New Antarctica Season, New Animals

I came back to McMurdo Station, Antarctica in Oct, 2009 for a second 4-month season. I finally got what everyone wants most--to see emperor penguins and baby seals out on the sea ice.
To go out to see the animals, a person has to go on a special excursion out of the station. About 20 of us climbed into the back of an old Navy truck called a Delta. It has hard bench seats, the windows get completely steamed over, and the 2-hour ride out there can be very rough and bouncy. Sometimes you get to see animals, sometimes you don't. This time we did. We got stuck in the in the snow a lot and had to dig. One time, there were four black spots on the horizon. Could it be penguins? Yes it was, and they were coming toward us. The rule is that we are not allowed to approach the penguins. But if we stay still, and they come to us, that's fine. So we got down on our knees and quietly waited for them to come to us.
Emperor penguins don't waddle like in the cartoons. When they want to move, they flop down on their bellies and push themselves along the ice using their back feet. They look just like the water birds that they are.


When the penguins got to us, they stood up to look at us. They probably came to see if we had any fish to eat. And when we didn't, they flopped back onto their bellies and moved on.
Everything you see in this pictures other than the penguins is ice, probably more than 20 ft. thick.



We also saw seals out on the ice. These pictures were taken with a telephoto lens--we aren't allowed to get as close as these appear.
Seals come up through ice holes and flop out onto the ice. Then they just lie there, barely moving, looking like garden slugs. The only way to know from a distance that they are not big gray rocks is that there aren't any rocks out there on the ice.
The babies are just slightly more energetic than the moms.




Isn't this baby just the cutest!

Penguin!

I saw my first penguin in Antarctica! They say that the penguins arrive after the icebreaker comes in. The icebreaker arrived Sunday. The penguin was here Monday. It's a little adelie penguin. I watched it for about an hour an a half. First it was asleep in a ball like a little black cat. Then it stood up, stretched a wing. Later it raised both wings. Later yet it crowed like a crow. Still later it took a few steps, got into the water for a short swim, got out, and stood some more.

Below is the penguin with the icebreaker that arrived from Sweden.

How Cold Is It?

Just how cold is it in Antarctica? Not very right now--January. Temps are in the high 30's F just about every day. And with the sun up all the time, it feels very nice. Above is Pat fixing some field camp equipment. Kind of looks like a palm tree, doesn't it?

Above is Matt, our dorm's janitor, in shorts and a parka. Notice that he's standing on dirt--not ice and snow. McMurdo station has been more dust than ice for a couple months now. In the background is the frozen sea ice and mountains.

At the New Year's music festival, there was some warm weather dressing. Note the Hawaiian shirt.

Also at the music festival were sandals and shorts.

Just had to include this music festival guy.

Here are two of the guys that Carol works with--Tom the plumbing foreman and Don the boiler mechanic. The wind came up at the music festival, so even though the temp wasn't so cold, the wind was!

Christmas in Antarctica

In Antarctica Christmas comes a day earlier than in the US. In the lower left of this pictures are carolers. The background is frozen sea ice.

Penguins are just about the favorite animal, and these are in the dining room.

The theme of the day was food, of course. Here we are at brunch. Stockings are in the background. There is a tree, but it missed the picture.

This is a a display of gingerbread houses. Below is a spread of exotic cheeses and lots of other delicacies.

We ate the huge Christmas dinner in "family groups." These are new and wonderful friends. We had prime rib, roast, duck, crab legs, shrimp, all the trimmings, and more desserts than could be counted.

Science Camp

One of the extremely cool things we were hoping to do! get close to a science team, and go out with them. This is Pat's ride out to Heald Island, in the Koettlitz glacier to help launch an under-ice rover camera.
The passengers had to wear the same sharp helmets as the pilots.
The rover is launched through a simple, small, hand-drilled hole. Other rovers being tested down here need huge support equipment, and an eight foot wide hole.
Most of the ice we are working in is pure crystalline blue, but some parts of it have sponge-like formations of air bubbles. These are about a foot down into the ice. You are looking at an area two feet wide.
The equipment is being assembled and tested. The rover is the small cylinder with holes all over it. Pat machined the holes to reduce its weight, and help to make it neutral bouyancy. He also designed and built the cradle it sets on for testing.
Launching the rover.
An edge of the Koettlitz glacier, and beyond it, the mountains forming the Antarctic Dry Valleys.
Some of hundreds of blue melt pools, now frozen, within a rift in the glacier. Mt Discovery beyond, about 14 miles away.
Looking across the quarter-mile wide rift, and the melt pools to the camp tent.
The ride home is landing.

Ice Dive

We have become acquainted with a dive team that looks at what's in the ocean here under the ice. The have two dive huts off the shore on the ice here.

Inside the hut on the left is the hole for the divers to descend. Inside the hut on the right is the hole where they lower the self-propelled camera that is steered by a person who stays above. They can see on a screen in the hut what the camera sees below.

Here's the hole that the divers use. Looks chilly, doesn't it. The ice here is 20 feet thick. The water below it is 28 degrees.

These divers are Stacy, the head of the team, and Francois.

Stacy is putting on her flippers.

They get ready to descend.

Holly is a "dive tender," a volunteer who helps the diver get dressed.

Stacy jumps into the hole.

From the other hut we can look at what the camera is seeing. The divers say there is plenty of life down there. They like diving here because the water is very clear and there's no algae. The box in the picture is a wire frame on the front of the camera--a crash bar so it doesn't get hurt when it hits bottom. The camera is steered by a person above the ice. Carol got to "drive" it. It's like playing a video game.

Here the camera is looking up the hole that the divers went down. Again, the box is the camera's protective frame.

The dive tenders above were mighty surprised when something--which turned out to be the camera--came UP the hole!

Stunning Ice Formations

This week Carol got to go on a special trip to the New Zealand base here to see special ice formations made by layers of sea ice pushing against each other.
The result is that huge chunks of ice get pushed up. You can see how big they care compared to people. We're standing on the ocean here. It's many, many feet frozen beneath us.

This is the favorite formation--looks like a sitting frog.

Some of the formations were blocks.

Some of the newer ones are a gorgeous color of blue.

This is beautiful with the sun shining through.

Some formations were pointy.

And sometimes the points were in a row.

Sometimes the ice was split.

The place made me think of a white, shiny version of the rock formations at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.