What follows is an account of my second trip to Antarctica, in which I worked with a group of geophysicists from the University of Texas and the British Antarctic Survey on a four month long glaciology project surveying two glaciers in a remote area of West Antarctica called the Amundsen Sea Embayment.

14-OCT-2004

Note to self: Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.

The first time I left Antarctica, in Feb 2003, was a very sad day for me. I remember it so vividly, sitting in the dining room of the Endeavor ship, trying to get one last glimpse of the land through the fog while everyone around me was celebrating the conclusion of a marvelous trip and despite smiling on the outside I was devastated inside because I didn’t want to leave this magical place. However, deep inside me I knew that this was not “goodbye” but rather “see you later”. Since that day I became obsessed with returning to the Ice. There was not one day that I didn’t long to be there. Not one day that the majestic scenery didn’t replay in my head. Not one day that my lungs didn’t miss the cool clean air. Not one day that I didn’t curse the Texas heat.

Thus I began a crusade to plot my return. During the subsequent eighteen months I would often ask myself “Have you done today absolutely everything you can in order to go back?” and the answer was usually “yes, and then some”.

So it is particularly rewarding to start writing this journal onboard a Qantas 747 en route to Christchurch, New Zealand where I will meet the rest of the team and start my new job with the United States Antarctic Program. I only got 3 hours of sleep in the past 2 days getting everything ready for what should be a five month absence from home, so I am beyond exhausted, but who cares!! I’m going back to the Ice: the single thing I wanted the most! Another adventure begins!

15-OCT-2004

Where did today go?!? Did I take too much melatonin? Oh, wait. We crossed the date line. Never mind.

16-OCT-2004

Christchurch, not unlike Punta Arenas, is a lovely little city about as far south as most people can legitimately expect to go. We are staying in a B&B near downtown. I was pretty tired and stayed around the hotel trying to read some geophysics papers that will be quite relevant in the near future. Tomorrow we go to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Centre) near the airport where we will get our government-issued cold weather clothes. Sleepy now.

17-OCT-2004

What a mess. They give you 2 big bags of ECW (extreme cold weather) gear and then you try on every item to make sure that it fits. This took a good while since inevitably some items had to be exchanged for a different size. I will feel much better next time I pay taxes: they give you good stuff here! 2 parkas, wind-pants, lots of polar fleece, hats, face covers, enough gloves for an octopus, snow boots, woo-who!

Erick (the other Colombian in the team) and I went to pick up some last minute items in a shopping area downtown. We then went to dinner. Perhaps I should mention that it was around this time I decided that I’d like to move here. We’ll have to see how soaring in Omarama goes in February…

I had some concerns about re-packing but it went well. I stuffed all the camping gear into the duffle bag and that will stay here in Christchurch. This equipment is for use upon returning from the Ice for a camping and hiking trip with Sharon and Rich. Everything else fit in the hard Samsonite case, veteran of many wars.

18-OCT-2004

We got up early for breakfast and left for the CDC at 7:45. Once there we did a bit of repacking and put on our survival gear, including the dreaded moon boots. Then we checked our bags in at the Antarctic Terminal. We hopped in a bus that took us to a waiting USAF C-17. How lucky is that?!? This is an awesome plane. I wish it had more windows, though. However, they have a pretty good view with plenty of windows upstairs in the cockpit, and that just happens to be the place I went to shortly after take off. At the first sight of the Antarctic continent, a longing I’ve had for over a year and a half suddenly vanished. Two of the folks in the cockpit were glider pilots from Colorado, so we had plenty to talk about. But talking was difficult with that kind of view.

After a 5-hour flight we finally landed. I simply smiled. My soul smiled. I think my entire being smiled. Now I can quietly sink in bliss.

We arrived in a balmy and impossibly bright 7degF late spring afternoon, attended a few meetings and went to get our bags. Then we had dinner; the cafeteria is surprisingly good. The views from the station are spectacular. There is an odd feeling that this place is so familiar somehow, as if I have been here before. Must be all those Antarctica books I’ve been reading. Or maybe not.

Now nothing but a thin layer of insulation (which I intend to keep in place) separates me from the Ice.

Hello, I’m back!

19-OCT-2004

We had a couple of training sessions and familiarization meetings. Then we tried to claim some office and work space in Crary lab. I spent some time in the afternoon trying to figure out some problems we are having with the USAP email addresses. It seems that we somehow fell through the cracks (a crevasse maybe?) and the addresses had not been established. Will check again tomorrow.

It was a mostly cloudy day. I also caught up with emails from home. Crary lab is a fantastic place. I visited a guy who showed me live data coming from a satellite that is dragging a long cable measuring electromagnetic stuff in the auroras. Then I went downstairs and visited the creatures in several seawater aquaria that are kept at -1.5degC for studying the fish’s antifreeze properties (proteins). I also got to check out the library on the top floor. Excellent place with an endless supply of tea, coffee, or choco and we have access to it 24-hours a day.

20-OCT-2004

Today we started the day with a waste management class. Then we had our daily meeting and went to the outside storage (science cargo) area to get some of the boxes onto a pallet so that we could start unpacking some of the equipment. It was at most 10degF outside, but while you are working and lifting boxes you stay warm with just a heavy fleece. We got a nice office in Crary lab with adjacent loading-dock type space across the hall. This is convenient because the forklift can come all the way up to our space. The boxes are between 100 & 350 pounds each.

It is the first time that my job has been of a physical nature. I don’t mind it at all. We unloaded a bunch of boxes and started dismantling some of the instrument racks that will eventually go in the plane. We will be using different racks. The plane is rumored to be south of Punta Arenas already, so we should see it in a couple of days. We spent most of the day moving and unpacking instruments and equipment. In the afternoon we had to attend the second part of the driving course. Those trucks have huge tires (and sometimes tracks) and don’t exactly handle like a Benz… Then in the evening we attended a mandatory lecture regarding outdoor safety. In order to go on any of the hikes near McMurdo you need to go to this class. I am determined to do each and every one of the hikes before long.

The satellite guy invited me to go check out the antennae up on the hill. This is NASA’s southernmost satellite tracking station. I will accept his invitation because it is a restricted area and I would otherwise have no access to go see these things. I haven’t had time to go, but will do it after survival training (shall I pass the course, ha-ha).

I walked down to the road that leads to the ice runway to check out some seals that were relaxing on the ice. The fact that the seals are there underscores the danger of falling through the ice into the water. The McMurdo Sound is frozen, but you never know how thick the ice really is, or whether a crevasse lurks beneath the layer of snow. Of course, we are only allowed to be on the marked route, which is safe, but the seals were very close to the “road”, and so must have been their hole…

Today the weather was cloudy most of the day. It also happened to be Anatoly’s birthday, so we met in his dorm building. Everyone drank vodka copiously; I drank half a glass and then went to bed totally dizzy.

21-OCT-2004

Last night, around 3:30, the violent sound of the wind against the building woke me up. It only lasted a short time, but I am very glad I was on the warm side of the wall. Perhaps a katabatic gust, similar to those that nearly sent us flying off the rocks in Patagonia… Busy morning today. After the meeting we realised that we would have to wait for the forklift to bring more of our cargo boxes. So I went to the library to read some of the geophysics papers related to our project. I made some calculations and concluded that the area which we are surveying is approximately the size of New Mexico (!!!). Later I had some very interesting conversations with Matt regarding radar and how (why) synthetic aperture / coherent radar is better that just regular radar, and other esoteric trivia. After lunch we finally got a chance to move and unpack some boxes. Most of the equipment we need is now unpacked and sorted. The weather today is fantastic. Rather cold, but that is better than the alternative. The view from the library (where I am right now) is one of indescribable beauty. There is a long section where the sea ice meets the ice shelf which has cracked, creating this pressure ridge where ice pieces the size of small buildings are sitting there haphazardly in the middle of an otherwise flat ice field (the Sound). They create a catastrophic but beautiful sight.

After dinner some of us went to Scott base (the Kiwi base on the other side of the hill). It is an order of magnitude smaller that McMurdo and has an incredible view of Mt. Erebus, which as usual, was smoking visibly today (it is an active volcano). I didn’t stay long because I want to get a good night’s sleep since tomorrow is the (infamous) snow survival training. We leave at 9 AM (after breakfast) and come back 30 hours later. From what I heard, the snow camp will keep us (physically) very busy building the huts, etc. but after that is done, we have time to go hiking, or even skiing in the local area. So I shall bring my kite!

As I write this in the library, I can hear a group of folks in the next room. They are having a live conference with some guys in the International Space Station. Hmm, not a dull moment here. I did not go see the fish today. But I will as soon as I get back from snow camp.

It is so good to be working with this group… we basically have unrestricted 24-hour access to the lab, which is a great plus. The facilities are absolutely incredible.

22-OCT-2004

Snow survival school is perhaps the most amazing experience I’ve had in my life. I ate a big breakfast today, in preparation for the event. We then had a one hour session in a classroom, and proceeded to get into Antarctica’s version of an SUV: it is called a Delta 2 and it rules! This thing owns the road and would squash a Hummer like a grape.

We drove about 30 mins to the training area. There we grabbed sleeping kits (sleeping bags and mats), and a couple of tents. We piled up all the equipment together in a big pile and started covering it with snow. Were we delirious? No. Ok, well, maybe. But there was a purpose to it. Read on.

Every now and then we would pack the snow with our feet and shovels. In the end, there was about a 50 cm layer of compacted snow covering all the gear. It looked like a giant ant-hill. We then made an opening and started pulling the stuff out. Now it became a snow cave. To trap the warm air, we excavated the entry so that it was on the lee side, and below ground level. We then patched the hole through which we had extricated the bags. Now we had a poor-man’s igloo, built in 1/6 the time it would normally take to build a proper igloo. Three of us will sleep there tonight. We then set up a Scott tent, a truly Antarctic piece of equipment. I quickly became an expert in creating snow anchors (called “dead-mans”). This tent weighs 85 pounds and can sleep 3-4 people. It is tall, yellow, and looks like a 4-sided pyramid.

Then we started cutting snow blocks to build a wall for the folks staying in tents. This was conceptually very easy, but a lot of heavy physical work. There is a fine line between blocks that are too small to be useful, and one developing a hernia… We then used the “quarry” to build a kitchen area where we immediately started boiling water. The dinner consisted of dehydrated survival rations. A lot better than I would have ever thought.

But what about the scenery, you might ask; the day was partly to mostly cloudy and the earth blended with the sky often without a discernible horizon. There was white absolutely everywhere. No contrast of any kind and just plain white everywhere you looked. Every now and then the lower portions of Mt Erebus would appear to the NW. The scene was completely enthralling. Otherworldly. And very cold. It was about 5 deg f. Of course, as long as you keep moving, you stay warm. After dinner I separated from the group (imagine that!!) and just stood there, trying, without much success, to comprehend what was around me, mesmerized by its deadly beauty.

Three of us fit comfortably (with gear) inside one of the snow huts we made. The night was relatively warm, and I slept rather well, happily wedged between two girls (the way it should be), dreaming about diving and some wired restaurant near Medellín (never mind that I’ve actually never been to Medellín…). Then I woke up at 4:30 to take a pee. I exited the snow hut and the sun was low, but shining brightly. Mt Erebus could be seen with its trademark plume, and there was blue sky in several places, everything bathed in a golden light that my camera failed to capture, but that will stay in my mind forever. So I basically ended up walking around and taking pictures in my pajamas. It soon became evident that this was not a good idea.

Back in the snow hut I warmed up again between the girls and went to sleep.

23-OCT-2004

I had tomato soup and a sandwich for breakfast. Yum! I also got a chance to prove just how resilient the snow huts can be by climbing on top of one. It suffered no ill effects from my repeated attacks. We had a long class session basically learning radios. I didn’t pay much attention because I use radios on a regular basis. However, one cool thing is that we rigged an HF radio and talked to some folks in the pole station to practice our learned skills. Then we simulated a white-out situation (by placing buckets on our heads) and having to rescue someone during it. This was really difficult, and I hope I never have to use it.

We dismantled the camp and returned to McMurdo. I took a long hot shower.

Here’s Matt’s recent report:

“McMurdo Update: Friday, Oct. 22, 2004, 8:00 PM

Survival school is ongoing for Irina, Gonzo and Janessa. The good weather continues. The racks did not make it here today; the best scenario now is that they will arrive on a late Sunday night rotation flight and that we can get our hands on them Monday. Otherwise, there are scheduled flights on Monday; a C-17 (for ICECUBE), a C-141 and 2 C-130s. SJB, KBG and BBV arrived in McMurdo today. We have not met the Borek folks yet. The mainbody of the South Pole put-in occurred today.

Scott, Theresa, Mike, Erick and Duncan have begun the TurboRogue GPS testing and training. We're cleaning our cargo boxes out of the science cargo yard. Some radar technical work is ongoing (HPPA capacitor, system testing and baluns). Matt”

24-OCT-2004

Note to self: Toothpaste doesn’t work at -15degC. Neither do eye-drops, sunscreen, shampoo, or other such items likely to be found in the toiletry bag you somehow left abandoned outside the igloo.

Today was a slow day, which is fair for Sunday, I guess.

We got up to speed on what has happened in the past 2 days, and then learnt how to set up a TurboRogue GPS. It is not much different from my Garmin, except that you need 2 suitcases to carry it around, costs more, and is a good bit more precise. I also think the data it gathers can be used for differential and carrier phase analysis, but I’m not sure yet. More on that later.

In the afternoon we hiked up “Ob Hill”. This place is of no medical significance. It stands for “Observation Hill” instead. They should call it Ob Knob… The place is of historic relevance, however, because some of Shackleton’s men climbed up there and set up a big memorial cross for the Scott expedition that perished in the area after having reached the Pole. It is a short hike but a very steep one, and my boot soles have lost a bit of their grip by now. I constantly ran the risk of sliding back down the snowy slope on my butt. Regardless, the top has a most spectacular view of the McMurdo Sound and the TAM (Trans-Antarctic Mountains). One can see the waves on the sea ice (leading to the ice shelf) and then the pressure ridge that forms when the ice cracks. It is like seeing waves in peanut butter. The view of mounts Erebus and Terror is quite good as well. It was a perfect afternoon for these recreational activities, with much sun, wind and -25degC. We were going to go to the ice runway to check out the Borek planes, but the shuttle’s not running today.

So now I’m in the library enjoying some hot choco, listening to Meat Puppets, and soaking in the view of the TAM. Visibility is probably 200 miles.

This evening there is a lecture on dolphins. I hope it is good.

Earlier I checked on the fish downstairs. A new Antarctic cod has arrived. It has sharp teeth, and I decided its name is Jerry. Better than that stupid plant back home…

I am annoyed by the news from home saying that a tree fell on the driveway. Been trying to call S, but the lines are busy. Ugh, why do trees decide to do that as soon as I leave?

25-OCT-2004

Today was a hurry-up-and-wait day. The airplane racks are still somewhere in NZ and we have little to do. But that’s OK since it gives me time to learn stuff, and catch up a bit on email and computer related stuff. I learned how to set up the cesium and the proton precession magnetometers, although we’re still looking for a suitable source of protons. JP8 (basically kerosene) would do, but decane would be preferable. All I could find in the lab was hexane, and that won’t do. Then I discovered that they run the jets here on something other than JP8, yet they have JP5 available. We will discuss the issue tomorrow and I’ll go find protons somewhere.

This evening there was a fantastic lecture on early Antarctic exploration. It had a lot of footage originally taken in Shackleton’s trip. Those people were extraordinarily tough. Here I am sipping Earl Gray in the warm library, watching jets come and go from the ice runway… they did it the hard way. We have it so easy.

I love this place.

26-OCT-2004

Note to self: no matter how nice it may look outside, don’t just wear a sweat suit. This IS Antarctica.

Today there was not much to do again, which is a good thing in a way, because it allows me to catch up with my readings of geophysics and otherwise. I did, however, go procure some protons for the proton precession magnetometers. After some discussion with the Geometrics folks back in the States, we settled on charcoal lighter fluid. Then I followed the new and improved instructions for the setup and operation of the TurboRogue GPS. It’s pretty easy to operate.

Some more cargo boxes arrived. We unpacked the instruments and now must let them warm up until tomorrow to avoid problems. It is somewhat possible that the problem we had yesterday with one of the mags may have been due to internal condensation. It is really cold outside. (Duh!)

Around noon it started snowing and became very cloudy. After lunch we went to Skua Station, which, aptly named, is where people drop off stuff they don’t use anymore, ranging from underwear to coffee makers. I picked up a pair of jeans.

Jack has arrived in Christchurch and is doing his best to catalise the cargo movement. We may see the first set of aeroplane racks as early as tomorrow.

I went to visit the lady that gave a lecture yesterday and borrowed a book from her. There will be an upcoming session pertaining the teaching of English as a foreign language. The idea is to stop in Cambodia for a couple of weeks on the way back home to teach people. It doesn’t pay, but they give you room & food for free. I am seriously considering this, for after NZ. I can think of very few reasons why not to do it.

Today we tried on the sleeping bags that we will use when we go to the field. Those are some very serious bags!

Alex, one of the satellite guys took a picture during survival school that shows us walking basically into a snowy grey oblivion. His uncle quickly retouched it with hilarious results.

I fixed my boots last night. It is a good thing I brought that tube of Shoe-Goo.

I was relieved to learn that the tree that fell back home landed not on the car, driveway, or house, but across the road instead, blocking it for half a day.

There was a lecture on Emperor penguins tonight. Very nice. I will try to go to the place where they made the documentary in the next couple of weeks. There should still be plenty of Emperors, and already a good bit of Adelies.

