McMurdo!

As of last week I'm officially deploying to McMurdo station for November, 2009! This time I'm going as a grantee. My former/current/future employer, UNAVCO Inc, just so happens to be looking for a staff member available to deploy for a month to help out with their GPS operations on the ice this coming austral summer. Conveniently I am already PQ'd for the ice and since I've already been gone this long what's another month or so?



The irony is I would've happily deployed for UNAVCO in the first place without doing any seasonal work for Raytheon if I had the opportunity. It turns out the only way for that opportunity to arise was for me to do seasonal work for Raytheon first.

Oh the tangled webs we weave...see you at McMurdo!

Wildlife

Last week we had a beautiful day on Thursday, and staying indoors would have been a grave injustice. Thankfully our gracious leaders granted a day of rec boating. Wahoo!

After being on the water only an hour we already saw penguins porpoising in front of the boat

From 20090827-boating

On the back side of De Laca island we were amazed to see hundreds of cormorants having a party!

From 20090827-boating

And of course there were cormorants on Cormorant island too.

From 20090827-boating

We also saw a strange orange creature pointing a metal box at the cormorants...

From 20090827-boating

On the way back from Cormorant Island we swung past Dead Seal rocks to find a good amount of penguins hanging out with an elephant seal.

From 20090827-boating

And then just behind the station on Bonaparte point we saw a handful of gentoos running around.

From 20090827-boating

Poor things. It's so hard to take them seriously.

From 20090827-boating

What a wonderful day! The skies were blue, the sun was shining, and all manner of living things were out to enjoy it.

Birds were flying right down to the boat and hovering overhead as we sped along the water.

From 20090827-boating

Days like this one remind me why I'm here.

Imagine this

For those who have ever asked "Why would you ever want to go to Antarctica?", here's an excellent blog post on the subject from a fellow winter-over down here.

All's well

From 20090816-Snowshoeing

Hey everyone!
August is rapidly drawing to a close, and we're all still hanging in there. Not much is new these days, but each day we get more sunshine and you can certainly feel it. Lately, my goal on my days off has been to get as far away from here as I can. This turns out to be maybe a mile when you go up the glacier and back down the other side to the tip of Bonaparte point.


You can't see Bonaparte on here, but if you take the right hand turn through the flag line around Hero Inlet you can descend down onto another small peninsula next to the one Palmer rests on.

From 20090810-SkiTour

From the bottom of the glacier you can walk or ski out to the tip and look out on the ocean.

From 20090810-SkiTour

Before you get there there's a trench you have to cross that's only passable when the tide is low.

From 20090810-SkiTour

Bonaparte Point

From 20090810-SkiTour

Frei Fly By

From 20090812-FreiFlyBy

The other day we were all having our lunch in the galley as usual, when suddenly one of my colleagues shouts out, "Holy shit a plane!". Well that about sums it up. For about 30 minutes our Chilean neighbors from the Frei Antarctic station buzzed the galley during our lunchtime. They radioed "hello" and eventually headed off. It was quite a shock. This was our first sight of other humans since the last boat left over a month ago. They picked an absolutely gorgeous day to do it.

Wish we had a plane...

More outdoor fun

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

It was such a nice day last weekend, we had to get out for some boating.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

Despite earlier threats of freezing, the ocean around us still has many passages through the bergs. There are definitely some interesting and somewhat intimidating chunks of ice floating around out there.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

Of course our seal friends and some of their bird friends are still hanging around.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

This one had some weird tendrils coming down off of it.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

Later I was able to get out for a bit of snowshoeing before the weekend was over.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

A friend and I found an ice wall on the north side of the backyard which could provide some pretty kickass ice climbing in the near future. Next weekend perhaps?

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

It was a good weekend. It was great to get outside for a while.

nacreous clouds?

From 20090726-Sun

Last week we were treated to a light show one morning. Some say they were nacreous clouds, though I'm no expert.

Whatever they were, it was quite a fine morning to have your coffee outside and watch the sunrise. You never get tired of the colors you see down here.

GSArrrrrr!

From 20090731-GSAR

Last Friday we had an excellent day of GSAR. We spent a little time reviewing snow anchors and roping up for glacier travel, then off to the flag line we went. Normally we are only allowed to hike within the flags when we go up on the glacier, but this day we were prepared for something a bit more adventurous.

From 20090731-GSAR

After exploring the backside of the glacier for a while we started making our way over to shortcut point, our final destination for the day. Along the way we probed for crevasses and in some places we were clearly walking on thin air. The snow bridges are nice and strong though, so we didn't ever punch through.

From 20090731-GSAR

Once we were above our destination, we built a snow bollard anchor and lowered each other down. A snow bollard is a kind of anchor built by carving a round shape out of the snow and wrapping a bit of webbing around it. The angle was fairly mild, but it was a good exercise in snow anchors and rope handling.

From 20090731-GSAR

Once down at sea level we passed a few penguins and petrels on our way out to the point. By now it was getting dark, though it was probably only mid-afternoon.

From 20090731-GSAR

Palmer Station's finest taxi service! A few buddies from OSAR were gracious enough to come pick us up for a free ride back to station. Gotta love OSAR.

From 20090831-BoatingAndSnowshoeing

Our final descent point was only a narrow stretch of sloped snow surrounded by calving ice. If we had been off by a 100 yards in either direction we would have been walking right off a cliff. Our GSAR leader did well with route finding and we nailed our destination on the first shot.

Not knowing what to expect for the day I have to say that it was one of the best days out I've had in a while. July was a quiet month for outdoor activities. Winter laziness has been setting in a bit I think.

Thanks to all my comrades who came out with me. Pleasure getting out on the ice with y'all.