Temperatures of -15C were reported in McMurdo, but the wind chill added another 10 degrees of discomfort, lowering it to -25C.

It took us about half an hour to get to Linda AWS site, and the weather was getting only worse. By the time we got to the site the wind picked up. Note that you can't really distinguish between snow and clouds on this picture (I'm not sure if the station is actually leaning, there was no point of reference to shoot from):

The wind was 25 knotts and forecasted to increase. Unlike Twin Otter flights, where the pilots take us to the sight and wait with us, helicopters drop us off and pick us up a few hours later, when all the work is done. Our helicopter pilot, Chris, once again said that he would not attempt to go outside and work for 5 hours in such conditions. Moreover, he said that if the weather worsens, he might not be able to come pick us up. All things considered, we decided to stay on the helo and come back to Linda once the weather improves.

Working on the cargo today (outside) we got a feel of the cold and windy weather and were really glad we didn't end up staying in the field for the whole day.

On the way back we saw the Russian icebreaker "Vladimir Ignatyuk" working hard on breaking the ice near the dock in McMurdo. US vessel is scheduled to come in a couple of days and the path needs to be cleared.

Wish us better weather tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

McMurdo panorama

This is a picture I took about five days ago from the road between NZ Scott base and US McMurdo base. You can see NZ base on the left side of the picture - it is fairly small and all buildings are painted green. McMurdo buildings are behind the Ob hill on the right side of the picture, so they are not visible. The distance between the two bases is about 3 km.

You can also see the sea ice breaking up to the left of Ob hill. On the other side of the sound you can see Mt Discovery.

And most importantly I want to thank my friend Bella, who put the panorama together. I have limited access to software here and I am also not very good at making panoramas. So big thank you, it came out perfect!

As far south as I went

So my blog is titled "as far south as you can go". I have to admit, it is not a true statement - I did not get to South Pole on this trip. The southernmost point I have been to is 85 degrees South - 5 degrees short of the Pole. It was a pretty site, though, near the Transantarctic mountains:

Progress report

Lee and I had quite an eventful week. This prevented from posting, but I have a lot to talk about now.

I wrote about our progress in the "work blog", I will copy some of it here:

On Saturday, February 2, Lee and I had an ambitious day planned - to visit Schwerdtfeger, Marilyn and Alexander Tall Tower! stations in one day.

It was our second day flying with Brent and Darin - the Ken Boreck Air (KBA) pilots. They ended up helping quite a lot with everything, providing extra hands, advice and tools to fix some issues. And they also showed me how to make snow angels. I want to extend my appreciation and my support to all the KBA crew members. Every single person we worked with was wonderful at his/her job and very supportive with ours!

So, back to our Satruday. Lee and I were joined by Cole - a cartographer and a google maps volunteer, who carried a 360 degree camera. Scwerdtfeger, Marilyn and Alexander Tall Tower! are coming soon to google street view - how exciting is that ;)

The first site we visited was Schwerdtfeger. None of the pilots or fixed wing ops can spell it properly, so the underground name of the station became Schwarzenegger (also misspelled). This station needed the most work - we were replacing all instruments with new set up and possible raising the tower. We actually tried to find this station on our previous with Brent and Darin, but coordinates were old and we did not manage to find the station. The stations we are servicing right now are located on the ice shelf - which is a moving entity. Therefore every year our coordinates shift by

When we were almost done with the install, we had to trouble shoot an issue we encountered with the power system. Our pilots were really helpful - you can see everyone was working here. A parka on the tower is preventing a solar power from being charged.

(Troubleshooting our power system in the field)

Marilyn is an old station, which had issues with the wind measurements. It is due for a full replacement next year, so we replaced the instruments to keep it going for another year. Marilyn tower is leaning - that's another reason why we would have to build this site again - it doesn't make sense to build on top of a leaning tower.

(I'm trying to correct Marilyn ;)

After replacing the boom we waited forever for the station to transmit. We had to wait for 10 minutes at least, but we did not get a signal for while... That's when our dear pilots taught me to do snow angels! 

The last station on our list was Alexander Tall Tower! It is a one of a kine 100-ft tall tower with multiple sets of observations.

(Lee climbing the tower)

 

(Lee climbed all the way to the top)

 

(I just climbed a little to get a good picture ;)

Since we had some waiting time at the Tall Tower! as well, I got to try the Google Street View equipment:

Thanks for reading!

Life at WAIS part II

The food!
Food in the deep camp is much better then in McMurdo. The ingredients the cooks have are the same, but cooking for 40 people is much easier then cooking for ~1000. Food tastes better and more real. Also being in the middle of an icesheet, living in tents and working outside a lot contributes to good appetite.

No wonder the galley is called an "oasis" WAIS style:

As I mentioned before the second largest Jamesway in the campe is for washing/laundry and recreation.

All the water we drink comes from the snow. There are melting tanks in the galley and in the rec tent. Every day we shovel several buckets to use for drinking, cooking and washing. And many of you asked about showers - we had great showers at WAIS:

Since a shower increases an "average" use of water, everyone is supposed to shovel three buckets of snow to replace the water after a shower. In reality, everyone is pretty good about checking the water levels in the tank and fills up the water on "as needed" basis.

And last but not least - the question I get the most about the "deep field" camp. How do we go to the toilet? There are outhouses in the camp - the good old style - a hole in the snow. They have styrofoam seats, which are amazingly warm. We also have "pee bottles" - regular Nalgene water bottles used for above mentioned purpose. They are extremely useful during the night in your tent - it is so much nicer to use a pee bottle, rather then go to a cold outhouse in the middle of the night (especially considering that my tent was in the last row of the tent city).

(You can see a row of outhouses on this picture) 

Please feel free to ask me more questions about living situation at WAIS - I will be more then happy to answer them. 

Thanks for reading!