27-OCT-2004

Today was a busy day. After the meeting I filtered the protons for the Geometrics mag (2 coffee filters is what the tech guy suggested) and filled up the sensors. Then we hooked them up to the console and learnt its ways. Then we did the same with the Z-Surveyors, which are fancy carrier-phase GPS units. They are all quite easy to operate; I was surprised.

I was also assigned the task (not surprisingly) of checking out all the headsets and intercom switches in the Twin Otter. Maybe tomorrow. Has to be coordinated with the Borek folks. The life in the lab is wonderful. I basically spent the whole day tinkering with nice and expensive scientific equipment, and actually accomplished many things. During breakfast I had a long talk with Matt about certain glaciology things that were bothering me. It is so great to be able to ask those guys questions! Being here is very intellectually stimulating. Two months ago I knew nothing about glaciers. Now I can (briefly) speak coherently about them.

At lunch I sat with one of the guys that do maintenance on the LC130s. He explained that after each flight they usually have to do serious maintenance, especially related to the skis’ hydraulics. Hmmm…

It is now 11:30 PM and the sun shines through the window with blinding brightness. I just hiked with Erick up to Ob Hill again. It is a great little walk. The temp seems to stay around -15degC most of the time, which is just glorious!!

We also attended a lecture about the poles.

I would like to dive here. I have become fixated with the image of a diver standing on the ice underwater. He is upside down, and is standing (positive buoyancy) on the ice above: a convenient and perhaps the coolest way ever to do a decompression stop.

Tomorrow I will go to Scott base again. It is gringo night and I guess I am considered officially one of them. They have nice things at their shop including the famed nipple warmers made of possum fur.

28-OCT-2004

Note to self: the optical illusion of (sector) whiteout is unbelievably disconcerting. I can experience it right this moment from the library window looking out at McMurdo Sound. There is no depth perception whatsoever. There could be a white wall in front only meters away, or it could be the sea ice or the ice shelf or a mountain far away, or even an enormous penguin egg. I can see how Air New Zealand flew a DC10 right into Mt Erebus in the late 70’s only miles from where I sit right now. Of course, back then forward-looking GPWS (ground proximity warning system) was uncommon. It looked down instead.

The airplane racks are expected to arrive tomorrow. And, Matt and Anatoly figured out the problem with the radar, so all is well. Jack also arrives tomorrow.

Today I finally got with the Borek folks and discovered to Anatoly’s shock, that the intercom wiring scheme on SJB (last 3 characters of our Twin Otter’s tail number) has changed. So all the headsets (and spares) have to be internally rewired to match the new scheme. It appears that last season they changed too, which explains A’s discomfort (he had to rewire them then…). Being the airplane kind of guy, this task now defaulted to me, and I embraced it. I basically took over a corner on our staging area, grabbed a bunch of tools, and started snipping wires and soldering. Much enjoyed tinkering! We also checked all the GPS antenna cables with a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) cable tester. This is such a cool gadget! Everybody should have one. You can find internal kinks or other imperfections in a long cable and it will tell you where they are with a precision of 1/1000 of a foot, or a fraction of a mm. Very useful, since kinks can produce echoes and lead to loss of data in GPS antenna cables. It sends a strong pulse down the cable and records the reflection of said pulse. Imperfections, splices, connectors and other such produce jumps in the reflected pulse. Such fun toys!

I spent most of the day in the lab, also emailing with the Geometrics guys to settle some lingering issues with the proton precession mag.

We were going to go to Scott base again tonight but finished dinner too late. I did swing by the post office and got my passports stamped. It is unnecessary, and unofficial, but it dresses up well any passport. Tomorrow is survival school. I wish I could go again.

I stayed in the lab until 11 PM soldering cables. We have 4 headsets (the fancy David Clarks with active noise cancellation & gel pads) and at least a half dozen additional PTT (Push to Talk) cable/switches, so all that stuff had to be rewired to match SBJ’s wiring. I only have 4 to go.

29-OCT-2004

Tomorrow is the Halloween party and, given the crowd here, it’s going to be a wild one. I have no costume whatsoever, nor time to work on one.

Jack’s flight from Christchurch was cancelled due to bad weather in McMurdo, but we saw sunshine all day, so I don’t know what they were thinking. We also heard that the box containing the big gravimeter had been damaged enroute to NZ. It’s funny how that works: the box containing the single most delicate, expensive and irreplaceable component is the one that gets maimed by an errant forklift. We hope very much that the contents remained unmolested, but will only know for sure later.

The Twin Otter racks have been further delayed. They may show up tomorrow.

We decided not to continue with my soldering project until I have physically tested and confirmed these headsets and wiring configuration on SJB itself. So I took a trip to the runway. And suddenly it hit me like a brick. I thought I had died and gone to heaven: I am in Antarctica surrounded by cool airplanes, airplane stuff, and airplane people. Suddenly silly sensory inputs such as terribly bitter cold became unimportant as I raveled amongst the airplanes on the runway. In fact, I took off my parka and was running around the planes in a long-sleeved t-shirt. SJB is a beauty. We hopped in and confirmed that the headsets and the PTTs are working. Yes!! The LC130s are so cool… they have JATO (jet assisted take-off) systems that I am eager to see functioning.

I also checked out our runway jamesway which is already standing and has electricity. We will soon move all the instruments there for installation on SJB. I didn’t get a chance to visit the “control tower“, but I’ll work on that later.

Upon return to the lab, Janessa decided that she wanted to do some soldering so she helped me with a couple more headsets. It is such a good feeling to be totally surrounded by people who know how to do basically everything… this place is fantastic.

After dinner we fired up the big NASA/JPL radar for the first time. It was like the waking of Frankenstein! (Realise that this is the most powerful airborne radar in the civilian world…) After several minutes of warm up, the oscilloscopes and computer confirmed its good health. Much joy filled the room. I think I even saw Anatoly smile.

Today at breakfast I discovered that Irina personally knows the Russian guy that used to take “snow showers” in the last Tran Antarctic expedition. Wow! To have 2 degrees of separation to that dude via 2 distinct and independent sources made my day! (The other source is Jon Bowermaster from National Geographic who coauthored the fascinating book chronicling the expedition, and with whom we had the privilege of traveling on the Endeavor trip to the peninsula in 03.)

I’ve been talking with Mike and he wants to do the Cambodia thing with me. This may delay my return to Austin an extra couple of weeks.

Often I still have a great bit of difficulty believing the magnitude of this adventure. This poses a potential problem because it has raised the bar by such a disproportionate amount over any other previous adventure.

30-OCT-2004

Note to self: Next time, don’t volunteer to ride in the bed of the pickup truck.

Jerry is not dead, but some of his cohorts are. I visited the aquaria yesterday and encountered several of the smaller fish laying motionless upside-down in the bottom of their tanks. (Remember, many of these little devils have negative buoyancy, so they don’t float inverted like the proverbial goldfish…) The fish-guy was there and when I inquired, he casually explained that their blood had been drained. Poor things! Come to think of it, they looked rather pale. I seriously hope Jerry will not meet that same fate.

This morning Mike and I tried to debug a problem with one of the GPS computers. We took it to the gravity-shack, up the hill, where we hoped to let it record GPS data for a 24-hr period, but it refused to recognize any satellites. We hooked up the antenna to my personal GPS and it worked, so the problem is inside the unit, which is not good. Nonetheless, we left it there to see if it would acquire the sats after a period of solitude.

We continue to have some serious problems with the wireless serial ports for the magnetometer and gravimeter base stations. Two of them have already produced smoke when connected, and it has been impossible to put the smoke back in. Something to do with the second law of thermodynamics, if I recall correctly. In the worst case we will have to use a very long wire between the mag hutlet (this term refers to a small hut outfitted with solar panels where the mag will live) and the jamesway out in the camp.

After lunch Janessa finished soldering the 2 headsets that remained undone and we went to the runway to start bringing stuff to our jamesway, which already has electricity and heat. We climbed on the roof to set up a couple of GPS antennae on tripods for the TurboRogue and the Z-Surveyors. While that was going on, a C-17 landed. That was a pretty spectacular sight. It is such a mean looking airplane, especially if it is enveloped in a huge cloud of snow caused by the thrust reversers… it looks sinister. Jack arrived in that flight and, to our delight, was happy that we signed up for a trip to Cape Evans to visit Scott’s hut tomorrow. For a moment we had suspected that he would veto such nonsense and make us work instead, but perhaps the fact that we signed him up too had a good impact. Good marketing.

Being on the runway is so much fun! I still haven’t gotten a chance to see one of the JATO Hercs take off, though.

When returning from the runway in the pickup (a 15-20 minute drive) I kindly offered my spot on the cabin to someone else who was cold, and volunteered to ride in the back. This was a very questionable move.

A rowdy Halloween party ensued in the big gym tonight. It is amazing how crazy all these people can get. I stayed a little while, got bored, and went to sleep.

31-OCT-2004

Note to self: crevasses do exist.

I have been gently reminded that I should mention why I’m here. The area of Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier constitutes a large portion of the Amundsen Sea Embayment. It is an area of the continent that, due to its remoteness, has been studied very little. It also appears to be one of the more active areas as far as ice flow is concerned. Some studies suggest that the area is not in balance (i.e. more ice is going out than what’s coming in). This presents, some say, the potential for global sea-level increase in the order of meters during human time-scales. (Note: if the last sentence doesn’t shock you, you may be clinically dead. Better check on that…) Our mission consists in taking measurements in the Thwaites area that will help determine whether the embayment is in fact out of balance or not, and map the ice sheet and bedrock below. In the process, the likelihood that we will discover active areas such as volcanoes under the ice sheet is very high. The BAS (British Antarctic Survey) team that will work in conjunction with us will do a similar analysis in Pine Island. The area in question is part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Antarctica is generally considered to be divided into East A and West A with the TAM in between. WAIS is basically the area west of TAM.

This is all really quite fascinating, and being so involved in it has already changed me, my life, and possibly what I do forever. Nonetheless, the thing that I find the most intriguing and unbelievable about this continent continues to be Lake Vostok. It is unbelievably good luck that Jack has been one of the researchers in LV. I have much to talk with him regarding that. (Just hope that the Russians don’t pour kerosene in the water before we can take a look).

Today we basically got the day off. After brunch we hopped on a Delta and went to Cape Evans. This is the locale of one of Scott’s expedition huts. The place has remained pretty much as it was since the very early 1900’s, with various personal articles from the men who lived in it and later perished on the return trip after having reached the elusive pole. There was a lot of science research going on at the time, which explains the presence of the Emperor Penguin corpse on Scott’s table. Irina bitterly complained about the lack of live penguins. Everyone was happy, though, to have such a great opportunity to see this historic place. I should note that said place was being blasted by 35-40 kt winds and enjoyed an early summer afternoon temp of -35degF while we visited.

Getting out of the Delta was like getting out of a space capsule. We were at the edge of a huge expanse of sea ice. The only thing separating us from the water (and thus from pretty much immediate death) was a 250-foot thick ice sheet. We emerged from the back and the wind made it hard to walk. The ice surface had small ripples everywhere, which actually helped slightly. At places there were areas of snow. Crossing one of such areas the snow gave way to my foot, revealing a small crevasse below. It looked dark and cold in there. I took a picture of it. It may have been big enough to swallow an entire person.

The hut has an adjacent space where the men kept their Tibetan ponies. What a fiasco those were. Better learn to ski before the trip and stick to dogs (which is basically why the Norwegians won the race…)

Shackleton and his team also lived for some periods in this hut. It is amazing to occupy that same space, see what they saw every day, where they lived, their Caribou-fur sleeping bags, their kitchen, their telegraph, their darkroom, etc.

We then climbed up a small hill where a memorial for Scott and his men is visible. The view from up there is far too magnificent to be described, so I won’t waste time. It was also extremely cold and wind was 40-50 kt. Bringing my kite was a good idea :)

While on these outings it is important to keep an eye on your companions’ exposed skin (which usually means nose). It can become white without the owner knowing it, adversely affecting the appendage if not addressed right away.

01-NOV-2004

In the morning we had a very long meeting (the first one with Jack). Things are more organized now.

Anatoly, Jack, Matt, and I spent most of the afternoon fiddling with the airplane racks. It appears that we will have to use 4 racks instead of 5 so we’ve been racking our brains trying to figure out how to fit all the instruments in that space. We took several measurements in the plane to see how the equipment will be accommodated. It is quite useful to carry around a digital camera in these cases.

Once all the stuff is onboard it will be very cozy in the plane. (Plus it will look like a flying porcupine, AND it will instantly sterilize and blind any organism that dares be under it and look up while we have the radar and the laser running. Ha! Maybe we could borrow it from Borek in the off-season…)

02-NOV-2004

The rack saga continues. M & A arrived at a configuration that fits all the instruments in 4 racks instead of 5. I was able to help a little by voicing opinions related to airworthiness which they are not necessarily too familiar with and we must adhere to. Now we need to mount everything in the racks. The JPL/NASA radar is huge and consumes a good bit of the available volume. We will be doing this in the next few days. A test flight is scheduled for very early next week.

I took some time this afternoon to replace all the mike covers and ear pads in the headsets since Jack brought new ones. So the headsets are now ready to go.

I went to see Jerry, and tried to take a picture of his teeth. This didn’t go very well, but at least I still have all my extremities.

I am so fortunate… during dinner I learnt more about Lake Vostok from Jack. It seems that when the Russians started drilling back in 1996, they really didn’t know (no-one did) exactly what was below. Fortunately stopped before getting to the water! (The layer of ice immediately above the water is estimated to be >= 420,000 years old and they used kerosene to keep the borehole from freezing shut. So the consequences of “braking through” would have been nefarious. The big problem remains and is how to get to the water w/o messing it up. Like the Heisenberg principle at a macroscopic level. I’ve always thought the H principle worked at a macro level too, like with girls for instance: You cannot look at them w/o somehow influencing their behaviour.)

We also spoke about grounding lines and the thinning of ice-shelves due to warmer water sloshing underneath. 2 months ago I had absolutely no idea that geophysics could be so interesting. I wonder what else I’m missing… The more I know, the more obvious it is how little I know.

Tomorrow we will be drilling holes on the mounting brackets (weeee… it’s just like back home!) and hope that M & A’s calculations were correct. We have a drill press in our office. How convenient.

03-NOV-2004

Last night we played Scrabble and I learnt a new verb: to tup, which refers to when sheep mate. Suddenly, Tupperware will never be the same.

We had another long meeting this morning. Our group is now divided into smaller operational units, which are Flight Ops, Base Ops, and Experiment Design. Despite the fact that everyone will do a bit of each thing, our primary responsibilities will be within our units. Naturally, I belong to the Flight Ops group. As such, I spent the whole afternoon carefully measuring and drilling holes in the rails for the new FAA-approved instrument racks. It’s just like I never left home, except that the drill is different! After we finished mounting the instruments in it, it was so heavy we could barely move it. We estimated some 600 pounds. Moving it from the lab to the plane is going to be a problem. The idea of disassembling and then reassembling again inside the airplane isn’t good since the plane is pretty cramped.

In the evening we attended a lecture on sea urchin embryos and some of their adaptations for living in water at -2C. After that, I finally hooked up with one of the main divers (a pretty Korean girl in this case. Hmm… that sounded redundant. Ok, maybe not.) to see if I can score a trip to one of the diving huts out on the sea ice. I also inquired extensively about the official requirements for diving here. Only 15 documented dry suit immersions are needed. Aha! That’s doable! I must work on my dry suit certificate and see to get involved with a diving project of some sort for a coming season. This will be a fairly high priority; I am determined to some day have a decompression stop standing upside down on the ice.

After dinner I stopped by the store and bought another Antarctic souvenir for my beloved S. She’s going to look (even more) adorable in it…

It is now 10 PM and the sun shines beautifully over the TAM across McMurdo Sound. There it bounces off with golden colours off the glaciers. This delightful weather is called condition 3. When things become less benign, the proper term is condition 2. If things deteriorate even further, that would be condition 1. During condition 1 no-one is allowed to leave the building they are in, mainly because there is little chance they will make it to any other building alive. This condition implies that the wind is >=110km/h, the wind chill is <= -100F, or the visibility is <= 30m so chances are that one won’t really be wanting to leave the building. The obvious question is, what if one is NOT in a building, but say, for the sake of argument, in a tent? I am generally curious, but I hope I don’t find out about that.

04-NOV-2004

Today is an extremely somber day, not just for the United States, but for the whole world. That is all I have to say.

05-NOV-2004

This morning when I left the dorm, McMurdo was white. This is unusual because so far it has been brown. It snowed a bit last night and it continued to snow lightly most of the day today.

I saw a Skua again today hanging around the galley. It looked at me and didn’t even flinch despite the fact that I was within a meter of it. Someone referred to them as military-spec seagulls. A pretty accurate description.

We had a very interesting glaciology session specific to Pine Island and Thwaites with the main researcher from the BAS group. After it, I had some questions for him and it turns out that under the right basal conditions, the friction between the ice and the rock can provide up to 50% of the heat in the boundary layer (the other 50% generally being geothermal).

Most of the day was spent drilling holes and fitting instrument rails to the plane racks. We need to fit not one but two full sets of instruments. There is redundancy on most instruments, but this redundancy doesn’t necessarily come in cabinets of the same size. Easy to imagine since some of these instruments are not off the shelf.

We have made quite a bit of progress. Janessa has helped Matt, Anatoly and I a lot. She is always eager to drill, use the reciprocating saw, file, and do any task that involves hardware. Just like someone I know in Austin and miss so very much.

While in the lab setting up the racks I spent a lot of time talking with Matt about music. Our taste overlaps a surprising amount, sometime on things way off the beaten path. Most of his music collection is on vinyl, as is mine.

The view from Crary Library tonight is quite different from other times. Since it snowed a bit and it’s windy, the lowest layer is fuzzy, with low visibility. The sky is totally cloudy and the TAM appear ghostly between the low clouds and the ground “fog”.

