The Pegasus crash site

Meg tries to not get bucked off by the Pegasus.
Pegasus Field is out on the Ross Ice Shelf, about 15 miles from McMurdo. It sits directly between Ross Island and Antarctica Proper, about 1/4 of the way to the continent. This is where we land wheeled aircraft after the Sea Ice Runway gets closed down in mid-summer.


Years of neglect have watched the Pegasus slowly get buried.
Pegasus Field is named after a Navy super constellation aircraft that crashed at Williams Field on October 8, 1970. The aircraft, with 80 on board, was flying from Christchurch, New Zealand, on its first flight of the 1970-71 season. They crossed the point of no return in acceptable weather conditions. However, thirty minutes before arriving at McMurdo the weather suddenly deteriorated to zero visibility, winds gusting to 40 mph in a snowstorm, and a 90-degree crosswind. With no alternative airfield, the pilot made six low passes over the airfield. On the final pass with almost no fuel left, the Pegasus attempted to land. The starboard wing was torn off completely and the tail unit broken. There were only slight injuries to five on board.


Lucas with the Pegasus in the background.
The Navy salvaged all they could, but they did not want to leave this wreck sitting near Williams Field where it crash-landed. It’s not good for morale to see a wrecked aircraft right near the airstrip as you're flying in so they dragged it out farther on the ice shelf and left it, as was the usual practice in those days. This site eventually became Pegasus Field and the crash site became a novelty for us to visit during our summer.


Patty posing atop of the Pegasus with me about to sneak attack!
Visiting the crash site is mostly an excuse for us to get off base and explore some new terrain. Most people only visit the Pegasus airfield once a year - to leave. They usually arrive at the sea ice runway. Only a small part of base visits the area regularly to work. I think the timing of this particular trip was angled for night workers because they often don't get the same chances at field trips as everyone else.


Dearest Annie.


Our tour guide, John, shows us how to leave our mark on the Pegasus. My old roommate's is on the right side.


Danny reminds us to "Watch out for the monkey fist!"
For me, this trip (and really this entire adventure I'm on) ended up mostly being about visiting with good people. Talie and Lucas were night workers so I didn't get to see them that much. I also go with Danny, Travis, Patty, Vince, Aaron, Luigi, Annie, Meg and a bunch of others. A great group all around. I can't remember a better public field trip and this wasn't the best location we went to. I wish more of them had stuck around for the winter. They were a blast. Only Talie is still here. The rest have scattered to the winds.


Me, as cargo.

Solar Eclipse

Metal orca artwork at McMurdo below the eclipse.
The solar eclipse was February 6th, 2008. Unfortunately, the eclipse was a little bit of a let down for me. I was given the wrong time so I ended up cutting out of work for a little too long to see it. Of course, enjoying a day outside is almost always better than being at work. Also, if you didn't know there was an eclipse, you would have gone about your day and been none the wiser because the amount of sun light didn't seem to fade. A total eclipse that would have visually darkened the ambient light happened around eighty miles away on the mainland.


Unloading the American Tern.
There were a couple pretty cool things about the eclipse though too. It showed me just how much of an astronomer geek my friend William is. He explained that the total eclipse in 1991 above San Jose del Cabo, Baja California put it on the map because it was one of the 'Big Ones' that resulted in a maximum type corona (not really sure what that means). They built resorts and amenities based on the expectation that people would come for the eclipse. He was one of those original visitors who had planned their trip for years. Those visitors haven't stopped visiting.


The orca had a glint in its eye, I thought he was coming for me . . .
The other neat happening from the eclipse was that South Pole station recorded a record low temperature for that day of the year. The sun being partially obscured for under an hour caused temperatures to drop. I didn't feel a thing at McMurdo, but cold is cold to me. While trying to view the eclipse, we tried lots of tricks. We tried putting a pin hole in paper like they taught us in grade school. We tried the naked eye. We tried sunglasses. Our best solution seemd to be two to three pairs of sunglasses. Otherwise, the sun was too bright to make out anything. However, near the end someone showed up with a welding helmet. Way better than the sunglasses. Forget the grade school tricks, go make friends with a welder to watch your next eclipse.


The eclipse viewed through a welding helmet.

Baby Skua is Gone!

Where, oh where, did Baby Skua go? Sean doesn't see him . . . .
Baby skua has finally left the nest. I'm not sure exactly when or where, but I was down there earlier this week and Baby Skua was no more. I didn't see frozen skua feathers so I'm hoping Baby Skua is coming to a town near you - well, if you live near the sub-tropics. We had a short, but tumultuous relationship.


