Scavenging in Antarctica

All of the trash from McMurdo Station has to be shipped back to California. That's because they found that the garbage they used to put in the ocean or bury doesn't disintegrate because of the cold. Back in 1991-91, Pat was here as an engineer building an incinerator, but that was abandoned because burning was frowned upon. This picture is taken from the Waste Department, where they sort every piece of trash and prepare it for shipment back to the US. Some of it for obvious reasons gets frozen for the trip. In the background is the spectacular ocean and mountains.

There is a wonderful tradition of recycling useable clothes and goods here called Skua. It's named after a scavenger bird, called the Skua. There are two nesting pairs here, and the story is that the same birds come back year after year. They know where people come out of the dining room with plates of food. I met my first one flying right in front of my face as it was checking out what was in my hands. It turned out to be my mittens, so it didn't stick around. Notice that the bird is about the same color as the soil, which is volcanic rock.

There are "skua bins" in every building. Everyone is expected to sort their trash into food, recyclable paper, non-recyclyable paper (papertowels), plastic, glass, aluminum cans, other metal, etc. In our dorm there are 14 different bins. The janitors empty the bins and take everything to the Waste Dept or to "Skua Central," the building where all reusable items are available for anyone to take.

Skua Central is like a free Goodwill store. You just take anything you like. Most people here dress in Skua clothes, because the work here can be hard on personal clothes. I have several pairs of Skua jeans, and some shirts.

Finding parts for work can be a scavenging operation as well. Some parts locations are very well documented. Others, such as nuts and bolts, tend to be just thrown together. This makes me miss having a local hardware. It also makes me think of a hardware store employee who was listening to an old guy complain about the price of a screw. "Why, that's robbery. I have 20 of those at home," grumbled the old man.

"Yes," replied the employee very nicely,"but you can't find them, can you?" Here we find them eventually. When I get frustrated about how long it takes to find a part, I add up how long it would take me to drive to the hardware store at home and back, and decided that it's probably faster rummagine through the misc parts drawers in three buildings here! And there's no traffic congestion. In fact, no traffic!

Antarctica Inside

A friend commented, "National Geographic has already shown us what Antarctica is like outside. What's it like inside the buildings?"

This is the tiny little 8 x 13' dorm room that we share. To get more space, we took the doors off the 2 huge wardrobes and laid them on their sides. Then we made a platform with the doors. On that we put the mattresses. Bunk bed frames are wedged along the walls. Below is storage--accessible on hands and knees. Note the black-out curtain. That's how we turn on the night at 10 p.m. and turn on the day at 6 a.m.

Over 1000 people eat 3 meals a day in the dining room. The food is excellent, plentiful, and there's always something available to eat. Just yesterday we had fresh strawberries with the stems on. Imagine! Sunday brunch is like Club Med. Huge amounts of everything wonderful. The cold here has everyone eating more than normal.

The computer room is always a busy place. We have full email and internet access. Phone calls are local to Denver. Other LD calls are billed as if they're from Denver.

There are 3 bars, each in its own little building. This is our favorite because it's quieter than the others, though the Sat night card game gets pretty lively. Saturday is the only eve that most of us don't have work the next day.

This is the lecture hall in the Crary Science Center--where all the science projects are headquartered. On Sun and Wed evenings different scientists give presentations about the work they're doing here. It varies from penguin research to studying the composition (very slow) of the garbage that this place used to dump into the ocean. This last week the researcher that Pat's been working with showed slides of the creatures she finds below the many feet of ice. They're colorful like the tropics! Amazing.

IceHoles

This is a tractor-mounted rig setting up to drill just offshore from McMurdo Station. A large hole would normally not be drilled so close to a line of snowmobiles, but the drill location approval came first, and the machines were parked without checking the map. Principal Investigator, Stacy Kim, kept hoping one of them would fall in, so she would have a chance to photograph it on the bottom during her dive.





This is Pat scooping ice chips off the water after the rig is through. The ice here is eighteen feet thick, but the water comes up to within a foot of the top of the ice. Two feet of snow have been piled on top of the blue ice in the process of making the nearby main ice road going out from McMurdo, so the slush is three feet down, and devilishly hard to reach. It is necessary to clear the slush to keep the hole from freezing shut too quickly. This large hole will be used for diving in dry suits to investigate populations of critters on the bottom, and compare them to locations further away to gage whether any are being affected by activities at the station.

This is a ski-mounted hut parked above a slightly smaller hole about three miles away from McMurdo at a location known as Cape Armitage. this hole is being used to test a miniaturized remotely operated vehicle being built at a shop in McMurdo. The same Investigator, Stacy Kim, is in charge of this project because it will support her studies of sea-bottom life under the ice. The vehicle is known as SCINI. Check out the web site to learn what that stands for. http://scini.mlml.calstate.edu
Nice ride known as a Pisten Bully.


This is Pat removing the cover from a solar panel on the side of the hut. There is another one already open on the roof. These supply power for computers, fans, and radios. The hut is well heated by propane.

Ice Caves & Boots

This week we got to go on a special tour "out of town" to an ice cave which is inside a glacier. We slid on our butts to get into it. Then we could stand up. It was perfectly quiet in there except for a few ice crackles.
The cave had a cathedral-like feel.

Some of the formations were swirls.

To get to the cave we rode in a special vehicle for carrying 18 people across the sea ice. It has huge tires, and the ride is bouncy.

To go an excursion we have to have our extreme cold weather gear. Besides the red parka, there are huge white boots, called "bunny boots." They're bigger than Carol's steel-toed insulated work boots, but not as heavy. As a pair the work boots weigh 5 pounds. Last week I did my aerobic stepping workout wearing them. That's stepping up and down 100 times on each leg. A month ago I could barely get through a work day walking in them! For comparison, on the far right are regular ole Colorado hiking boots. Those used to seem mighty big and heavy, but now they're our day-off casual shoes.

Carol goes camping

I just got back from an overnight camping trip. That's right, camping in a regular ole nylon tent in Antarctica. This is not my idea of a good time. It was job-required survival training. Pat, whose job does not require this, is jealous. He spent his day off this week helping a scientist dig holes in the sea ice, and scooping up bucket after bucket of slush. Pictures of that are coming next, I think.

This is the campsite, nowhere near anything. Talk about remote! There were 20 of us campers. We got 1/2 day instruction, then were told to apply what we'd learned, enjoy and night, and the instructors would pick us up in the morning.

We had to dig up snow blocks to build a wall to block the wind.

Most of us slept in tents. A few dug snow caves, which were warmer, but not very roomy.

The view full circle around was stunning. The black flags mean danger--a cravass or something. Yikes!