06-NOV-2004

Today at breakfast, Irina gave me a lecture on estuaries and deltas, and how/why they differ from each other. She has a degree in physics, but is now studying geophysics. I asked her why she decided to study physics, and her answer was along the lines of “How could you study anything other than physics?!?”

Another day spent entirely in the lab working on the racks. We should be done early tomorrow. At some point I took a break and went to the electronics building to get some 1/8-inch 3-pole plugs to make a cable that would connect Daniel’s MP3 player to the big office radio. This was a great success. The selection of tunes just went way up.

This job is a great opportunity to get my foot in the door. After having this job, getting subsequent jobs here should be easier. I am making as many contacts as possible, and at the highest level possible. Even though ideally I would like to work for Jack in upcoming seasons, I don’t know the certainty of a) him being here, and b) me being involved in his upcoming projects. I’d like to assume that both have a good probability. Just to be on the safe side, it is important to prepare as many contingency plans as possible. I have also gotten a chance to see which jobs are more interesting and which to avoid. Clearly, the one I have now ranks at the very top of the desirability scale.

Sadly Jerry died in the name of science today. They needed to study the fluids in his intestine. Well, I could have told them exactly what was in his intestine w/o slicing him open: whatever they fed him in the last 2 weeks!

07-NOV-2004

Note to self: when drilling hard metal, spin the drill slower.

While talking to one of the Borek mechanics yesterday, I learnt that if you’re drilling hard metal, there is better heat dissipation if you spin the drill slower. Otherwise the bit can get hot enough to melt its sharp tip, rendering it useless. I am ashamed to admit that I actually didn’t know this, which should be plain common sense… So I continued drilling the aluminum rails at full blast, and started drilling the stainless steel plates much slower. The results were amazing. How ignorant can one be?!?

Last night and a couple of times today we finally had condition 2 weather. The wind was quite strong (Patagonia style) with snow blowing everywhere. It was quite difficult to see more than a block away. Also, they closed the sea ice runway, so we couldn’t go to our jamesway, even though I don’t care since all my work is in the lab.

Today is Sunday, and I went to work at 9 AM and left at 7 PM, similar to yesterday, but I would not complain. I am enjoying seeing the racks take shape. They are now essentially full, and we’re setting up all the connections to conduct a full-bore ground test hopefully tomorrow or Tues. Jack and others started setting up the mount for the airborne g-meter. This is particularly interesting because said instrument resides in a gyro-stabilised cage with oleo-pneumatic dampening. We will place the cage as close to the planes CG (center of gravity) as we can so as to lessen the motion from turbulence. Irina and I are also going to start helping Jack with the TrimFlight, which is a GPS flight system that is hooked up to the plane’s auto-pilot and into which the surveys transects are pre-programmed. In the meantime, the other subgroup has started figuring out what those transects will be.

08-NOV-2004

Today we finished up mounting stuff on the racks and conducted a partial test of all systems. We also mounted the g-meter in its cradle. It is an exquisitely precise and obscenely expensive gadget that UTIG is renting for the season.

In the evening there was another lecture on early Antarctic exploration. When they mentioned the Nordenskjold expedition of 1903, and thus Paulet Island and Snow Hill Island in the Peninsula; I felt extremely privileged to have had been to both. It is safe to assume that not many people in the room have been to those places.

The National Geographic trip we did a year and a half ago is a completely non-overlapping experience with this trip. In the Peninsula we saw more wildlife than we could have ever imagined, but never saw the interior of the White Continent. On this trip we may see some wildlife, but it may not go much beyond a confused or lost penguin; instead we will be flying over the interior barren every day.

Erick and I spoke about 2 hours regarding the differences between coherent and incoherent radar. The fact that coherent captures phase is fundamental, since that is what lets you augment the resolution.

It is now almost midnight and the view of Mt. Discovery from the upper floor Crary library is spectacular. It is producing two perfect stacks of lenticular clouds that make me lament not having my glider (with heater). The sun shines about 20 degrees above the horizon; it won’t really get much lower than this. It just wanders around in a funky circle. All is bathed again in that mysterious golden light that I first saw at survival school. Endless beauty…

09-NOV-2004

Meetings all morning. Dave arrived yesterday, and we had to catch up.

I had lunch with Stacy, the dive mistress. She told me that despite the dry suits, she is limited by the temperature, not by the diving tables (or computer), in other words not by N2 saturation. Tomorrow they are going to check on an ongoing project about 60 miles from here. They take a helicopter and have to bring all their diving equipment with them, which is a lot of stuff to carry about. Just the dry suits and tanks occupy a good part of the available volume.

After lunch we figured out how to use the TrimFlight. It’s just like a fish finder, only more sophisticated. I never thought my MS-DOS skills would be useful in matters of GPS; however, this thing uses a dos-based interface. How quaint!

We checked and backed up both units. This took most of the afternoon, since the spare unit had somehow found its way back to the science cargo area across town and up the hill. We happily went to get it since the weather is so nice today. If condition 4 existed, this would be it, with unbelievably bright sun, and a toasty 18degF.

Later in the day things were somewhat slow again and I was able to stop working at 5:30 or so. I had dinner with Matt. We always have good conversation. Well, I guess here, your chances of sitting to eat with someone and having interesting conversation are relatively high anyhow.

After dinner I decided to go on one of the short hikes, to Hut point this time. I went by myself and brought the kite, just in case. Temp was 12F but -14F with wind-chill, which is what exposed body parts really feel. Since the wind was blowing some 30 kt and the hut is by the edge of a cliff with the obligatory cross, I decided that it would be prudent not to fly it since that could easily add an extra cross to that area which would make it look tacky.

The view of the sea ice from the point is fantastic. One can see the broken / wavy ice towards the shore and then the huge expanse that is the McMurdo sound and beyond, I guess. Some of the guys went to Castle rock yesterday, but it is a long hike (ca. 10 miles) and they started at 8:30 and got back at 1 or 2 AM. (we had a meeting today at 8:30). I’d rather do that with a bit more time to slow down and enjoy it and take lots of pix. I was tempted to do it tonight, but again I would have started too late. Maybe in the weekend if we get some free time. To do any of those longer hikes you need to “check out” with the fire house and they will give you a radio. Like all other activities that take place “out of town”, if you fail to check in at an agreed upon time, within minutes there will be a SAR (search and rescue) party looking for you. They hate losing people… bad PR.

One of the very many cool or unusual things about this place is that, unlike in, say Terlingua, sundials can be military style.

10-NOV-2004

Note to self: as suspected, inverse wind gradient can exist.

There was an interesting talk today about meteorology. I got a chance to ask a question that had been nagging me, and that is how high (AGL) do katabatic winds extend. As I had imagined, they are a boundary layer phenomenon and thus if you were to go up by 1km you’d probably be unaware of them.

One of my tasks today was to make a new power cable for the laser. It is nice to be assigned mission critical tasks: if this cable fails, we will be unable to blind innocent seals that inadvertently look up at the plane (with the intention to wave, no doubt), and worst, we will get no laser altimetry data, which would ruin the day altogether. The other good thing is that since we figured out the TrimFlight yesterday, when Matt needed a GPS serial stream today to do some tests and there was no-one but me in the lab, I could readily provide it.

Unfortunately other than that there was precious little to do, but I couldn’t escape and go hiking. I learn a lot during those times anyhow. I hooked up the laser to the acquisition systems and tried out my power cable. Good, I got the polarity right!

I saw one of the helicopters landing today. It was bringing some external cargo in the form of some boxes hanging from 30 feet (or so) of rope. That dude comes in, hovers for a bit over the pad, softly deposits the cargo, pulls the release, and moves a bit to the side to land, equally softly of course. It was somewhat windy at the time.

We went to the runway and had dinner there. I hadn’t been to the jamesway in several days. It has made great progress. The radar antennae have been affixed to SJB. I also visited the mag hutlets. What a sight, right in the middle of this white oblivion they stand, looking like a stoic pair of microwave ovens with big stereo speakers on top. But no, make no mistake, they are mag hutlets! In effect they are small enclosures where the magnetometers live, like small magnetometer condos of sorts, with a set of solar panels on top. If you were a magnetometer, you’d love to be in there.

I heard from the group that is planning the transects that we will be flying over a bunch of interesting stuff. I can’t wait to get off the ground.

Tomorrow after the (usually grueling) full group meeting, I think we will start moving stuff from the lab to the plane. It’ll be a busy day. I wanted to go to Scott base in the afternoon. Unlikely.

11-NOV-2004

Note to self: that thing I read about Antarctica being the windiest place on Earth may be true.

I have become the de-facto photographer (others, except Jack, don’t really know how to use a camera well) and I had to take shots of the finished racks for project documentation. It is a good thing I brought my tripod. I really like that Canon digital despite its modest 3.2 mega pixels.

We got the racks ready to bring to the plane, but we had our first real weather delay. Despite the fact that it was sunny and beautiful in town, down on the sea ice the wind was so strong that the lower 4-6 meters (above ground) are in almost whiteout condition. I could look from the Crary windows and see the TAM 100 miles away, but I could not see our jamesway 2 miles away. It was in the “fog”. With 40 kt sustained winds we were NOT going to start moving racks to the plane. It would have been suicidal.

I wanted very badly to go fly my kite. Alas, that too would have been suicidal, yet entertaining.

This evening there was a talk by a lady that knows Will Steger, the American guy from the last dog-sled Transantarctic expedition. What a small world! She went on a dog-sledding expedition in northern Canada. We were looking at her slides and she has a slide of the inside of Will’s tent where he wrote the GPS data and all. The same tent that they used in the Transantarctic run! You can see a picture of him writing the stuff on the tent’s wall in the book that Jon Bowermaster co-wrote. Now I have 2 known independent 2-degrees of separation paths to Will Steger, as the world continues to shrink.

12-NOV-2004

Finally 2 of the racks and the gravity meter cage were moved to the plane today. We ended up putting them in the back of a pickup truck to take them from Crary to the runway, and then using a forklift to bring them from the pickup to SJB’s “cargo” door.

All went well, but soon after the racks were bolted in place we discovered (Matt and I) that connecting some of the cables would be extremely difficult. The clearance between the wall of the fuselage and the back of the racks is very small, and most of the cables go in the back. After enough body contortionism we decided to pull some of the instruments out of the racks to gain access. Then, and so as not to violate Texas law, I took my mandatory 15-minute afternoon break just when a C-17 was taxiing for take off. Hmmm... what a strange coincidence. I walked as close to the runway as I could, and took some shots of the thing taking off. I obviously still have to learn the ways of my camera.

We returned to McMurdo and went for a hike to Hut Point after dinner. What an incredible view it has. You can see the frozen McMurdo Sound and the TAM in the distance. In the frozen vastness you can see the merciless cold and wind. You can see the immeasurable solitude. You can see the roaring silence. All good things.

Meanwhile, in the jamesway, some folks spotted a wandering Adelie penguin headed towards the Hercs.

13-NOV-2004

After our meeting we moved the remaining racks. It was cloudy and quite windy, but all went well. Once in the plane we started connecting things. The plane is adjacent to the jamesway and 3 of us were on board, while the others were in the jamesway. It got progressively windier and before we knew it, the plane was shaking as if it was flying through turbulence. When looking out of the windows, we could barely see the wingtip (35 feet away). When looking down, the rush of flying snow was so violent that it was hard to believe that the plane was actually anchored. Everything inside it was rattling, including the racks, instruments and tools. Welcome to the infamous weather called “Condition 1”. They closed all roads and forbid moving between buildings. So there we were, officially “trapped” in the Twin Otter. We decided that the jamesway was an achievable goal, and I was chosen (and would have happily volunteered) to go bring some extra tools and a radio. As soon as I opened the door and jumped out of the plane I actually felt Antarctica for the first time. It was almost impossible to see, and what you saw was deceiving since there was no contrast at all. So you could walk right into (or off) a 3-foot snow drift without seeing it. The wind noise was deafening. Everything was white. Thanks to my ECW gear, I was not cold, but my nose and face (any and all exposed skin) felt like it was burning. I quickly stumbled to the jamesway’s door. When I entered people inside were shocked. They did not expect anyone to walk in…

Throughout the rest of the afternoon the weather varied between Conditions 1 & 2 which means that we had no way to get back to McMurdo and were to stay at the runway until things improved. Finally, at 7:30 PM we got a ride back into town from one of the shuttle vans escorted by a tow truck.

Now we’re back to condition 3, the sun shines beautifully, it’s 9:30 and I’m going for a hike.

14-NOV-2004

A couple of nights ago Erick and I were in the cafeteria drinking hot choco around midnight and we learnt from one of the girls that Jerry had actually been filleted, grilled, and eaten at Scott Base, supposedly with a delicious sauce. His intestine and vital fluids, however, benefited science by remaining at Crary Lab.

Today it was reported that yesterday’s Condition 1 wind reached 90 knots (or 180 kph) on the sea-ice. Well THAT explains a few things! I am so very grateful that the Borek folks anchored SJB well and she didn’t fly off with us in the back.

In the morning I spent some time constructing a couple of cables that we were missing and we continued moving stuff from Crary lab to the sea-ice jamesway. Kevin and Bob (Borek mechanics) were installing the magnetometer “torpedo“ under the plane, and Matt and I did some additional work inside the plane. But you can only cram so many people back there, so I left for a couple of hours to go fly my kite. In this entertaining exercise I was repeatedly dragged along the sea ice. Mike and Janessa joined me. I think while at Thwaites we will need a sign-up sheet for the kite; everyone really likes it.

This evening it was David and Jack’s turn in the science lecture series. They gave a great overview of the project. Earlier Jack commissioned me to take some pix of SJB’s progress to use in the presentation. Again, I am glad to have brought my tripod.

15-NOV-2004

We had a lot of meetings today. We also finished mounting the g-meter and laser. Tomorrow or Wed will be the first test flight. Irina and I need to make the flight plan, to which I happily agreed. There is a cool program in which you can input the coordinates of your intended trip, and it prints them on a contour map of the region. Very nice!

Theresa and Irina are going to South Pole on Friday to get a measurement on some gravity ties. This presents the opportunity to send my holiday cards with them so that they will officially be mailed from the South Pole. At first I thought it was bogus since I have not been there, so why should the cards be mailed from a place where I have not been; I decided not to send them. Then I thought that it would be a rather unique opportunity, and that they would make a quite unusual philatelic memento, if nothing else. So this year my “Christmas” cards will have a South Pole stamp, what the heck. After all, I plan to be there some day, if not on this trip, certainly in some upcoming one.

Another thing I did today was to fill the fuel canisters in our survival bags. The bags are now sealed and deemed RFI (ready for issue). This basically means that 3 humans can be thrown into the Antarctic “wilderness” with said bags and have a good chance of still being alive at the end of several days. The pilots also carry their own bags. I hope very much not to see those fuel canisters again until I empty them in late January.

The lecture series on historic Antarctic exploration continues tonight. I am looking forward to it.

16-NOV-2004

Note to self: Military airplanes come equipped with extraordinarily nice toolboxes.

I have finally caught the dreaded “Antarctic Crud” that has afflicted a large part of the population here in McMurdo. For the past 2 days I didn’t feel very well, and I slept poorly last night, so today I went to the clinic to see if they could fix it.

We had to deal with some cargo issues today, but after that we went to the runway jamesway for final preparations to do a full, all-equipment-in-airplane test. Matt and I installed the mag torpedo with its 30 meters of cable in the winch. In flight this trails the plane so that the mag data don’t get disturbed by the plane’s own mag field. The test went well except for a very minor glitch in one of the ten data acquisition computers that we have installed on board. We have tentatively scheduled a first test flight for tomorrow at 1500. Hopefully all systems will work. We think we can go on our camping trip by thanksgiving or so, the only problem is that the recon flight that was supposed to happen a week ago has been delayed pretty much every day due to bad weather in the Thwaites area. This doesn’t sound good. I keep remembering someone’s description of the Thwaites area as one of horrific weather.

Mid through the afternoon I took my mandatory 15 minute break and, what an unusual coincidence, a C-17 was landing! (There is a flight ops page accessible in the McMurdo intranet with all kinds of good information on it, so I can plan my brakes accordingly.)

While working outside SJB I noticed that looking South (Grrr!! you can still look South from here) the landscape was very unique. The entire field of view was composed of two white sheets separated by a thin blue stripe. The bottom sheet is the frozen McMurdo sound, where I, SJB and others were standing. The thin blue stripe is the horizon. The top white sheet is the sky. What was so unique about this is that the two white sheets were virtually identical in colour, texture, apparent extension, etc. In other words, I could have been standing on my head and the landscape would not have changed by much, except that the Hercs would have resembled more flies on the ceiling. I wish so much I could capture these things with my camera!

I had to make a spare cable/connector for the TrimFlight system and it turns out that we did not have the proper crimping or terminal extraction tools. So I asked Matt if I could just go to the Herc’s avionics shack and ask, since after all it is an AMP mil-spec connector. Matt was skeptical but told me to try it at my own risk. It turns out that not only are they very nice people, but that the Hercs do in fact use said connector in abundance. The guy pulled out a beautiful metal toolbox closely resembling an aluminum brief case but much bigger. In there were all the tools (in their individual foam cradles, of course) to deal with this type of connectors. A whole big beautiful toolbox just to deal with connectors!! Oh what nice hardware! The guy even showed me how to do it and then let me do it myself. In addition to getting the connector issue resolved, I made friends with the avionics guy, who gladly agreed to give me a tour of one of the Hercs in the near future.

I finally started reading Krakauer’s book (Into Thin Air). It is going to be good. I chose as the bookmark for it a post card that YY sent me from Nepal shortly before she climbed Everest herself. Appropriate. Thankfully, unlike the book’s doomed cast, she survived.