Baby Skua plays hard to get.
On our first visit, we barely spotted Baby Skua and when we did, we thought it was dead. Ever since then, Baby Skua has remained hard to spot. Skuas natural camouflage is amazing. Sometimes, Baby Skua would be hiding in the lee of some rocks. Other times, he’d be in the open, but he was always hard to spot. As Baby Skua got bigger, we also got better at finding it. Maybe, it got worse at hiding.


Visiting Baby Skua yielded some amazing pictures.


A young Baby Skua wonders about the world . . .


and then realizes that everything wants to eat him and he needs to practice running away.
In Baby Skua's adolescence, his parents made us miserable. Not only did they form up an attack squadron if we got too close. They also formed the squadron if we tried to walk around them because we didn't want to disturb them on the trail (see below). The alternate route put us closer to Baby Skua that the parents would have liked. Parental instincts aside, I’m curious when a skua’s behavior changes from shy to the attack bird that so many galley tray carriers know them as.


Momma skua watches over Baby Skua by a trail marker.


Just another pretty picture on a Baby Skua day.
After summer ended, the temperature started dropping in a hurry. I imagine that the water freezing over also took away some food sources which meant that the skuas would be heading North sooner than later. I went down a few more times and these were some of the last images taken of Baby Skua. If you have any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact the proper authorities.


Teenage skua has become self conscious about having his picture taken and hides.


Baby skua might be all grown up, but still has that awkward walk to make him easily identifiable.
Last night, I went to Scott Base for Trivia night. My team (Brian, Emily, Jill, Ellie, and Jackie) was misnamed 'Just Plain Last.' After the first round, we were 7th and struggling. After the second, we moved up to 5th. Finally after the third, we found our groove and moved up to 3rd. If we had one more round, we just might have made up ground on the first team and won the 5 half-gallons of ice cream that they ended up winning. I'm more than a little jealous. I'm going to have to start reading up on trivia to bring home the prize next time.

On the way home, Muppet gave us a ride which was fantastic. We had ten in a land rover that felt pretty crowded. He told us that they had eighteen on another night. Even more amazing that piling that many people into a clown car is that we used our headlights on the way back. It was night in town! I know this probably shouldn't amaze me so much, but it does. I haven't seen night over five months!


Baby Skua, fly well!

Return to Penguin City

Return to Penguin City
Premiers on Sunday, March 23 at 7pm (ET/PT) on Animal Planet
http://www.penguinscience.com/

Dr. David Ainley has been coming to Antarctica for eight years, I believe. Even though he comes here so much, he is a rare sight on base because he is always out in the field studying penguins. This past summer, I was lucky enough to meet him when I sold him a door prize ticket. Lots of times, the results of science are buried in hard to read articles in hard to find journals. Animal Planet, however, is taking some of Dr. Ainley's research and airing it in a publicly digestible format. Take this opportunity to enjoy it.

Line handlers, handlers of lines, YEAH

Our line handler crew (Travis, Danny, Dave?, me (Brody), Jami, Megan, Jack, Sean, Tom, Audrey).
This is the last post on ships for a while. I've caught up and there aren't anymore coming in.

Four or five ships coming to port doesn’t warrant having anyone line handle as their job so management just solicits volunteers. You go to a short training session on how to not get yourself killed, are given a pager so they can let you know when the ship is coming, and then you are set as an official line handler. Some people volunteer because they want a little more variety in their job. Others volunteer because they hate their job and want a break. Some do it because it is just something new. Others do it because it is a way to see something up close that you can't see otherwise. Whatever the reasons, sometimes we got out of work to line handle. Sometimes, we got out of bed.


Pulling in one of the heavier lines.
When a ship pulls up, it is pretty close to stopped on its own. The lines are just to keep it from drifting or to help it parallel park. (Is there a word for ship parallel parking?) They would tie a very light weight line to the heavy line. At the non-tied end of the light weight line, they'd make something called a monkey fist, which is basically a golf ball wrapped up with rope and throw them to us.

"Watch out for the monkey fist."

Don't try and catch the monkey fist."

I can't tell you the number of times I heard this. Apparently, they are harder than baseballs, coming down from a couple stories, and more than able to knock on your rump if you got hit in the wrong spot. You let it hit the ground and then go pick it up. Everyone grabs the rope and pulls until they get to the big line. Then we grab the big line and pull it in and toss it on the oversized cleat.