17-NOV-2004

We had some meetings in the morning. A necessary evil, I suppose.

I continued working on some power cables and re-did the TrimFlight cable that I had made at full speed yesterday. I also had to troubleshoot the TrimFlight some. It appeared lost, somehow unwilling to acknowledge that we are in the southern hemisphere. Maybe it’s just homesick.

I also found someone who would repair my jeans: while hopping into SJB yesterday I experienced what has been referred to as a “wardrobe malfunction” in which a big tear developed in a very unbecoming place. Barbara, from laundry, agreed to fix them for $5.

We readied the instruments and made a quick flight plan for a partial test flight across the sound and over Black Island and Mina bluff. Just a couple of transects to see how the G-meter will react to 10 deg bank turns and such. Finally, in a short but very significant moment, SJB took to the air at 8:15 PM on a sunny and gorgeous evening with Jack and Matt operating the instruments.

While they were flying I snuck back to the Herc avionics shack to see the guy I met yesterday. He knew what I wanted, asked for permission, and gave me a super cool tour of one of the Hercs. In fact, I sat in the pilot’s seat while he was explaining stuff about the radar and the TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system), which are his areas of expertise. He also said that with the skis in the retracted position, the plane’s autonomy is reduced by 1 hour. Their size is significant, and so is the drag they produce. They can be in 3 positions: retracted for flight, extended, for landing on skis, and half way, for landing on wheels, which poke through them. I still haven’t seen a JATO launch yet, but hopefully we’ll get to see/experience them out of Thwaites. He says that when you light up the rockets, the acceleration is immediate and quite remarkable. One switch activates all 8 (4 per side). So cool!

I am still feeling rather crappy and the crud is draining most of my energy, but I still felt obligated to wait for SBJ’s return at the runway. They arrived with mostly good news and I went back to McMurdo and hit the sack. Unfortunately the cough and sore throat keep conspiring against letting me sleep. Ugh!

18-NOV-2004

The cough and stuffiness didn’t let me sleep too well, plus I got home from work after 11 PM last night. So today I feel almost like I am one of those blue cakes they put at the bottom of the urinals (I know it is stupid to assume that they feel bad, but I’m still doing it). And we started the day with numerous meetings. After them I decided that the best thing for me to do was to go back to bed, possibly with a short recognizance trip to the sauna, as suggested by Jack, to see if my upper respiratory passages unclog a bit.

19-NOV-2004

Today I still feel rather crappy. Got off to a bad start by missing breakfast, and also by missing Irina, with whom I was going to send my xmas cards to South Pole so she would mail them for me. But she left early, so my cards will actually be mailed from McMurdo, which is fine.

The weather yesterday and today has been remarkably warm (2degC) and with almost no wind or clouds. Ideal for a hike to Castle Rock which I cannot do because of the flu.

After our morning meetings I went with Hunter to do some cargo chores, and to find some 50W oil for the little oleo-struts that support the G-meter cradle. I also worked on some more cables. In my short stay here, my soldering skills have improved tremendously.

I took a moment off mid afternoon to go watch today’s C-17 land, always a treat. I wish I had some real optics to go along with my camera, although for its puny size (and prize) it seems to do rather well.

I returned from the runway early to get some extra sleep.

20-NOV-2004

This morning I had breakfast with Don again. He has been doing airborne geophysics here in Antarctica for a very long time and is considered a foremost authority in that field. We have spent breakfasts talking about glaciology, radar, and most notably motorcycles, as he used to race motocross bikes years ago. So naturally I have shared with him my extensive (mis) adventures in Copper Canyon.

We had a morning full of meetings and then went down to the runway. There I hopped into SJB’s cockpit to install the TrimFlight’s moving map display. This was quite difficult because of the very little room available. A metal base plate had to be bolted between the pilot’s and the copilot’s seat on top of a small console. I wish I had Ardillita’s little fingers. After a comical series of yoga-like positions and frequent grunting, the thing was bolted in place and I could pursue other goals such as figuring out the specifics of SJB’s radar altimeter. It is an older Sperry unit (AA200) that showed up nowhere in the Honeywell website. So we’ll have to wait and see if the mechanics have the specs.

Anatoly had the fortune of going to Vostok today. They needed a translator, which is ironic for reasons I will not mention here. I would like so much to go there… Jack and Matt’s description of the Vostok base is fantastic, not to mention the amazing lake underneath.

Before dinner I went to Scott Base again, a clear sign that I feel better. I think we are going to do Castle Rock loop tomorrow evening, if both the weather and my upper respiratory system hold. The past few days have had absolutely clear skies and rather high temps +1degC, so they would have been perfect for local exploration, but not surprisingly coincided with my feeling bad and not wanting to even get out of bed in the morning.

21-NOV-2004

Today we got the morning off.

I am so very lucky! It is an absolutely gorgeous morning, and I get to spend it flying my kite in Antarctica! On the sea ice, this sheet of frozen seawater that is partially covered with snow, and gleaming white in those (most) places, while scary blue in others. Scary because it is a reminder that deep water colder than 0degC is right there, not far below, and I’m sure that I would make a terrible swimmer wearing my heavy hiking boots, a heavy down parka, field pants, and a full complement of long underwear. The only good thing is that I would not have to swim for very long, as life becomes a rather temporary assignment under those conditions.

The seemingly endless expanse of ice is inundated in a light quite unique to these latitudes. My mirrored, glacier-type sunglasses block 95% of visible light and I am still overwhelmed at the brightness sometimes. The conditions are perfect for kiting: 30kts constant blow. Not a wisp in the sky. Perfect blue. Unlimited visibility. Temp slightly below freezing, but in this wind, exposed skin hurts instead of feeling cold. I feel so unmistakably alive! I keep thinking about a REAL traction kite like the one I left behind at home, and a snowboard; one could just go tearing down the frozen sheet with unmitigated speed getting airborne over the occasional crevasse… If gliders didn’t exist, this would be the perfect place.

The jamesway has a couple of windows, and is well illuminated inside. However, when you’re in it, it is practically impossible to see out the window. You just see a blinding white rectangle. It’s somewhat like in those sci-fi movies, when the evil UFO has just landed in the backyard and the helpless kid is inside the house. But it is most shocking when you emerge from the jamesway. It feels almost like you’re going to drown in so much light.

22-NOV-2004

We scheduled a test flight for this afternoon, and part of the objectives was to test the TrimFlight, the camera, and the laser. I was directly responsible for 2 of those, the TF and the camera. So after the meetings I had a couple of hours to fiddle with the (airplane) camera in terms of finding a suitable mounting position, (in the tail of the plane, by the laser, pointing down through the Lexan window we cut for the laser) and then selecting a preliminary configuration for speed, aperture, exposure, shooting interval, etc, before the flight.

Happily I was part of today’s flight crew, and in charge of the cam. We took off around 4 PM. It immediately became obvious how miserably small my pathetic ground-based view of the huge white oblivion really was. I have always felt so sorry for ground-based creatures, and happy not to be one of them. The other thing that became apparent was how the ice runway area is relatively groomed. They level it and spread the snow around, so it looks mostly white, with the occasional blue area. This same ice, in its natural form is amazingly beautiful, with areas of blue ice alternating with white in about a 50% ratio and in shapes reminiscent of lava lamps. Since the blue is several cm lower than the white, if you view it from a low angle, it will appear white. From our lofty perspective it looked magnificent. The workload associated with the cam was relatively low, so I had plenty of time to soak the beauty of the scenery, which is of a magnitude that my words could not even begin to describe. However, we saw the sea ice, the ice sheet (and the interface between those two), the volcanic islands, islands poking out of the sea ice, and towards the end of the flight the Borek folks took us on a small mission to check out the saddle between Erebus and Terror to see if the Twin Otter would be capable of landing there. When flying there, we saw crevasses big enough to swallow an entire airplane. These giant and very deep cracks in the ice sheet would sometime be partially covered in snow, which would make them (partially) undetectable, and therefore totally deadly if approached on the ground from the wrong direction. The view of Erebus was fantastic. I will never forget this flight. I hope so much that we will fly over the top of Erebus next time to see the magma lake inside its crater; this time we stayed below the top, and while on the saddle we were flying maybe 5 or 10 ft off the deck, but didn’t touch down. It feels so good to be in the air again!

23-NOV-2003

In the afternoon I did something very interesting: yesterday during the flight Matt indicated that we were having drop-outs in the laser (i.e. indicates altitude = 0, instead of altitude = <some meaningful number>). When he called one of those drop-outs, since I was hunched over the camera and laser looking down the bottom Lexan window, I happen to see that we had just transitioned from white ice sheet to an area of very black rocks. So my hypothesis is that the rocks were messing up the laser return. I took the laser readout from the flight and by looking at the time for the drop-outs, located the corresponding pictures to see what was (visually) under the plane when the drop-outs occur. From what I could see, we have a laser reflectivity problem with the blacker rocks. (There are black and brown rocks in the McMurdo area).

This exercise also let me evaluate the pix and make informed suggestions for future settings.

It snowed a good bit in the afternoon. Big snowflakes everywhere. What an enormous winter wonderland this is.

24-NOV-2004

Note to self: In Antarctica, it is cold. In Antarctica at 12,000 feet, it is colder; so bring the bunny boots.

When I was little I used to have a recurring dream/nightmare that somehow involved me being in an overwhelmingly large (infinite?) and featureless expanse. Among other things it reinforced how insignificantly small, compared to the universe, I was. Every now and then I still have that weird dream.

In the morning I got a chance to look at some more pictures and correlate that with some of the laser dropouts. There is a high incidence of dropouts when we fly over black (in this case non-reflective) stuff, but we also get occasional drops over white, those being consistent with previous years so that’s OK.

In today’s flight another laser problem arose: it is too damn cold where the laser is, and the laser’s working specs are -10C to +50C so we’re trying to operate well outside of that range. During today’s flight the laser refused to work altogether. I measured -20C where the laser was. We need to solve that problem.

My photo evaluation suggests that we increase shutter speed to at least 1600, which puts us at the edge of the lens aperture. I also took some pix on the ground to see whether there was any advantage using “raw” format vs. jpg format and there was no discernible res improvement, so we’ll stick to jpg since raw has its host of handling issues.

The day’s flight was a 100 mile transect starting over the sea-ice and then crossing the TAM onto the East Antarctic ice-sheet. We started off by climbing to 9700 feet MSL and by then all the equipment was ready, including the mag torpedo, which was steadily flying 100 feet below and behind the plane. As we flew over the sea ice, we could see some huge ice-locked tabular icebergs, the kind we had seen lots of during the peninsula trip in ‘03. Then we approached the coast and quickly began crossing the TAM. There, ice plasticity suddenly became so obvious! Ice everywhere, flowing like some thick syrup through the valleys and spilling out onto the flats. What a beautiful visual lesson! The expression “ice-tongue“ (which is NOT what happens when you go and try to lick one of SJB’s skis) needed no explanation. There were as many ice-tongues as I cared to look at. It seems like every day this experience gets better. When I think of the hundreds of people working here, how many of them get to go out of Mac Town, of those, how many get to go as far as the TAM or even past them, and of those, how many get to see that unfolding from above with plenty of window-seats and actually have a good scientific reason to be taking hundreds of pictures. Hmmm… lucky is a gross understatement!

The TAM, with ice flowing through their valleys are magnificently rugged. Perhaps a little known climber’s paradise. As we flew over them we unexpectedly had to climb to 11,7K because of clouds. But then, when we finished crossing them, what appeared in front completely and absolutely defied imagination. As of yesterday I thought I had seen what a seemingly infinite white oblivion was about, but that was redefined today, for the second time this trip so far (a trend that now worries me). The ice plateau east of the TAM is something that I had not dared to imagine before. The ground had risen to 8-9K and was mathematically flat. I was finally in the overwhelming presence of the East Antarctica Ice Sheet. This is the ice-sheet that buries most of the continent and contains 90% of the planet’s fresh water. It extended, changeless, featureless, limitless, very frozen, drier and windier than any other place on earth, as far one could see and in all directions. The entire universe outside the plane was twofold: a white sheet below, and a blue sheet above. NOTHING ELSE. And we were flying between these 2 sheets in the trusty Twin Otter, which might as well have been a space capsule. The worst part is that it was impossible to determine how close you were to either of the sheets. In fact, if it weren’t for the radar altimeter, one would have, from a visual standpoint, not the faintest idea whether the ice was 100 feet below, or 10,000 feet below. I just stared, transfixed, temporarily unaware of details like hypoxia, or the fact that it was -15C where I was sitting in the back of the plane, or that my leather boots had iced up, or that my electric socks refused to work. The oddest thing is that I had seen this place many times before; in my dreams. I just never thought it actually existed.

Jack is right: it would be nice to have a Twin Otter as one’s personal aeroplane.

25-NOV-2004

Today at breakfast I had the strangest thought: despite arguments to the contrary, being in this place suggests that the male brain CAN go more than 20 seconds without thinking about sex. Not that that is necessarily a good thing. Merely a random observation. Equally random would be to point out that we considered over flying the jamesway and taking pix of people making snow angels to test the camera’s resolution. We later settled for overlying Mac Town and seeing if we could spot “Ivan the Terrabus“ in the pix.

Yesterday’s discovery of how cold the rear of the plane is in this configuration has prompted a flurry of activity to rectify the situation. I spent some time fashioning ECW gear for the laser. Basically a cocoon of insulating foam with a small strip-heater inside hooked up to a rheostat, all nicely put together with duct tape, that perennial favorite. I also found out how to enable a supplemental air blower that is connected to the hot air ducts and goes to the rear of the plane. While the temp in my station (aft bulkhead) was -15C (and -20C in the “laser-pit”), near the front bulkhead where Jack was, the temp was 20C so this was initially not perceived as a problem. However, the fact that the laser won’t work because it’s feeling cold was immediately perceived as a serious problem. I could clearly feel the temp gradient on my face by just crawling fore and aft in the fuselage.

I also will improve the sealing of the holes in the Lexan bottom plate since there is a strong draft coming in through there.

Our camp in Thwaites is making progress, and the preliminary date for our arrival there is set to Dec 3, ca 2 weeks behind schedule.

26-NOV-2004

“There’s nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds…” -The Meat Puppets, Plateau

The comparison between the pix shot at 1/1000 vs. the pix shot at 1/1600 was excellent. So good in fact, that Jack asked me if we could crank it up to 1/2000 (the camera is capable of a staggering 1/8000). That’s not going to happen with the current lens. Fortunately we have a slightly faster yet comparably wide lens, so for today’s flight we decided to use the faster lens (F=3.5, instead of the slower 4.5) and shoot at 2000. I haven’t seen the pix yet, but I have high hopes.

After the morning meetings I installed the ECW-equipped laser back in the plane, modified the camera configuration, and discussed with Matt how much we were going to turn up the heat on the laser. We settled at 15% power on a 144-Watt heating strip. It turns out that the arrangement was perfect! The laser worked throughout the entire flight, as opposed to the previous flight, in which it didn’t work at all.

I monitored the temp and obtained: immediately outside the laser (which by a tremendously unfortunate coincidence is the same as immediately outside my boots) it was -14.4C while inside the new laser cocoon it remained between +6C and +12C at all times. The laser was happy, and so was I. My feet… well that is another story. But at least I had enough common sense to wear the bunny boots for this flight. (Bunny boots is Antarctica parlance for extraordinarily cumbersome, big, heavy, yet well insulated footwear.)

Flying up Taylor Valley at 500 meters AGL was absolutely mind-boggling. There were glaciers spilling onto the valley as tongues and ice falls, some with a shallow slope, and some coming down sheer cliffs. Further southeast we started flying over Taylor Glacier, a beautiful stream of ice, running (in slow motion) down the valley. I wanted so very much to just get off the plane and go hike and explore down there. We were flying below the two ridge-tops that form the valley, which made the flying experience even more incredible. I’ve never had the desire to be a power pilot until today. But that is just because gliders are not a legitimate platform for doing airborne geophysics. There is one place I have been before where the view was comparable: Lemaire Channel in the peninsula. It should be pointed out that NASA considers these dry valleys to be the closest thing to Mars on this planet.

Further up the hill -we were climbing up the valley towards the TAM- (i.e. southeast), as we were finishing the first transect, we arrived at the plateau. That place that I have seen now twice in real life and countless times in dreams. It is a surreal feeling to be there flying between the blue and the white sheets. There is not even any sense of motion, horizontal or otherwise. It is just like floating there, at some observationally impossible to determine altitude over the white sheet, unless some details can be seen below, like sastrugi, but then it is very difficult to imagine how large they are. Our flight plan called for 500m AGL over the whole transect, so that was the altitude. I think that landing there would be scary: to hop out of the plane onto something so unbelievably vast and featureless would probably just be a complete sensory overload for me.

When we landed after 3.5 hours, Irina was so happy to be back. I smiled out of courtesy but inside I was very sad.

Somewhat coincidentally I met a guy in the library who told me he has stayed on the plateau for 28 days straight. He said it was a bizarre experience. Everything everywhere looked the same, except for this infinitesimally small area where their tents were, and the sun just made circles overhead.

27-NOV-2004

Today we got the day off. An unusual feeling now. So I get to rest and worry about what the hell is going on with the water heater back home.

Thanksgiving. What a stupid thing. I give thanks every day. We were treated to a special dinner in the cafeteria. [Ed. note: it is interesting that in the featured photo one can see more wine bottles than people...]

28-NOV-2004

Things I miss the most: my beloved girlfriend, flying 400 miles w/o an engine in one sitting, a curvy stretch of asphalt on a powerful motorcycle, a good stereo, whole milk, my bed.

Things I don’t miss yet (nor do I foresee ever missing): the damned Texas heat, TV, traffic jams, Wal-Mart, population densities greater than 1 human / 10000 sq.km.

We got to sleep in today. And that I did. In the afternoon we went to the jamesway where I need to work on a new power cords for the laser (that includes its electric blanket) and for the camera. These had been done in a temporary (experimental) fashion with a regular power strip, but now that we are satisfied that they work, we will implement the solution with round, mil-spec connectors. Only 3 of us were at the jamesway, which was a nice change. I was working on cables, Matt was playing Led Zeppelin on his electric guitar, and Anatoly was messing with the radar. The perfect work environment!

Later more people arrived and we had a meeting. After that there was the Sunday science lecture featuring today none other than Sir Edmund Hillary. It was an extremely packed room (fire regulations flew out the window). He spoke primarily of the traverse he did in the 50s from Scott Base to South Pole on 3 Massey Fergusson farm tractors. Since that includes a few kilometers over the East Antarctic ice plateau I was eager to hear his comments on the subject. He referred to it as an enormously vast expanse of nothing except the occasional crevasse or sastrugi.

He also spoke a bit about his first ascent to Everest. What a great thing to be able to see that guy, a true adventurer! Compared to him, I feel like I have the lifestyle of a house-plant.

Today I don’t feel like writing.

29-NOV-2004

Meetings throughout most of the day. In the afternoon I made final versions (I hope) of the power cables for the laser’s electric blanket and for the camera’s A/C adapter.

A quick inspection revealed that the pix taken at 1/2000 did not come out very well. This was a surprise for both Jack and I. We expected them to be crisper even than those taken at 1/1600, but they are comparable to those taken at 1/1000. This is a shame, since the flight over Taylor Valley / Glacier should have brought back fantastic pix. We cannot explain why the quality went down. The camera’s settings were identical except for the speed, but it was a different lens. I will look at the avionics data stream that we recorded during the flight (primarily from the inertial navigation system) to see if the plane was moving more than in the previous flight, although my gut feeling is that it wasn’t: both flights seemed very smooth. If that is inconclusive, we will go back to the other (slower) lens and the 1/1600 shutter setting.

After building the cables for the laser and the camera I spent a good deal of time inside the plane taking pictures of the instrument and rack configuration since Jack commissioned me to document this. No-one was there and it was the perfect moment to take pix and not be interrupted.

The SAFAIR Herc was on the “tarmac” while I was working inside SJB. This is a South African Herc painted white, which looks rather out of place in the White Continent. I had seen it several times before. Curiously, while analising our flight photos I saw that this plane has a huge red “x” painted on top which cannot be seen from the ground. I feel as if taking aerial surveillance photos. Cool!

30-NOV-2004

In the morning I finished taking pictures and preparing some flight documents that Jack needed. After that I spent some time trying to figure out why the pictures taken with the faster (18mm) lens came out worse than those taken with the slower (17mm) one. Inconclusive so far, but I didn’t have much time. I still need to look at the avionics data stream for the bad flight.

It was too windy to fly this afternoon. At dinner I sat with Don and others, and Don told this great story about some anonymous person (wink-wink) strapping a defective JATO bottle to a banana sled, obviously with no guidance system at all, lighting it up, and actually surviving. Hmm..., the possibilities for entertainment while at camp are indeed good.

01-DEC-2004

I have not tried to describe more in detail the Taylor Valley flight because I still haven’t figured out a way to even come close to express in words what unfolded below SJB as we climbed towards the plateau. Perhaps some day I’ll find the right words, but I doubt it.

We went to the runway jamesway early today for a morning flight. I wrote operator procedures for the camera, and returned it to the 1/1600 shutter speed configuration that had given us such good results. I wasn’t in today’s flight crew. When the flight returned, looking at the pix was a rather unpleasant surprise. They were quite blurred. I spoke with Jack and we concluded that the most likely culprit is engine vibration creeping through the airframe, to which the camera is firmly bolted. We will try 2 different things: 1) use soft mounts for the camera (which I have to fashion) and 2) increase shutter speed to 1/4000, this at the expense of upping the ASA. Hopefully the CCD in this camera is of very good quality, or else upping the ASA is only going to yield grainier pix and our plan will be foiled.

In the afternoon I completed and catalogued the equipment pix I had been taking. It seems that this had never done before for this plane/equipment configuration, so the bosses are happy.

I dug some foam out of the trash and “softened” the camera mount. We’ll see if that works. At dinner I ate with Don and he said that he was quite impressed with the pix I took over Taylor Glacier and wanted me to make them publicly available. I am so fortunate to have him sit with me and explain in great detail what shows up on my pictures! It’s like having a conversation about gliders with Gerhard Weibel (which I’ve had). He just sat there for as long as I was looking at the pix, and commented what the ice was doing and why, and which periods the strata on the side of the mountain corresponded to, and why they were darker than the others, and why the flowing ice looked blue at places and white at other places, and how it sublimated at the end of the ice-tongue. Incidentally, he also mentioned, somewhat jokingly, that I should take some pictures of Blankenship Glacier since he doesn’t have a good one.

So it turn out that this guy has a glacier named after him!!!! And it happens to be in this exquisitely beautiful place where almost nobody ever goes! I am seriously jealous now.

Speaking of that, Duncan Young, another member of our team, is the guy responsible for either the latest map or the latest revisions to the current map of Venus. So, should you get lost during your next trip to Venus, he’s the one that needs to hear about it. There is a “sea” in said planet that he named after his sister. Charming guy he is.

02-DEC-2004

We had a morning meeting and had planned for an early afternoon flight, but the bad weather didn’t let us fly. I had plenty of time to finish up the soft camera mount and to pull out one of the top trays of the racks to bolt onto it a borrowed Trimble GPS and a pitot heating switch. We have been having trouble with the TurboRogue GPS and will likely replace it with the borrowed Trimble 5700 as one of the primary GPS acquisition units. Also, we had not hooked up the deicing system on the additional pitot/static system that we mounted on top of SJB’s fuselage. It has an extended probe that places it in air unmolested by the passage of the plane. Matt and Anatoly have been spending some serious time reconfiguring one of the radars. It is now ready for testing, and we’ll take it for a flight tomorrow.

This afternoon we had condition 2 on the sea ice for a while (which explains while no planes were flying). I was very tempted to fly my kite, but that would have gotten me in great trouble, so I had to dismiss the idea. I love it when snow is blowing everywhere and you can barely walk because of the wind: it makes it so obvious that this is not Texas! In those conditions, if you go outside and you forget to zip up your pockets, in short order you end up with a pocketful of snow. This is one place where one does NOT have to suffer from heat. And that is extremely nice. The weather is fantastic! There could be an argument regarding the consequential lack of thermals, but no one needs thermals with wave like there is over the TAM. During yesterday’s flight, in order to keep SJB flying level, they had to alternate between applying climb power and cutting power plus speeding up.

It is clear by now that we will not depart on our camping trip to Thwaites tomorrow. The inclement weather for which that area is notorious has totally killed the camp “put-up” schedule, which in a roundabout way has been beneficial since it has given us more time to work out the bugs in the instruments.

In the next evening or two I hope to be able to hike the Castle Rock loop.

The JPL radar that we are using is a prototype of the radar that NASA sent (or will send, I’m not sure) to Europa (this be a Jovian satellite, not the old continent whose geology better be well understood by now). So it is kind of a historical instrument in that sense.

03-DEC-2004

Note to self: some things are meant to be.

In the morning I arrived early at our runway jamesway to prepare the camera for the flight with great hopes of success. Then I was commissioned with the task of climbing Ob Hill to take some photos of SJB flying over town with the mag-bird in tow. I climbed up there with Kristin, one of the girls from the newspaper. We had to wait 2 hours on the summit because the flight crew decided to fly an additional transect. However bad that might sound, it was as glorious as an afternoon could possibly get, so we happily endured the hardship. We discovered that someone had set up a solar-powered camera atop Ob Hill to study movements on (or of?) (or off?) the sea-ice through lapse-time photography, so needless to say we repeatedly put our faces in front of it with tongues stuck out. I can only wonder if they have captured anyone naked yet… my guess would be yes.

She is a journalist from Alaska who had always dreamt about coming to Antarctica, and was willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary (hmmm… sounds familiar). Her preferred position was that of working as a journalist for the Sun. Alas, that was filled, so she applied for various other positions and got one… as a janitor. She arrived at McMurdo to start her new work. Two weeks later, one of the 3 journalists in charge of the Sun resigned. She was summoned to take over the position. This is her 5^th season with the newspaper.

Eventually SBJ called us on my radio and did fly by with the mag-bird looking like a missile hot on her trail. Alas she was too far for me to get a good shot. Kristin may have fared better with $7,500 dollars worth of Nikon offerings (a D1 with decent lenses).

We climbed back down and I went to the runway.

I now have the task of drawing a floor plan of SJB’s configuration. It was late in the afternoon when I came back to town. The evening was so pleasant that I walked half of the way. I saw some seals basking on the sea ice near their air hole. In that magic midnight light. Everything saturated in that magic…

04-DEC-2004

Note to self: Where there is wave, there is rotor.

Yesterday’s pictures did not come out well at all. I am extremely annoyed at this situation. This is a top-shelf Canon digital camera (20D) with an expensive, gyro-stabilised lens that should take fabulous pictures by default, yet when you look at the image in great magnification, it is fuzzy. Jack and I are puzzled: cranking up the shutter speed did absolutely nothing. I think we are hitting some other limitation or strange condition. It is time to do some ground tests.

I got to work at 8:20 this morning (note, a Saturday) and landed (literally) at 10:15 PM, which put me back home at 11:30 PM. Yeah, just like my “old” days in the software industry while in crunch mode 5 or 10 years ago, an epoch I dread very much. But that’s unimportant because today’s flight was at least as extravagant, if not more, than the one over Taylor Valley. What could possibly fit that description? Flying over beautiful icebergs, for one thing. Better yet, flying over icebergs late at “night”.

The water looked nearly black, with only a hint of deep blue punctuated by occasional icy white specks. Then we started approaching it. It looked like a thick flat layer rising 30m above the water surface. Its vertical wall had jagged uncertain edges. Every part of it reflecting the brightest white one can imagine. Maybe it was the striking contrast with the water that made the white so intense. It is called B15, a chip of the Ross Ice Shelf that broke off and is between 20 & 40 km wide. Wow, that’s pretty big, one could think. It also happens to be about 295 km long. Far bigger than your average ice cube. We flew over this thing for over an hour before seeing the other end. Even though we could see both of its edges along the short axis. Its top is pretty much featureless, but the edges are spectacular. There, serracs the size of office buildings threaten to fall into the water at the slightest provocation. On our return trip we over-flew areas littered with much smaller bergs, much like we’d seen in the peninsula in ‘03. Mixed with chunks of sea-ice with its usual fantastic patterns this formed a cacophony of ice and water too magnificent to understand. I just sat there, basically numbed by it all.

SJB doesn’t carry flotation devices of any kind. She is not required to since we’re not flying more than 50 miles away from the shore, and even if she did carry them, it wouldn’t make a difference: the water is too cold.

On the way back we decided to run a short survey line over the Erebus-Terror saddle. We were downwind of the mountains and in front, text-book perfect lenticulars contrasted the sky, not unlike the bergs on the water had done an hour earlier. I am not really sure why there was such surprise when the turbulence began. I fully expected it, and, given the lennies, I expected it to be bad. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1=living-room couch, 10=the aeroplane breaks apart), I’d give it an 8.5. The shaking became violent and it was impossible to operate the computers (there was absolutely no way to keep your hand on the mouse or keyboard), or to write on the notebook. We continued ahead, and suddenly, it got so bad that the pilot took control away from the co-pilot, did a sharp 180-degree turn and fled.

Welcome to the rotor, was all I could think. A little longer and it would have become very smooth on the upside of the wave, for certain. Oh, well. [Post flight analysis indicates that we had just hit 800ft/min updraft when we turned. My guess is that the primary wave may have been 15-20 knots up, but I’d rather not think about it. Such a waste of lift makes me sick.]

The pilots, who, up to that moment had been in an animated, almost constant conversation, became completely silent, only to speak again for the necessary landing procedures 20 minutes later. I carried on what I was doing, going over the radar and other equipment shutdown procedures. In the mayhem, my pen flew somewhere and I couldn’t find it again. We flew about 4 1/2 hours.

What a fantastic day.

05-DEC-2004

More fuzzy pictures from the aft camera. I am ready to toss it out the window and abandon it to the tender mercies of the ice-shelf!

We had a number of meetings and then prepared for a flight over the Ross Ice Shelf. We surveyed an area of it that is not anchored. One can clearly see the BOTTOM of the ice shelf in the coherent radar screen. It is so cool! It is about 200m thick. We also flew a few lines over a crack at the edge of the ice shelf. This is the same area where C16 came from. The crack has continued extending and may give birth to a big berg in the future. This crack is about 30 m wide and maybe 7 m deep and has all kinds of ice at its bottom: a mix of frozen seawater and shelf chunks. An incredible sight in the middle of an otherwise completely flat white sheet (thankfully less infinite than the plateau).

I was in charge of both radars in this flight, and also had to make some decisions regarding it. Happily everything went well. The crew was Anatoly, Irina, and I. We were able to work together very efficiently and well. We landed a bit past 1 AM local, in that special sunlight that I have seen nowhere else. Then we had some coffee in the galley and went to sleep, happy and very tired after the 5-hour flight (and the 14-hour work Sunday.)

06-DEC-2004

After our meeting, which thankfully has moved to 1 PM, I unmounted the camera from the plane, paced 500m with it over the sea-ice, and put it on my tripod to make some ground tests. (500m is our target survey-flight height.) I found conclusive evidence that the very expensive lens has a problem when fully opened (aperture = 4.0) and focused at infinity. By focusing at less than infinity, say 50m, stuff that is for practical purposes at infinity, sharpens for no apparent reason. Considering that we’re using a focal length of only 17mm, this makes no sense (it would with a 600mm lens…). It appears that the thing was focusing PAST infinity. Maybe it was focusing in another universe. A happier universe with less people and no global warming. One in which Led Zeppelin would have won the presidency, in which my next planned adventure involved Everest, and in which the damn water heater wouldn’t croak as soon as I leave.

But I digress.

I reinstalled the camera in the plane, with the focus ring set slightly below infinity and great hopes and set off for Byrd glacier.

Byrd glacier is a place unlike anything I have ever seen or imagined. By now, of course, I sound like a broken record, but there’s so much stuff I haven’t seen, that it’s easy to say that.

It is an enormous river of ice that flows from the plateau (yes, the evil one that extends forever at 8000 feet above sea level) down to the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS). We flew a transect underway, and then started a new one flying up the glacier at a constant altitude. Again I was operating the acquisition system for both radars. Near the RIS, the glacier is like a peaceful river, with gentle snowy waves. As we climbed upstream, the river became less peaceful and one could see a few “rapids”, places where the ice was broken into mid-size crevasses. The waviness became constant and abrupt, with sastrugi. On foot, it would have been impossible to cross it. Near the top, the crevasses were enormous. They could have swallowed SJB so easily! At the top of the glacier we were at 200 feet of altitude (on purpose) over the most jagged and threatening mess of ice one can imagine. Two engines; a good idea in this case.

The return trip was down the glacier at a constant altitude over it, which involved a gradual descent. Without warning, Jack asked me to calculate the required rate of descent and request that the pilots fly it. I am possibly the only person in our team that can do that naturally, quickly, and accurately. A trivial task for a glider pilot. A transect in which the altitude over the terrain is constant, but which implies changing the absolute flying altitude is called a drape line.

Upon return I could not wait until tomorrow to see the pix, so I asked that they be downloaded immediately (we landed at 1:30 AM) and I did a side by side comparison of this and previous pix (we always fly over the same target in town, at the same altitude). The pictures turned out great! If there were penguins down there, we would have been able to see the pimples on their asses. Much happiness and coffee ensued.

Another day at work. In the driest, highest, windiest, and coldest place on earth. It could hardly be better.

07-DEC-2004

Boring. Meetings all day. Got a chance to finally hook up the pitot heater for the supplemental pitot system on SJB.

The road that links McMurdo and the sea-ice runway is going to hell, fast. In the past 3 days it went from snowy to a slush pool. They decided to move all the Hercs out (to Williams field, on the ice-shelf) and we’re going to have to move, or go to Thwaites.

08-DEC-2004

All planes moved to Willie field today. We had to empty our jamesway and move everything off the sea ice, so we’re temporarily back at Crary lab. However, we managed to program a flight for this evening. Irina was in charge of photos with the now super-sharp Canon, mounted pointing down through the laser viewport Lexan window taking one picture every 6 seconds automatically, and hand-shooting items of interest with the little Nikon through whichever window they waltz by. She increasingly threatens to defenestrate that camera, and I don’t blame her. The thing works half the time…

Our flight was along the Wilson-Piedmont glacier and into the adjacent valleys. It was basically more of the magnificent stuff we’ve seen in the past few days, but with a nice difference at the end: since we had a long commute back to McMurdo from Wilson-Piedmont and all the radars and acquisition systems had been shut down, we decided to fly not above but between the icebergs on the return trip. Yeah. Oh, yeah!! That is exactly the way we would always travel if I were sitting up front. We were 25 feet off the sea-ice and the bergs rose to 50 - 70 feet. There were bergs whizzing by on both sides of the plane, just the way it should be. If I had to recommend a way to see bergs, this one would be it, closely followed by the far more peaceful kayak approach. (They address totally different needs.)

A most excellent way to finish the day.

I think if everyone in McMurdo knew what we see and experience every day, there would be a serious revolt, we could be lynched, and the revolutionaries would confiscate SBJ at once. What a select and unbelievably privileged group we’re in. Then again, since we arrived here in October, we have had a total 2 1/2 days off. [I’m not complaining].