Pulling in another stern line.
I think this picture is actually us casting off the ship. I'm not sure. Pulling on the rope would normally imply we were tying it up, but we had cleats on shore and a wire running from shore to the ship's rope. To make sure our loose end of the wire didn't end up in the water, we had to pull the wire back to the pier before untying the ship. The last time we did this, we got smart and used a truck to pull in the wire. We couldn't use the truck on the light weight lines because they'd snap.

That's line handling.

"And now, here's something we hope you'll really like" (in your best Rocky, the cartoon squirrel, voice). If I had the pleasure of working on one of these vessels, I'd get to see a lot more of the continent (as you suggested, Nancy). One of those things that I'd get to see is glacier calving as they melt away and lose their structural stability. Make sure to watch both of these videos. Just amazing!! They are from the same trip, I think.







Latest weather: 21F, windchill 7F, sunset 9:51pm, sunrise 6:51am

Vessel - MV American Tern

The American Tern in McMurdo Sound.
Vessel. That is a term that we hear all season. For FNGs (f'n new guys), it doesn't mean that much. For OAEs (old Antarctic explorers - veterans), it means the end of a season. The vessel takes two to three months from its departure from Port Hueneme, CA to reach Littleton, NZ, clear customs, and finally reach us. When it arrives, it is carrying all of our supplies for an entire year. It is also how all of the materials for the new South Pole station were delivered to the continent before being flown to the Pole over the past few seasons.


Refrozen water near the ice pier.
This year the vessel was delayed a week or two because of storms and excessive ice flows on the way down from New Zealand. When it finally reached the ice channel, the icebreaker Oden guided it the rest of the way because the ice refreezes and thickens every night. Sometimes the normal ocean currents, tides, and winds break up the ice during the day, but they don't want to risk anything happening to the ship.


The water by the ice pier was strong enough to handle us throwing rocks at it.
There isn't enough room for the Oden to escort the American Tern all the way into the pier so the vessel has to do a little bit of ice breaking on its own. However, it isn't too much because the Oden was in a couple days before the vessel arrived to break it up. Visually, we had no idea how thick the frozen ice was. We couldn't break it with rocks, but didn't dare test it with human weight either.


The vessel breaks a flat layer of ice.
When the vessel approached the pier, it seemed like it was barely moving but it had no problem moving the ice out of the way. The best part was where the ice was perfectly flat. The vessel would lift the ice like it was a single bed sheet, (picture above - zoom in) that would drape over the breaking part of the bow, and then it would slowly fall away. I'm not sure the picture does the effect justice.

The ice wasn't all flat though. Some larger chunks simply had to be smashed out of the way and that was special in its own way too.


The vessel moves a large pice of ice.
As soon as the vessel is tied up, it is greeted by members of the Navy Cargo Handling and Port Group (NAVCHAPRG) who unload the vessel. The NAVCHAPS, as we call them, have a rough time of it. They come in at the end of the season when the community isn't as welcoming and are immediately thrown into working twelve hour days in temperatures that some of them have never experienced before. It can be shocking, but they handle it well. In fact, with a new leader this year, Michael, they unloaded the vessel faster than expected. They also do operations like this in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world where the US might need to unload cargo.

Some of you are more interested in the official ship information that pretty ice pictures, so we have something for you too. The MV American Tern is one of Military Sealift Command's seven Container Ships and is part of the twenty-eight ships in the Sealift Program. It is 521 feet long, drafts thirty-three feet, displaces 8,650 tons, can move at sixteen knots and carries a civilian crew complement of twenty-one. One of the more amazing things to me is that the ice pier is less than a football field from land and yet it can easily bring a ship in that drafts thirty-three feet. Growing up, we were regularly in harbors where that wasn’t true.


The MV American Tern approaches the pier.
The vessel offload took a week and wrapped up mid-February. Some of my friends left during offload because they weren't essential personnel. The first flights after offload were full of NAVCHAPs. As soon as they were gone, every one else started leaving in droves. From February 15th to the 22nd we moved almost a thousand people off the base and dropped our population from around 1,150 to 206. It was startling. Still is sometimes.

Yesterday was a brilliant day. I decided to run in the gym since I’ve been sick. It felt great. After work, I went to yoga and then headed out to open volleyball. Most of you haven’t had the privilege to play volleyball with me, but as good as I ever was at ultimate or soccer, I’m that bad at volleyball. When I showed up, I told them to put me on whichever team they wanted to make worse. That team promptly lost 15-2, I think and we had one extra person! It might not have been all me. Anyway, everyone was very welcoming and willing to coach me along. By the end of night, I managed to finally get a serve to stay in bounds and even got lucky enough to block a spike!

Because I played so late, I couldn't sleep until all the adrenaline left my system. That kept me up late enough to see my first dose of night in Antarctica! To say it was completely dark would be a lie, but it was dark enough. I'm calling it my first official night.