09-DEC-2004

Today we had meetings and finished moving out of the jamesway. The road to the sea-ice runway is mostly underwater and our tracked bubba-truck almost got stuck.

We also had to pack all of our personal stuff and check it in (except for hand carry) for the flight to Thwaites tomorrow. All of us except Jack will go on a Herc. Jack will go in SJB and will survey all the way there. It will take them 8 hours (with a refueling stop at Siple Dome). Hopefully it will take us only 4 hours in the Herc.

10-DEC-2004

Today was a day of controlled panic as I continued to get all my personal stuff ready before Thwaites. Specifically, I needed to set up a couple of hiking trips in NZ that I had not gotten a chance to do, so I got the contacts, the dates, and the places and delegated to S. As usual, I know that she will do a great job.

We had a meeting after lunch and then at 3 I went to my room to pack my last few possessions.

The Herc ride could have been very uncomfortable; it much depended on your luck. Mine was excellent and I went in the equivalent of First Class. Due to the schedule of the past few days, I slept most of the way. Oddly I dreamt that I was flying in a Herc under bridges in some unsuspecting town.

At 8 PM we arrived in Thwaites. Except in my recurring dreams/nightmares, I’ve never been (at ground level) on the plateau, but it can not possibly be any different than this. I stood there. And looked all around, a couple of times, just to make sure that my eyes were not fooling me. There are a few tents here, a runway, 2 fuel bladders, a couple of jamesways, and an outhouse. That’s it. The rest of the universe is as flat as it gets, and whiter than anything should be. On this particular evening, the wind was calm and there was a layer of clouds that had the same texture and identical colour as the ground, making the scene that much more surreal. A few minutes later the Herc left. Then there was silence. Not just any kind of silence; this was real silence. Much fewer humans have ever been here than at the summit of Everest. And that only makes it that much better. The view is fantastic. The sense of distance is totally lost in such featureless flatness. Anatoly, Irina and I took the task of setting up tents. For my tent I picked the spot furthest away from anything. What I see from my tent is difficult to describe. It is white, goes on forever, and occasionally is impossible to say whether it is ground or sky, unless the former has some blue in it. Sometimes it looks like a white forever beach and it is oh so easy to imagine the ocean. No bucket. No mop. No illustrated book about birds. We stayed busy setting up tents until 4 AM. Then I went to bed. It was warm. I was never cold today. Thwaites gives us a magnificent welcome, despite the fact that we are humans and have a tendency to obliterate and rape everything we touch.

There was a strange moment today, and it was when the Herc in which we arrived took off to go back to McMurdo. I guess it could have been my sanity trying to make itself noticed; It is hard to describe, but when I saw that plane take off, it finally dawned on me that we were being left behind for real just about in the middle of nowhere. Wait, let me think about this!!

11-DEC-2004

Note to self: Thwaites is far from civilization. Thwaites is good.

One of the most wonderful things about this place is that you never have to worry about the heat. When I woke up at 11 AM, the temp inside the tent was 80F. This was remedied at once by zipping the window open. Outside the tent it was somewhere in the 20s. I sleep with a small black mask that covers my eyes from the very bright sunshine outside the tent at night. (I could cut two holes it and start pretending I’m Zorro. Ok, maybe not.) When I take that mask off, the effect is dizzying. Usually inside the tent is bright enough to require wearing sunglasses.

I stepped out of my tent, and again, in disbelief, turned around a couple of times. There I was indeed, beside the little yellow mountain tent which will be my home for the next month and a half, surrounded only by the deafening silence and the endless expanse of blinding white. I thought to myself “screw the heat”. What a happy moment! I just stood out there for a moment, basking in the greatness that surrounds me.

Many of the people that you meet in this continent have one thing in common: they would much rather be cold than hot. AMEN!

Throughout the day I did some refinements on my tent setup, such as digging a boot pit and revising the taut line hitches that Dave showed me how to do yesterday: a simple and very elegant knot.

The logistic support setup that we have here at camp is quite impressive, considering that we are 1000 miles from McMurdo.

There are 4 jamesways: the largest one (about 16m long x 5 m wide) is for us and is filled with computers, equipment, tables and shelves. A slightly smaller one serves as kitchen/galley/mess room, and has a primitive shower in a corner. To operate this shower one must start by gathering snow. (More on that after I actually take a shower, maybe sometime next week.) Two baby jamesways (actually Weather-Havens, to be precise) serve as housing for the camp maintenance person and the Borek pilots. Everyone else is in tents, most of us in single-occupant mountain tents, and a couple of dual-occupant Scott tents.

Andrea is our cook, and we love her.

There is a generator to keep the computers and other equipment (like radios and kitchen paraphernalia) running. We also have a forklift and a tractor-like thing to keep the runway groomed. This is, after all, a Herc-worthy runway at an elevation of 5600 feet, so it has 2 miles of usable length.

Yesterday while setting up the tents I pretty much took over the camp’s snowmobile, which has a big sled attached to its hitch. We had to carry a lot of stuff, including 300 pounds of Scott tents (that means 3 of them). That was fun!

I chose a spot for my tent that puts me over 1 km away from all that.

In my free time I am going to dig a pit in the snow near my tent that I will use as a “porch”. It will have a couch and table, so that I can sit and drink coffee and read. Obviously it will look out into the endless expanse of nothingness (instead of back towards the camp)

Tonight the evening started off a bit colder, but with my trusty alpine girlfriend (a Nalgene bottle filled with hot water) all was well.

12-DEC-2004

Note to self: the place of my infamous dreams was Thwaites.

Last night the wind finally picked up. Since our arrival it had been completely calm, which lead to the silence I spoke of (and dared violate with the snowmobile). I had a bit of difficulty sleeping because of the constant flapping of the tent in the wind. I could resort to earplugs, but then I cannot hear my alarm, so it is a though choice.

I was flight crew for 8 PM, so I had some time to take a nap in the afternoon and then flew my kite for a while. The wind was 5-10 knots, so it was pretty peaceful flying. I can quite confidently say that I am the first person to ever fly a kite here. At some point the kite flew past the sun, so I was temporarily blinded. But I thought I saw something white fly by the kite. For a moment I thought I had gone crazy (entirely possible). Then I thought that Mike had thrown a snowball at me (also entirely possible). Then I recognized 3 snow petrels flying overhead. Three snow petrels! What in paradise are they doing here? There’s nothing here. NOTHING! We are hundreds of kilometers inland, in a place where nothing should be able to live, except perhaps humans for short periods and with tremendous logistical support.

The petrels were headed South. Polar explorers, no doubt.

The cold and dry weather has taken a toll on my skin, especially on my hands, which despite copious and frequent lotion applications, insist in cracking. Thankfully I have learnt a remedy: CA glue (or Krazy Glue as it is commonly known), which after all was originally conceived to close wounds in the battle field. Kristin, our medic closed the crack on my thumb. By the time the glue falls off, the crack will have healed (supposedly). We’ll see. [Ed. note: it works beautifully]

In the evening we flew. Finally, I am doing what I was originally hired to do. And it all went well. The flight crew was minimal: Anatoly and I, so the workload was high. We flew for 4 1/2 hours, and did 4 long transects. Most of the flight was over flat white with no features, but there were some places where crevasses appeared, and one could see slight elevation changes. I saw some rock outcrops near one of the crevasses. This in an area where the ice is supposed to be 2 to 4 kilometers deep, so seeing a rock outcrop is strange. Later the radar data will be analised and will show us what was underneath.

I keep thinking that those of us in the plane may very well be the first humans to ever see most of this terrain, which I consider an honor and don’t fully understand why I am supposed to be worthy of it. We landed and I went to bed at 3 AM while it snowed lightly.

13-DEC-2004

Thankfully I was able to sleep until 11. We rearranged the cargo line to prepare for bad weather. Everything is now tied down onto pallets. Then I helped prepare the flight plan and proceeded to educate the Trim Flight, which should rather be called the Voodoo Flight due to its arcane DOS interface. We landed with a fuel/cargo Herc right behind us. Part of the Herc’s cargo was a small and thoughtful package that my dear sister had sent from Florida. Kudos for the US Postal Service, it reaches far! Said package contained almojabanas, bocadillos and arequipe, all 3 which I am sure are not usually consumed in these regions. I laughed for a very long time after I opened the package.

I saw an extremely bizarre phenomenon this evening - a sun dog. It was snowing very lightly and the sun was some 30 degrees above the horizon. There was very distinct a halo around it, which looked like a circle on a plane perpendicular to the ground. On the halo, left and right of the sun, there were two bright spots. The amazing thing was that those two spots were the intersection of the first halo with a second halo, much larger and on a plane parallel to the ground. This extravagant display seems so fitting for the surreal place we’re in. It was impossible to photograph it, because the big halo was parallel to the horizon and was, as said, 30 degrees up, so I would have needed a 35mm camera with a 17mm lens pointing straight up.

14-DEC-2004

Getting out of the tent each morning is like opening a present. You have no idea what you’re going to see when you unzip the external door. Sometimes it is totally blue sky and endless visibility, some other times you find yourself inside the ping pong ball with snow flying everywhere. Some other times you can’t open the door and you have to dig yourself out. Regardless, it is always magnificent and very humbling.

Often, even with totally clear weather, blue skies, and not a lot of wind, there are tiny ice crystals flying in the air. It looks bizarre: you look up and see as if there was a very intense meteorite shower against the deep blue sky.

We had a meeting and after lunch I swapped some music with 2 of the Borek pilots and with Andrea, who is a Meat Puppets fan.

I will be flying in the 1 AM and 7 AM windows, which have take-off times of 2 AM and 8 AM respectively. In light of that I went to bed very early (4 PM.)

Today is the first time since my arrival 2 months ago that I have wished to be off the ice. That would be in Bogota, to celebrate mom’s birthday.

Happy birthday, mom!!

15-DEC-2004

Note to self: never trust hyenas.

I have now been on the Ice for 2 months. After a good while of introspection I have decided to update the list of things that I really truly miss: my beloved S, and gliding. The rest, I have concluded, is irrelevant.

I also realized that after having lived in Texas for 20 years, I have not adapted to its horribly uncomfortable heat, while in 2 months here, I have only felt uncomfortable (due to weather) maybe once or twice.

I had a funny dream last night. A petrel had landed in our camp, and somehow Jack was in his sleeping bag outside, and the bird was pecking at his beard and he started laughing like crazy. When I told him about it, he told me a hilarious story of an instance in which he was camping in Namibia and he suddenly awoke to a hyena that was stealing his pants which he had placed near the sleeping bag. In principle that’s not a very serious problem. However, his passport and the keys to the jeep were in the pants. Bad hyena, BAD!

I woke up a bit before 1 AM. We flew as planned. By noon I had spent 9 hours in the air, and due to the “jet-lag” of yesterday’s imposed new schedule, I was, shall we say, in bad spirits. I ate and went to bed immediately.

16-DEC-2004

Note to self: time has no meaning here.

I woke up at midnight feeling invigorated and ready for a new “day” and after breakfast, helped plan the flight. Promptly at 2 AM we took off in wonderful sunshine. We flew a pair of transects that brought us near the coast, and went by a couple of volcanoes, including Mt. Takahe. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn’t see the coast. Some 1000 Km later we came back. The Canon cam continues to produce the infamous “Err 99” so later I will see if I can upgrade its firmware. Apparently in the previous flight the mag-bird winch died in flight and they had to pull the bird in by hand before landing. Luckily it is just 100 feet, but the stiff, sometimes iced-up, thick, Kevlar-reinforced cable is difficult to manage. In our flight we saw that the spare winch had been installed. It worked fine. Irina was in the flight since we needed someone to take photos. There were indeed some intriguing crevasses and rock outcrops. It is extremely difficult to take photos in this light, from a moving aeroplane, behind sometimes frosted Plexiglas. Not to mention that, invariably, a part of SJB’s porcupine-like anatomy seems to be in the way. After the flight I had lunch (7 AM) and decided to walk off into the white oblivion and dig myself a small lounge with a couple of seats and a table (all carved in the snow) where I can go listen to good tunes and drink coffee and Bailey’s. I suppose the marmot in me came out, because after I was done there, I dug a cellar in my tent’s vestibule where I put most of my luggage. Now there is a lot of room inside the tent and I can easily get dressed in the morning with fewer pretzel-like positions.

The later shift landed, and it was just bad news: the Canon no longer works. All pix look black, “Err99” (and subsequent lockup) happens all the time, and the spare mag winch tripped SJB’s breakers and quit working altogether.

I updated the Canon’s firmware to no avail. Well, that will fix the spurious lockup and “Err99”, but the pix are still black.

17-DEC-2004

When I get up it is usually -5C inside the tent. By the time I get out of the bag and dress up, the temp has risen to +5C, a net gain of 10C. It would be a trivial high-school physics calorimetry problem to calculate the net drop that this represents in my body’s core temperature, but I forget the formulae. (Ha! This word processor’s dictionary doesn’t even recognize the word “calorimetry”. How pathetic is that! Another reflection of how deficient the educational system can be.)

Bad weather has set in. The silence is no more. The blue is no more; everything is a flat white. We were unable to fly today. I spent most of the day reading, except for a couple of hours in which I was trying to revive the expensive Canon. The shutter is simply not opening, so the CCD remains in the dark, as do we when looking at the pix. I’ve been trying to take pictures with my own cheapo Canon [note that the spell-checker recognizes and accepts “cheapo”, and also changes, without asking, my spelling of “recognizes”, from two “s”- the way I learnt it in school - to “z-s”; its starting to PISS ME OFF, dammit] and it gets utterly confused in this light. I can’t blame it since my own eyes also get very confused: I can easily walk into (or off of) a 1 m tall snowdrift without seeing it, not even with contrast-enhancing glasses. The fact that there is snow flying everywhere doesn’t help a bit.

Jack called the Canon dealer in Christchurch (yes, we have a couple of Iridium phones) and found out that the international warranty doesn’t cover the camera’s body. What does it cover then?!?! The neck strap and the lens cap or what? At this point we’re half tempted to stick a paper-clip in there and see if we can dislodge the shutter. Or maybe we’ll just let Irina carry out her nefarious camera defenestration plans during the next flight.

I finally took a shower. This process starts with a shovel and a big (clean) trash can in which the “showeree” [evidently not a word] is to shovel snow. Next the snow goes into the snow melter. The resulting product is funneled into a bag resembling a giant Camelback bladder and hoisted above the little shower-stall in the galley-jamesway, from where it is slowly poured onto the showeree. This particular showeree didn’t fill the bag completely and ran out of water while still generously soaped. That’ll teach me not to take showers in these latitudes, a totally unnatural act to begin with.

18-DEC-2004

The dwindling supply of baby-wipes is now frozen solid, as is the toothpaste, the trail-mix, one of the (full) pee bottles, and various other items left inside the tent. The temperature has dropped due to the lack of sunshine. It was -10F with a constant 25-knot wind. A brisk combination. The “bad” weather hasn’t changed except for the wind direction, which shifted 180 degrees. I spent a few hours after breakfast inside SJB measuring and plotting the precise location of each instrument rack. After that, Mike and I decided to take full advantage of the fantastic kiting conditions. We took a banana-sled to the taxiway and used the kite as a very effective means of propulsion. What a wonderful opportunity to study the subtleties of inelastic collisions! Despite not being a “traction” kite, it pulls very well in this blow. At 4 AM (local) and in those visibility conditions we were certain not to interfere with any traffic at our airport. During one run I had to bail from the sled and crashed while being pulled totally out of control towards some large unmovable objects (off the taxiway). I ended up with snow in places that should normally be kept snow-free. The rest of the day was spent with SJB’s schematics.

I love this place!

19-DEC-2004

The wind was so strong when I woke up that I had to use my tent’s emergency exit. Even if there would have been no wind, the main door had been blocked by a large amount of snow. I now understand why there are two (directionally opposed) doors on these tents. Main door goes on the lee side. The problem is that we’ve had 48-hours of wind coming from the “wrong” side.

No flying, so I helped with washing dishes, shoveling snow for the snow melter and various other household tasks. I also did some job-hunting for my beloved S.

We pulled out the kite and the banana sled again and took over the taxiway. We are now at the point where we can run the length of the whole taxiway without crashing or causing damage to government property.

The remaining time I was completing SJB diagrams with instruments totally unsuited for technical drawing (Sharpies, for crying out loud!)

20-DEC-2004

Note to self: don’t believe everything you see.

When I opened my tent door this morning I was shocked. The visibility appeared to be no more than 10 meters!! Oh, well, we’re doomed, I thought. Then tossed my backpack out and actually emerged from the tent, stood up and saw that one could see for at least 20 miles. Welcome to the inside of the ping-pong ball again, except that today’s ball is big.

At breakfast (1 AM for me) we decided that the coffee maker may be possessed. I suggested we take it out, put it on the snow, dance around it, and perform an immediate exorcism (led by me, of course). This was not taken well. Someone else suggested that we order a small thermos of holy water from McMurdo on the next Herc, and an animated philosophical discussion ensued when I asked whether you could have holy water manufactured from molten snow. Do you “holify” the snow first and then melt it, or do you melt it first and then holify the resulting water? In other words, does the change of physical state have any effect on the state of holiness? (State? What is that!?! - asks the priest) To Hell with it, let’s just holify the snow melter and we’re set for life - I proposed.

Could you, for instance, make holy ice cubes starting with holy water? If so, what would happen to your drink?

Then there is the question of the legitimacy of passing a batch of holy water through the coffee maker, what would come out (if anything), and what would happen to subsequent batches of coffee.

Enough said, I’m drinking tea from now on.

21, 22, 23-DEC-2004

See 27-DEC-2004.

24, 25-DEC-2004:

I woke up early to help with flight planning. The weather was marginal at best so we prepared a couple of flights and decided to wait a break in the skies. We finally departed less than 2 hours behind schedule in what should have been a 4 1/2 hour run to Pine Island Camp and then another 4 hour run back. However, things didn’t go quite as planned. We had an uneventful flight to Pine Island, but by the time we got there to refuel, the weather back at Thwaites had deteriorated and made or return impossible. I called Jack on the Iridium phone and we decided that I would plan a surveying flight to the coast so as to take advantage of the fact that we were “stranded” at Pine Island.

We took off, and at first it was flat, but then we started approaching the coalescence of Thwaites and Pine Island glacier and the interface of this with the coast. It was fantastic. Crevasses, waves, icebergs, cracks deep enough that you could see water at the bottom. When we returned to Pine Island, one of the BAS scientists casually commented that the place we just visited is seen by humans probably less often than the dark side of the moon. What a marvelous Christmas gift, I thought. At this point we had been on duty long enough that a return to Thwaites was not possible, so we stayed at Pine Island Camp. The pilots got an Endurance tent while Anatoly and I each get our own Scott tents. This camp is quite different from Thwaites: there is no TV, no Internet, no jamesways or Preway heaters, no generators, it is so quaint!

The next day we woke up and had to wait... we called Thwaites and the weather report was bad so we had to stay put. We ended up planning another run to the coast, but as we were about to leave, Jack phoned with cautious optimism about a break in the weather. So we ended up designing a flight that would take us in the direction of Thwaites, but would still allow us to return if the conditions were unsafe there. Fortunately when we approached Thwaites the weather was still good and we were able to land under reasonably nice conditions and with lots of good data. Just in time for the Christmas party.

Sometimes, when I think of all this beauty that goes unseen, less so that the dark side of the Moon, I think it is such a great shame. Then, on more selfish moments, I have the audacity to think that most people don’t deserve to see it since they wouldn’t appreciate it nor respect it anyway.

26-DEC-2004:

Our crew didn’t fly today to do some telephone miscommunication fiasco. Here’s an update from Jack:

December 22, 2004

McMurdo is a distant memory now that we have been in the deep field for 11 days. We set up our entire base operations in one day and in the next 5 days we accomplished 12 survey flights with very few problems, making us feel quite optimistic about making up for lost time. Then the weather hit, and we had no flights for 3.5 days. After just three more flights in the past 2 days, we are again being pounded by weather and the plane is parked. On the positive side, data quality has been excellent, and our radar is seeing through the deep, warm ice in this area. The deepest trough on the continent is within our survey area, filled with over 4 km ice. The bottom of the trough is more than 2.5 km below sea level. On the other end of the spectrum we have flown past Mt. Takahe, a 3500m-high volcano rising high above the ice. We paid a visit to the British two days ago when we stopped in at Pine Island camp for fuel. We exchanged tours of our geophysical aircraft which are similarly instrumented.

Dave Morse departed day before yesterday on the same Herc that brought us Tom Richter. Tom will take over operations so I can leave in a week or two.

We don't have ping-pong here but one of our crew has come up with a new sport that instead of requiring good weather (as cross-country skiing does), relies on bad weather. He has a nice kite that when deployed in windy conditions like today, will pull one or two people on a banana sled quite fast down the skiway! The only drawback is the long walk upwind after the ride. And the minimal directional control....

We were treated to an amazing display of sun dogs last night due to an abundance of ice crystals in the atmosphere. Rainbow-colored rings, convex arcs, and a bright white band circling the sky were all seen and photographed.

Merry Christmas from the gang on the icy continent!!

Best,
Jack

27-DEC-2004:

I woke up at midnight, my usual time, to the sound of Jack throwing snowballs at my tent. We discussed the upcoming flight and decided on some lines to Pine Island with a refuel stop followed by a return along the coast.

Sometimes when all the instruments are recording and don’t need attention, and the landscape becomes monotonous, I read a book. Suitably enough it is “South” by Ernest Shackleton. I think it is so much more effective to read it here, where I can look up from the page and see what they were seeing 100 years ago.

Today I lost a bunch of files containing a good portion of my personal journal (what you are reading). I had moved them (notice, moved, not copied) from a machine that was going to get its OS reinstalled to the safety of the RAID machine. Two things happened immediately after the move and while I was in the air: 1) it was decided that the first machine did not have to be re-imaged, and 2) the RAID failed (!) - basically an impossible thing. For the RAID to fail, 2 of its disks had to have failed undetected, and when a third unit failed, it was too late since redundancy had already been lost and some files were unrecoverable. Amongst them, mine. I am very unhappy at this moment

28-DEC-2004:

Today I tried to recover my files again, but no luck. I have now reverted to paper OS (i.e. my notebook). I am also fairly disenchanted with my family, who only seem to e-mail me when they have absolutely no alternative, not realizing that I am the one who needs to receive an occasional email since I am the one on Mars, not them. I decided to send them no more emails. Why bother?

We had only one flight of this morning. It was mostly flat white but we went past Mt. Sidley, almost over it. It was windy and we found some pretty good turbulence near the mountain. We flew over the saddle at 130m AGL and the shaking was good enough that the autopilot gave up.

It is amazing to see how the very flat surface of ice is occasionally disrupted by a rock popping out. You just wonder what’s below! We float on top of this sea that is too dense for us to dive into, but it would be so cool if we could, and see the mountains, chasms, volcanoes, and other formations under the surface!

In a twist of irony, my camera continues not to focus well at infinity. A good number of my photos are fuzzy at “infinity” even when using manual focus. Very aggravating. I investigated and found out that it is a common problem of this model. It would have been nice to know that before the trip... thank you Canon.

29-DEC-2004

We had overcast weather today, even at Pine Island that usually basks in the sunshine. Before the flights I spent some trying to find a rental car in New Zealand. Today’s first flight was a disconcerting and boring flat white. Once the instruments were set, I mostly read. We stopped for exactly twenty minutes at Pine Island. I cleaned the starboard window suspecting good things to come on the next leg. Usually there is no access to this side of the plane from my workstation. We reached the coast along a parallel transect as two days ago. The dark side of the moon, again! It is a magnificent yet disastrous looking mess of ice where the glacier and ice sheet meet the ocean. There were icebergs, water, sea ice, and leading to this, huge crevasses. I took several photos, but the combination of difficult light and my camera’s soft focus issue combine to produce worthless results. When we arrived back at Thwaites I was very tired. We had a Herc re-supply flight today (they mostly come to refill out jet fuel bladders) that unfortunately brought me no package from Sharon. Also, the RAID’s (and thus my files’) demise was confirmed. And to top it all off I had to dig for half an hour just to be able to get into my tent and sleep! Ugh!

30-DEC-2004

A few days ago one of the Hercs did an aerial equipment drop at the base of Mount Takahe (named after one of New Zealand’s flightless birds). They dropped mainly fuel drums that we would keep stashed there as an emergency depot in case we have to land in that area. The drums are set up on a crushable cardboard honeycomb bottom that absorbs a good bit of the landing shock. I guess their parachutes are not very big.

We had an early flight today. Two lines that included scoping out the Takahe fuel drop. The Takahe area is quite extraordinary, with rocks and ice far above the plateau level. We continued towards the coast. As we approached the coast there was a spectacular area of crevasses. Sometimes all of them are covered in snow (this is what is commonly referred to as a snow bridge), and you can only see small undulations that mark the spot where a huge crevasse is. It must be horrible trying to cross such areas on land since they look flat and there is no indication of the imminent danger.

Back at camp, the second GPU (ground power unit - an essential aeroplane accessory) had died. This caused great consternation since we cannot get an additional one. Anatoly and Bob diligently attended to it and managed to get it working. Hopefully it will keep running since otherwise further surveying is jeopardized.

Last night Erick came by our side of the camp looking for another team member that, for her benefit I will keep anonymous, and woke up Anatoly, Irina and me in the process. This is now the second occurrence and I secretly proposed to my neighbours that we build a fence to keep him out. The “day” shift also managed to fly a couple of lines today. We’re making good progress. The map of completed lines is fuller each day, which is a great sense of accomplishment.

I also had time to read and wash dishes. It was hot in the tent last night and I couldn’t fall asleep. I called home. Mediocre communication, but at least I was able to talk a bit with mom and dad. I could use the Iridium but it would be extremely expensive.

31-DEC-2004

Our 2 AM flight was canceled due to weather, despite the fact that Thwaites was radiant. So we tried the GPR (ground penetrating radar) experiment again. On the previous try there had been problems with the transmitter and receiver batteries. This time we were plagued by some issues with the fiber optic cable. Bad luck. Then we did one flight to Mt. Sidley and back. That mountain did a “St. Helen” some time ago and it must have been with quite the bang: 1/3 of the mountain is missing. We could see blue ice around the base of the mountain which is usually evidence of very strong winds. It was quite turbulent. Irina was very concerned about the G-meter. She is like a mom with that 1/2 million dollar instrument.

After landing, Andrea recruited me to make flan. I talked to Sharon on the phone. It is so wonderful to hear her voice! I received a belated card from Magda et al. This made me feel so good! Now it’s 5:00 PM, way past my bed time. The sky is gray and we’re in the big ping-pong ball. Elsewhere I would expect rain. Not here though. It is also colder than usual. To solve that problem, and also considering that it is New Year’s, I decided to go to bed with not one, but two alpine girlfriends. Oh yeah!

01-JAN-2005

I slept eleven hours last night. Apparently there was a party in the galley. Just like the ball is lowered in New York to celebrate new year, there was a lowering in the kitchen. But it wasn’t of a ball. The lowered item was a garden-gnome painted all in silver with a sticker in the back that read “Lick me till I scream”. When I entered the kitchen, it looked more like the gnome had been hung due to the rope around its neck. Someone later explained that a proper ceremony had taken place. I somewhat wished that I had arrived earlier, if not for the gnome thing, for the fact that a rather drunk Anatoly, John, and Captain Rob had just finished discussing Eskimos and infinity. That would have been interesting to hear...

The flan that I made last night was all but gone. In fact the first to complement me was Andrea, our cook, whom half the time I call Angela because she is like an angel that cooks for us.

The weather was decent, but there was no flying today. I read, listened to music, and went for a long walk. The view of the vast ice expanse where we are is both overwhelming and intimidating. If it weren’t for the camp and runway markers, the concept of distance would be completely lost.

I also spent time with Erick today while he was analyzing some radar data. Amazing mountains and valleys below many thousands of feet of ice. He also pointed out that up until that moment, no one except for him and I had ever seen these particular mountains and valleys. Very cool! Since I had little to do, I made a sign proclaiming “Welcome to Thwaites intergalactic Aerodrome, 78.30’S, 118.30’W, 1722 m” and placed it near SJB’s parking spot, which is also near where the Hercs park when they come. [Ed. note: that same sign now hangs in my living room; I snuck it into one of the cargo boxes on the way back].

02-JAN-2005

I woke up very early today. Our crew managed to do 3 flights: a hectic run to Pine Island, then a coastal run with return to Pine Island, and then back to Thwaites. On days like these there is no choice but to bring lunch to eat in the plane. Despite the very short stopovers at Pine Island, I was able to take a picture of the infamous Penguin of Death (which I later reproduced in our outhouse) and had enough time to score some Oreos and coffee. But coffee has its problems: it is a diuretic, and one of the less glamorous aspects of SJB is its lack of toilet. To alleviate this there are some profusely labeled 1-liter Nalgenes that have been relegated to serve as pee-bottles. Nalgenes are so versatile... from alpine girlfriends to pee-bottles, even drinking water bottles. Just don’t get them confused. After dinner we watched some James Bond movies in the big-screen TV. Oh, the hardship!

03-JAN-2005

Our crew did only one flight today, but it was hard to endure. You see, we have an intercom in the plane, and the pilots can put music in the background. The catch is that we have to be wearing our headset all the time for communication between us and with the cockpit. Well, today they played at least two straight hours of an abomination they referred to as Johnny Cash. In the back of the plane we had no choice but listen. To no avail I politely offer some Stones or Zeppelin (which I had in my backpack). All I could do was turn the volume of my headset to minimum, and spend the next 500 sunny kilometers in agony.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me how we can fly for hours at a time and not see a single feature but a white sheet below and a blue one above.

After the flight, I went for a long walk until I could barely see the camp far in the distance. Except for that spot, there was nothing all around me but ice and blue sky. It is somewhat scary. I took a short video in which I rotated 360 degrees.

I tried to talk with Sharon, but the connection was bad. In a bit over four weeks I will see her in New Zealand, and that is wonderful. My boots continue in an accelerated decay. I smeared them with Shoe-Goo to see if this would keep my feet dry.

Today was so warm that everyone was walking around in a T-Shirt.

04-JAN-2005

This morning we had a 2 AM flight to Pine Island followed by a run down the coast. Magnificent view! On the run from the coast back to Thwaites we had planned a line that would take us directly above Takahe’s crater. This proved quite interesting since I saw -and luckily photographed- a very unusual looking structure on what is otherwise a giant bowl filled with ice. Analysis of the pictures revealed an ellipsoidal thing, about the size of a VW van, in what looks like a cradle, or nest. A cosmic egg, I concluded, no doubt laid there by the cosmic chicken... well, or cosmic penguin, in this case. There were also 3 other disturbances in the otherwise totally flat ice-filled crater. Looked like more eggs that had been snowed over.

After arrival, I did the second thing I hate the most: shaving (the first is taking a shower). I only shave once a week, or so, and take a shower maybe every 2 weeks. In these temperatures, splashing water on ANY part of my body is something I try to avoid. Later today we expect a Herc, but I’ll be asleep.

05-JAN-2005

The Herc was canceled due to bad weather in McMurdo yesterday, so this morning we found ourselves with beautiful skies and a willing aeroplane and crew, but no fuel. (It was a much needed tanker-Herc that we were expecting).

After breakfast, I watched two movies, and as soon as the satellite window allowed, I sent Jack an email with both pictures of the egg asking for his opinion and for permission to land there and go explore these things. My e-mail generated quite a commotion: Takahe is not believed to be an active volcano and the experts seemed to agree that the data are evidence of a fumarole. Jack was again quite happy with my pictures. Don and Dave agreed with the fumarole hypothesis and demanded further radar data. No word yet on whether will be allowed to go look at this up close.

06-JAN-2005

No Herc today either. Therefore, insufficient fuel. Since the fuel bladder at Pine Island has plenty to offer, the day crew flew there and plans to spend a few days surveying from there until we get our tanker flight. In a book about volcanoes in Antarctica, I found two important things:

1. Takahe is believed to be active, but no fumaroles or any other thermal activity has ever been seen.

2. I found a picture of a fumarole that looks somewhat similar to the cosmic egg I shot. Also, Jack emailed from Austin that he is pretty convinced at this point that it is a fumarole. This is very cool! Other than that I read, saw movies, helped a bit in the kitchen, and continued hunting for a good deal in New Zealand rental cars.

07-JAN-2005

Not much happened today, especially with SJB at Pine Island. So I’ll use today’s space to describe an average work day.

12 midnight: Working as flight crew on the “night shift” means I wake up at about midnight. I put on my work clothes, which usually involves some form of ECW gear, clean my face with baby-wipes, pack the essentials in my backpack (CD player, notebook, snacks, water-bottle, camera), and exit the tent. That last thing may sound easy, but if it has been windy “overnight” I have to dig myself out of the tent, to be more accurate. In the galley, I go looking for breakfast. This usually takes the form of last night’s dinner, since there is no breakfast available at this time. Captain Rob is typically there and we discuss weather over the survey area, flights from the previous crew, and other aspects of the upcoming flights. After eating I move to the other jamesway (the science jamesway) for more formal flight planning and debriefing from the previous shift’s flights. Up to 6 flights are set up as we wait for weather updates. When the latest satellite images and forecast arrive, we narrow the shift to 2 flights with maybe 2 alternates. On every 2-day period I am available for 3 flights: a 2-flight day and a 1-flight day. The other crew does the converse, so in ideal conditions we have 3 daily flights. Each of these is about 4 1/2 hours, sometimes 5 in the air.

1:30 AM: ECW bags, hard disk units (which are carried in pairs inside heavily padded aluminum Zero cases), backpacks and flight binders are carried to the plane. Usually we know where we’re going at this time, so I power up some of the computers in the plane and program our flight in the TrimFlight GPS. This can be as simple as entering 2 waypoints, or as bad as entering 60, like when we do a satellite line. Each coordinate is then cross checked with the co-pilot to make sure we agree. Meanwhile the plane is being fueled and pre-flight checklists completed.

2:00 AM: If there have been no delays, we roll. (Ok, we slide, to be precise.)

ca. 6:45 AM: We touch down either at Thwaites or Pine Island. All instruments are powered down (except the G-meter, which has to run continuously) and the redundant disk units are placed in the Zero cases and taken off the plane for immediate download and data-integrity testing (which is done by the ground crew). We eat lunch, usually in the form of normal-people’s breakfast, or dig some more of last-night’s leftovers out of the “fridge”, which is simply a small vestibule in the galley.

7:15 AM: Quick weather forecast and satellite data review to see if the second flight needs to be updated.

7:30 AM: see 1:30 AM

8:00 AM: see 2:00 AM

ca. 12:45 PM: see 6:45 AM except that our dinner now coincides with normal people’s lunch, so no digging is involved.

1:15 - 4 PM: all manner of things can happen in this period, from fixing & maintaining equipment, to evaluating data, to stealing a banana sled for wholesome fun, to writing this.