USNS Lawrence H. Gianella, skate skiing, and Kiwis are cooler

Just look at the nice clean fuel burning tanker coming to port in this pristine environment.
Talking about the Palmer got me in the mood to blog about our other ship visitors. On Monday, January 28th, we had our third ship of the season come in. This one was a fuel tanker, the USNS Lawrence H. Gianella. The tanker is a United States Military Sealift Command tanker which has been used as the tanker for McMurdo fuel supply a number of times. We unload the fuel over a few days. Over those few days we aren't allowed in the area because of the fuel lines that are strung across the hiking paths. It is hard for me to fathom that everything we need to stay warm for a year is on that one ship.


A rare chance when all three ships were in the sound.
Once the icebreaker comes in, it hangs around for most of the season to escort vessels into port. When the Gianella came in, it was the busiest the sound was all season. The Palmer just happened to be in the area for a research cruise which made for a grand total of three ships. It is hard to explain why, but people seemed excited that there was so much traffic going on in the sound. I guess maybe it just provided a little variety.


The Lawrence H. Gianella comes to port.

The Gianella came to port at a gorgeous time of day - just around midnight. It was cold, but there wasn't much wind. The lighting was simply amazing. The only bad part about a tie up at that time was that it was off work hours and I still had to make it to work on time the next day. Line handling is best in the middle of the day when it gets you out of work.


Parallel parking that made some cool effect in the still water.
The Oden had side thrusters (?) to make getting the ship tied up pretty easy. Unfortunately, the Gianella had to do it the old fashion way which was pretty much parallel parking. It took forever and I was not a fan because even though it was beautiful, it was also cold and I was tired. After they did get close enough, we still had to time them up and that ended up taking forever because the lines they kept throwing us kept snapping. They throw one small line tied to a large line. We pull the small line in and then put the big one on the giant cleat. The giant cleat has a different name, but I can't remember it. Anyway, when we pulled the small line, it would break.


Buried tie up wires.
One of the neat things about this ship, was it was the first one that was going to use the cleats on short instead of on the ice pier. It had to use them because it was a longer ship. We grabbed their lines and then attached to an eye in a wire cable that extended to the shore. It was then the ships job to pull that wire tight. Unfortunately, the wire cable had frozen under quite a bit of ice from last year so they had to pull on it pretty hard to get it to break out of the ice. In the corner of picture above, you can see two of the buried lines.


The stern of the Gianella, Mt. Discovery, and the Oden on a beautiful night.

Last night was fantastic. I went out for my first skate ski since Meg and Annie left. Nick, Candy, Jody, Dan, and I went. I was back to being the ugly duckling as it first learned to walk. It is weird. Sometimes, I can find the rhythm and nail it. Other times, I'm struggling not to duff it. It was Candy's first time on skate skis and she did way better than I did my first time. Kudos to her.

We are officially in the winter season so there are no shuttles running to catch a ride from. We aren't allowed to use government vehicles for recreational use so to get to where we can skate ski, we need to walk 2.25 miles to Scott Base and the transition. That eats up a lot of time if you are in a hurry. At Scott Base, we picked up Jody and Dan who are Kiwis that work over there. From there, they informed us we wouldn't be walking to the transition but would be taking an ATV 4 wheeler with a trailer the rest of the way. It wasn't far, but it made it go quicker. We skied and it was great. I didn't realized how much I had missed it. When we were done, they used their vehicle to take us half way home which included taking us up the the first monster hill. This past Sunday, I also saw Dan snowboarding with a partner using a snow machine. One of them would give the other a ride up the hill and then they'd switch. Amazing. The Kiwis have SO MUCH more freedom to recreate than we do. Maybe I need to apply to work over there . . .

Tomorrow, another ship post.

R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer

R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer at the Ice Pier at McMurdo Base.
At the end of the January, the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer came to port. It is one of the two main vessels the NSF uses to conduct Antarctic research. It came back to port two days for a crewman to get his crushed finger looked at. I thought it would be a good time to post some pictures of the vessel. Unfortunately, as I'm looking through my photos I'm realizing that I don't really have any. I must have been distracted on our tour.


The engine room.
The Palmer was built in 1992. It has icebreaking capability and is 94 meters long. It was designed as a research vessel that can hold 37 scientists in addition to its 22 crewman. It can be at sea for 75-day missions. It was named after the American who first sighted Antarctica as a 21 year old commanding the Hero in 1820.