4 PM: Usually I have gone to sleep by now.

08-JAN-2005

SJB is now back, but we haven’t received our tanker flight. This is very disappointing because we could be surveying, yet we have no choice but to stay put. We repeated the GPR experiment with Anatoly and Irina. We want to determine at what speed do electromagnetic impulses travel for the first 150 - 200 m of ice. This is possible because the “ice” has a lot of air near the surface.

09-JAN-2005

Same as yesterday, except GPR experiment was performed with larger antennae. Oooh, baby!

Interesting fact: today, despite the fact that there may have been a weather window for the Herc, McMurdo didn’t send one. Because it was Sunday! Funny how that works...

10-JAN-2005

Today the wind picked up quite a bit. When it hit 16 knots I took the kite out and did the whole runway straight downwind. Then, after lunch it got windier (>22 knots) so I had to try again. This time I was able to go in a zigzag pattern 60 degrees off the wind direction which was great fun and cut down the long walk.

All this wind has created enormous snow drifts around the jamesways that impede our moving around. Some disgruntled soul carved steps in one of them, a nice touch. At least we can move between the food and the computers easily...

11-JAN-2005

Same as yesterday. I had to do a lot of digging just to get out of my tent in the morning. For a change, I had to mess with the TrimFlight which has run out of disk space.

12-JAN-2005

McMurdo said a Herc took off at noon. It is now 2:00 PM and I’m going to bed. We’ll see...

13-JAN-2005

Two Hercs finally arrived. One while I was sleeping and the other at 1 AM as I was having breakfast. It brought package from Sharon and lots of fuel. It also used its JATO bottles on take off so I finally got to see that. It was pretty spectacular. The plane starts the take-off roll with the rockets off, and just when it is about to rotate (for the non pilot reader, this refers to rotating around the lateral axis, so as to start going up) the JATO kicks in with a thunder and much spewing of flames, leaving behind an enormous contrail, as tall as a building. Since it was not windy, the contrail stayed for almost an hour. I am so glad I got a chance to see that!

I didn’t fly today. I stayed in camp and spent a couple of hours flight planning. The weather improved dramatically. We expect a third Herc later today.

14-JAN-2005

Today I was moved from the “night” shift to the “day” shift, which implied a very long day. I started at midnight, did 2 survey flights, and finished at 7 PM. A rough day. In one of our flights, and at my request, we did a loop around Takahe’s crater at the end of the survey line to check out the egg. It’s still there. Hasn’t hatched yet, thankfully. I took lots of extra photos.

15-JAN-2005

No flight for our crew today due to weather. The other crew managed to get one flight done. In the afternoon, Anatoly and Irina tried to drill an ice-core to complement the GPR experiment but failed because they broke the drill bit. I wasn’t there, but the process of extracting the bit with the bulldozer was reportedly almost a Darwin Award entry.

We watched the movie Blow tonight. Great flick, killer soundtrack.

16-JAN-2005

Typical Thwaites whether returned and grounded us. There has been public outcry for me to make flan again. Making flan with eggs that come in a bottle, milk that is not whole, and fake vanilla extract is pretty sacrilegious. Nonetheless the results were edible and in an hour two the entire thing was gone with pretty good reviews. These folks just don’t know what they’re missing.

We managed to get a flight in during the 2:00 PM window. I am now flying with Duncan as part of the day crew, and again with Captain Dave and Jeff. It was rumored that we may stay here at Thwaites a few extra days till the 28^th. As long as I get back to New Zealand on time to fly at Omarama it doesn’t really matter. It would be nice if the weather lets us do our job though.

17-JAN-2005

Here goes the broken record again: No flying due to bad weather over the survey area, but the weather at Thwaites was nice all day. We started packing some stuff, and I flew my kite. It has been cooler than usual lately. Evidence of autumn, I suppose. Stuff like eye drops, baby-wipes, pee bottles, etc freezes and is rendered useless.

18-JAN-2005

Our weather forecast was bad so the night crew was sent to Pine Island where it’s sunny. Those of us at camp continued packing non-essentials, a seemingly endless task. Pull out from camp should now happen in less than ten days. I had to help in the kitchen today. It is amazing the amount of dishes, pans, silverware, etc that a camp of twenty people use!

19-JAN-2005

We did one flight today. The acquisition computers and the DAI had some hiccups, and they did so with less than one minute remaining before the start of transect so the timing was unusually stressful. Erick flew with Duncan and I, but there was nothing special to see. After we arrived, we saw a movie, and in the early evening, what is supposed to be the last Herc before camp pull-out, arrived. It was cloudy, no wind and -15 degrees C when I went to my tent. It was rather cold in it, so I basically crawled into the sleeping bag as quickly as possible. Everything inside the tent is pretty much frozen. The movie was nice, but it only made me want my girlfriend even more, and she is mad at me right now. Since I am now flying with Duncan, I spent some time training him on some of the aft-operator duties. I have been lucky to learn (and have to perform) the equipment procedures from all of the 3 workstations in the plane.

20-JAN-2005

The infamous Canon SLR arrived, repaired, in yesterday’s Herc. Teresa and Duncan are off on a double flight to Pine Island, so I will install it back in the plane after they return.

[Later that day...]

I was able to gather all the Canon bits and installed them back on SJB. Bob was doing maintenance on the engines and I spent some time under the wing watching him work. Turbines are nice things! I went for a long walk on the runway. The FDX boots nearly killed my feet. These things are horrible! The light was very flat today, but the temperature was perfect for a walk with no wind. It is so magnificently quiet one mile from camp, so unbelievably isolated. I spent some time testing the plane’s camera, then reinstalled its power source and cables and mounted it in the laser pit.

21-JAN-2005

Due to weather we couldn’t fly today. The completion map looks very good. We’re almost done. I did some photo evaluation for last night’s double flight. They didn’t get good Takahe pictures for some reason.

When I went for a walk on the runway I continued to be amazed by flat light. Sometimes the sensation is that of the glasses being fogged, and that keeps fooling me. I keep taking them off to try to clean them, just to find out that they don’t need to be cleaned.

Here’s the way Sir Shackleton himself put it a hundred years ago in his epic account South:

“They had an uncomfortable journey outward in the dim, diffused light, which cast no shadows and so gave no warning of irregularities in the white surface. It is a strange sensation to be running along on apparently smooth snow and to fall suddenly into an unseen hollow, or bump against a ridge.”

Today we also spent a little time burning an effigy of the honorable George W. Bush in the outside barbecue, but not before I had snapped its head like a twig. This effigy graces the hand washing’s station water thermos, I guess so that people can spit at it in the most convenient and hygienic way possible. After the conflagration everyone danced around the BBQ.

22-JAN-2005

Today we did a double flight to Pine Island via the coast. Over flying the coastal end of these huge glaciers is amazing. A chaotic scene of huge crevasses, pressure ridges, ice floes, icebergs, beautiful turquoise pools, and occasional seals. This was supposedly the last flight to Pine Island. On the way back we flew by Takahe to try to spot the fuel cache, but could not see the abandoned 56 drums of fuel and skidoo. My guess is that the Cosmic Penguin took off on it. We flew about nine hours so I was a little bit tired upon return.

23-JAN-2005

No early flight for us. It was a beautiful day in the morning, but not in the area we still need to survey, so we couldn’t fly. I caught up on e-mail and did some photo evaluation of yesterday’s flights. Some short video clips I took with my camera came out surprisingly well. They give a good idea of the ice mayhem that unfolds below. I helped with some cargo boxes in the afternoon. In the afternoon it started snowing. This was the heaviest snow we’ve seen so far. I went for my usual runway walk. Every time I go walking the view is different. Today the sun was 25 degrees over the horizon immediately above the runways center line and it was totally cloudy. Below the sun, a shaft of light extended straight down to the ground. I was walking towards it and it looked like an alien abduction type thing. Some other times the view is nil. Some others sunny and clear. Two days ago it looked like a golden sunset (since the sun is now lower).

24-JAN-2005

Today Theresa took the spot in the plane and I stayed at camp helping pack boxes. Mountains of boxes.

25-JAN-2005

First day of our official extension. Unfortunately the bad weather continues so the packing continued unmolested by science.

26-JAN-2005

Again no surveying today due to weather. I spent most of the morning packing boxes, some of them very heavy. By now we had packed everything that is not absolutely necessary to operate for one and a half days, which is when we’re supposed to leave. Only a very minimal set of tools and equipment were left out. After lunch, I decided to start digging my tent out. It is buried by 2 to 3ft of snow which has molten and frozen over numerous times, turning into a rather compact mess. I spent approximately two hours vigorously chipping the stuff away and only finished 50% of the job. I stopped because I was totally exhausted. It was very windy and snow was blowing everywhere, making it very difficult to see. And of course, the light was totally flat. I had forgotten the large extent of the tent’s snow flaps, a kind of skirt that extends outwards from the tent bottom on the ground. All this area had to be cleared of a huge volume of snow. When I returned to the science jamesway Tom had the unwelcome news that we were to leave camp no earlier than the 31^st (instead of on the 28^th.) This is not good because of all the packing we just did during the past two days, and because I had planned all my logistics (clothing, showers, etc.) so as to last until the 28^th, stretching everything to the absolute maximum. So it will be at least three more days with clothes that were to be just about un-wearable past the 28^th. Ugh!

I have worn every item of clothing to its maximum possible duration in such a way that during our stay at Thwaites I would not have to do laundry. Thus this second extension is, from a personal clothing stand point, a royal pain.

Also it may interfere with my timely return to Christchurch to meet Rich for our alpine soaring adventure. In addition, most of the computers have been packed away.

At 8:30 PM KBG arrived (this is SJB’s sister, sans survey equipment). After dinner we took off in it to go deal with the Takahe fuel cache. We stuffed the special snowplow (one that can be dragged behind the skidoo) and took off in questionable whether. When we got there, we couldn’t land due to high winds so we came back. The mountains had massive lenticulars on the lee side. Unfortunately we hadn’t loaded a full tank of gas before departure so as to be able to land at Takahe. This kept us from flying down to the coast to watch some animals just for fun. However, we were (or at least I was) rewarded with a very unusual phenomenon on the way back: we were flying at about 1500 ft AGL and the ground started to become a bit foggy. Then the “fog” started to show evidence of wave, then full wave, all between the surface and less than one hundred feet. Remarkable! I wonder if anyone has ever gotten pictures of atmospheric wave at these altitudes.

27-JAN-2005

No flights due to weather.

28-JAN-2005

Note to self: Summer is over.

No flying for our flight crew due to weather. More unwelcome news that filled me with consternation: The Herc will be here February 1^st instead of January 31^st. I have to get back to Christchurch in a timely fashion.

I wish I had a very wide angle lens so that I could photograph the sun dogs that graced the sky today.

We basically waited for the weather to improve. Meanwhile, Erick and I played Scrabble, but in Spanish this time. It is much easier that way especially since my Spanish vocabulary, unlike my English, is above a 10-year old level. Unfortunately, other team members, whose alleged second language is Spanish declined our invitation to play. It would have been so much fun...

After dinner I went to my tent and the temperature had dropped to -28C. It was also very foggy and I couldn’t even see my tent from the camp’s main area. Normally when it gets really cold, if there is sunshine, the temperature inside the tent will be “warm”. However, tonight it was not only foggy, but overcast. Consequently it was also -28C inside the tent. Most stuff was deeply frozen, including all toiletries and the recently received guava paste from home.

29-JAN-2005

Finally we managed to get one flight in. Unremarkable, but we gather the data we need. The night crew also flew a short line. Some of the sundogs we have seen today are like a circle around the sun, in a plane apparently perpendicular to the ground (since the sun is low), and at the very top of the circle there is a bright spot that marks the intersection of the circle and a parabola that keeps going up. This is indeed a land of magical things.

30-JAN-2005

We still have two flights left to do and news that if we manage to get them done, we can still go back to McMurdo on the 31^st. Luckily the weather looked promising. So we took off on a double flight to Byrd Camp and so far so good. I write this as we fly at 10,000ft. over a persistent cloud layer, but everything else is OK. If we pull this off we may be leaving tomorrow.

We are now flying (as usual) over the interminable ice sheet. In the absence of clouds, with just blue above and white below, if the sastrugi are small enough not to be discernible from our altitude, it is almost impossible to know whether we are moving forward or backwards over the ground. We might as well just be hovering. This is our last day surveying over the ice sheet. It makes me feel sad.

So we made it to Byrd for a fuel stop. There, in the outhouse, I came upon a most poignant quote by Arafat regarding religion and, specifically, wars that happen because of it: “... you are basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend.” Beautiful.

Yeah, speaking of Byrd station, I’ve heard quite interesting first account of stuff related to it. But I can’t write it here. Ask me personally.

31-JAN-2005

I shoveled all morning, packed cases, and worked on my tent. The wind was blowing at 30 knots, rather cold. This made disassembling the tent total hell. I couldn’t see from the flying snow everywhere! My clothes became soaked and then frozen! I shoveled until my back couldn’t take it anymore. Then I played Scrabble with Erick. The tent is now half undone, and of course, the Herc was canceled. I slept in the science jamesway with everyone else.

01-FEB-2005

Note to self: living alone, or with the right person, is the only way to live.

Sleeping in the science jamesway sucked. I thought ear plugs would fix potential problems, but I didn’t foresee people repeatedly and for no apparent reason walking on the wobbly floor by my bag, which I had strategically placed at the very far away end of the jamesway to avoid precisely that eventuality. All this taking place well before 7:00 AM... what were they thinking?! We received news that the Herc may leave McMurdo at 1630 if all is well. The wind is still 25 knots but the visibility has improved a bit as of lunchtime.

I’ve finished taking down my tent in that gale. It turned out to be totally uneventful. I could do all of it by myself, with no panic or bad things happening, just by using some common sense. Nothing flew away.

Erick and I had a major scrabble afternoon. Lots of fun! The weather improved a lot since 7:00 PM but the Herc was canceled due to runway conditions at Thwaites. Damn! It is expected here by 2:00 PM tomorrow if the weather holds and our runway surface problem is addressed.

Half way through the night I woke up to pee. When I got out of the jamesway, it was like another world outside. Gone was the blizzard that lasted two and a half days and stranded us here. The sun was out and low (only 10 degrees up), the sky was completely blue, and the deafening silence was back. Everything bathed in that magic golden light again. The most beautiful evening I have seen in months.

The blizzard left snowdrifts 8ft. high that one could literally slide down on.

02-FEB-2005

We got up early today. I had breakfast and repacked a few personal items.

It’s 9:30 AM and the Herc hasn’t been canceled yet. 12 noon the Herc was supposed to leave McMurdo at 10:30 but we have heard no news. No off-deck report, and no delayed report either, which is contradictory.

2:00 PM phone call announcing that the Herc is canceled due to weather. Our spirits are lower than a snake’s belly in a rut. All has been packed and palletized.

2:06 PM phone call announcing that the Herc will be off-deck at 16:30 headed to Thwaites. I can easily picture these folks in flight operations laughing as they yank our chains. Cruel, at this point.

9:30 PM the Herc arrives to pick us up. I doze off through most of the flight.

03-FEB-2005

1:30 AM: I arrived at a thankfully empty twin room at McMurdo. Before I can take the much anticipated and needed shower, I have to do a small load of laundry since someone used my towel at Thwaites to wipe the floor. I catch up on emails and call Sharon while the laundry happens.

3:30 AM: I step into the shower.

4:05 AM: I exit the shower.

5:00 AM: I finally go to sleep but cannot sleep much because the bed is too comfortable. I just lay there in different positions, stretching and feeling the plushness of the mattress.

7:00 AM: Anatoly wakes me up for breakfast.

8:00 AM: I go to get a truck and pick up my luggage and some cargo from MCC and take it to the science cargo area. The rest of the day is spent in a packing frenzy and doing more laundry. Anatoly and I went to our new jamesway at Willie field to finish crating all the aeroplane instruments. What a Byzantine contraption that radar is...

11:30 PM: were done! It’s a bit sad. What an ultra-cool job this was! Jack, thanks a million for letting me be part of this team! I sure hope we accomplished what we set out to, and I was of some help to that end.

Later, I’d take another shower before going to sleep.

04-FEB-2005

Note to self: the back of a C-141 is very loud.

Additional note to the gentle reader: for me the sun hasn’t set since October 18^th of last year.

It was another weird night on such luxurious bedding and in a room above freezing.

For inter and intra-continental flight in Antarctica one goes through a lengthy ritual referred to in the local vernacular as “bag-drag”. One must show up in full ECW gear and make a line in a well heated room to check the bags in. Being out in a blizzard in full ECW gear can easily be too warm. Being indoors in full ECW makes me want to kill whoever is near, just because. After that stint we went, on Ivan the TerraBus, to Willie field to catch our plane back to New Zealand. It turns out that this flight was the last Antarctica flight for a C-141 so the press was there taking pictures and talking to the pilots. After a comedy of delays we finally found ourselves packed like sardines in the windowless plane that would get us off the Ice. I was too tired to be sad.

We landed in Christchurch at around 10 PM. I will never forget the feeling when I hopped out of the plane and into the NIGHT! It was dark!! I hadn’t seen darkness in four months! I looked up at the sky and it was black, with little white dots.

By 1:30 in the morning I had re-claimed the camping equipment that I left at the CDC last October, found a room in the hotel near the airport, reorganized my luggage since we will be soaring and hiking in the NZ summer for the next month and I should not need any cold-weather apparel, and figured out where to pick up the rental car in the morning. I went to sleep at 2 AM knowing that I would have to get up at 5:30 AM to go pick up Rich at the airport so we could go to Omarama and start our New Zealand adventure.

Driving on the “wrong” side of the road is pretty disconcerting. Doing it after serious sleep depravation with a hyper-active friend in the passenger seat is total insanity.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Closing note to self: “Life passes most people by while they are making great plans for it.” From the movie Blow.