A wing of the bridge.
I managed to get on the Palmer twice. The first time, I thought I had a private tour lined up for Annie and me, but it fell through so we just guided ourselves on to the ship. If you look like you belong, you do. We didn't know where we were going, but it was fun to scatter around and explore. Later, I was given an actual tour by Lora. Fabulous lady, great tour guide, and hopefully boss one day. They had a lounge on the ship, library, galley, bridge, research labs, laundry, computer banks, etc. Pretty much anything you'd expect to be on a research vessel. The rooms were really small and usually two per room. That works well if your roommate is on the opposite 12 hour shift, but could be hard if you both had to be in there.


View out of the front bridge window.
The most impressive part of the ship was the gym, sauna, bridge, or crow's nest. It is a toss up. I just never thought such a well stocked gym would be on a research vessel or even the presence of a sauna. The bridge and crow's nests just offered spectacular views of the area.


The view from the crow's nest. Look how small that flag looks now.
The minimum contract you can do on the Palmer is three weeks, but I think some extend as long as fifteen. 12 hours a day and 7 days a week. You get worked to the bone and probably cold to bone too, but you also get a rare chance to see a lot more of the continent that if you are just stationed at McMurdo. The vessels also spend most of their time near the peninsula that is near Chile so I'd get to see an entirely different part of the continent. I'm hoping to snag one of these at some point, but I need to learn some more Linux server stuff first. That is one of my winter goals. However, since winter doesn't seem to be settling I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

I'm off to skate ski now. Have a great day wherever you are.

Which ever way the wind blows . . . (part 2)

Two posts ago, I put up a few pictures from Condition 2, borderline Condition 1, weather. When I left work that evening, the weather had blown itself out and it was gorgeous. I don't think it warmed up, but it felt like it because there was less of a wind chill. To put in perspective, I wanted to post some more pictures from that evening. This first is taken from the same spot that the picture labeled "Where did the big hill (Ob Hill) go?" was taken from two posts ago.


We found the base of the hill!
This is probably the first night that I've seen a real sunset. The other nights it was too late or I was feeling sick so I wanted to get to bed early. Either way, it was wonderful to see. I caught this on my way home after working in medical until 9:30pm. I was in medical helping them e-mail x-rays and pictures of an injury back to the states for review. Unfortunately, seeing this sunset and working in medical kept me from going to great party at the BFC. I just got distracted and forgot. What a surprise. It's been the story of my winter so far.


Telephones poles, telephone poles, everywhere, almost pretty in a sunset stare.
These last two pictures were taken FROM MY ROOM!! Have I mentioned how much I like my new room today? If not, I do. It's a single. It's almost really cozy. It has room for me to unpack the mountains of fabulous things that so many of you sent down (Thank you!). It has a great view to watch the sunset each night. This is just two pictures through the window pane last night. I could have opened the window, but I'm hoping to just share what I was looking at.


Sunset over the power plants and the Royal Society Range.


More sunset. This picture includes a box that Betty built in the bottom right corner that she was worried might have blown away due to poor workmanship.
I've started to talk to a bunch of you on the phone. It's great. I love it! Keep 'em coming and I'll be calling back too if you don't reach me. (Only the 800 number has voice mail on it.) It is so great to hear that you are doing well even if you happen to be falling asleep while we chat because I can hear things in your voice that don't carry through in an e-mail.

Ice Carpenters . . .

Ice carpenters should use ice hammers.
Before I came here, I never thought about the logistics of what it takes to support science and a base in Antarctica. I thought they might have a few carpenters to build stuff, but we don't have a few. We have a ton. Maybe 30(?) during the summer and they are fortunate enough to travel all over the continent. They go to every field site to help set it up before the grantees get there and then go out to break it down. GREAT job to see the continent. There may only be one or two other jobs that allow you to see more and you don't need to be an expert in carpentry because you can come down as a helper or an apprentice.



Perhaps the only requirement is to have a brain?

The carps are supposed to a great group. Based on the carp helper I knew the best, who I hope is reading this, I'm not sure how much they actually do. They have great parties, BBQs, build new games to play, and hang out after work. At Icestock, they run a hard coffee house, Sawbucks, to help keep people warm. Good folk and yes, they actually do work hard. This one carp helper though, I'm not so sure. Just kidding, Betty.



Sawbucks coffee house - once a year only at Ice Stock.


Nagel block (?) game: use an adz to hit to a nail into the wood. Safety goggles required.


Washers.


Home made ping pong table.
One of my favorite things about the carp shop was the decorations. They had fun things all over the place. Some of the biggest ones were mounted high on the walls or on the ceiling.



Decorations.


More decorations.