A Busy Couple of Weeks

Sunset on the Pressure Ridges

Well, we survived the government shutdown. While a lot of folks were told they would be going home, only a few made it off the ice before the government turned back on. And now the station is growing. We started the week with a little more than 300 people on station. At this point we're at 527, and by the end of the week we'll be up above 800. And Crary (the science building) isn't an echoing chasm anymore. We've had a couple of science groups make it back down and there will be a lot more coming down in the next couple of weeks, including a group connected with one of my projects, CTBT. I'm looking forward to them coming down, since they've got a remote site about 20 miles off station that I might get to tag along to.
Between the preparations for  shutting things down, and then turning things back on, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy. For a while it looked like I'd be the only person staying on in Crary, which would have added a bunch of duties to my regular schedule. As it is, I've picked up a couple of things while we wait for the rest of the lab staff to get back on the ice. The last couple of Sundays I've lead a Crary tour for folks from town who are interested in what exactly they are here to support. Unfortunately, the main attraction at Crary, our touch tank and aquarium tanks, are waiting on research groups to arrive and stock them with fish, sponges, urchins, jellyfish, and maybe an octopus or two.
At the beginning of last week, I said goodbye to Liz, the research associate I am taking over for. After a year down here, she was more than ready to get off the ice. She is planning on spending most of next year traveling and then coming back either to McMurdo or Palmer for another season.

Liz and me up at Arrival Heights

Along with my regular duties, which take me a little ways off station and up to Arrival Heights in the afternoons, I've gotten a couple of other chances to get out of town.

A diver getting out of the water

Last week I got invited to help out the divers. It meant caddying some of their gear and feeding the air line down as the divers moved around under the ice. On this particular occasion the divers were checking on the ice pier, making sure that the ice was good and that the edge of the pier wasn't running up against the shore. John, the diver in the yellow dive suit, saw a seal while he was under. Sometimes, seals will pop up to check out the dive holes, and I was kind of hoping that would happen, but no such luck.
I also got a chance to go out on the pressure ridges over by Scott Base. They were so amazing, and I've been back a couple of times since.

Walking across the ice to the pressure ridges

A seal hanging around on the pressure ridges

Along with exploring off station, I've gotten to know town pretty well. Occasionally, McMurdo will host artist, who come down on an NSF grant. There are a number of painting hanging in the galley by some of the artists. We've also had a couple of sculptors come down, and they've left behind pieces scattered around that station.

Tim the Troll hanging out under the bridge between Building 155 and Crary

Making the cut

Looking out across Ross Bay towards Inaccessible Island

    So, my job appears to have survived the stop order. I got the word on Friday that I would be staying and all of my projects would continue running. Whether or not they are supposed to get the same level of support they’ve had in the past is still up for debate. There are also a number of my projects that have grantees come down for a couple of weeks each summer, to do upgrades and repairs, take down/remount instruments for the summer, etc. We’re still not sure when or if any of them will be allowed to come down. Which will either mean that I will have a lot more work (trying to do all the things the grantees would have done if they were down here) or a lot less work (since some of the things that would normally happen on this projects might not actually happen).

    It also looks like I may be the only Crary science person staying in town. Which means that I might get some other duties, to go along with my RA stuff. The one I know of right now would be giving tours of the building. I should find out more tomorrow when I talk with the lab supervisor. Doing tours would actually be pretty fun. Crary is a really nice building and there is a ton of cool stuff that would normally be happening in there, scientists running around, sea life getting put in the big tanks for study.

The sun over Ross Bay

    Anyways, I’ve pretty much gotten oriented to my regular duties. In the mornings, I’ve got my daily checks for ELF/VLF, MEVO, CTBT, USGS GPS, the weather station, and a couple of checks on all of my data getting sent out to the grantees. Most of these are in Crary, although CTBT is in Comms, which is just down the road. The checks mostly consist of making sure things are running, checking for any errors or alarms, taking a look at the data to see if it looks normal, making sure that the date and time are correct, and seeing if data is being sent. After my morning checks are done, and assuming that everything looks okay, I’m usually in the office for the rest of the morning, doing reports, giving tours of my projects (if someone is interested), emailing/talking with grantees. Right now, this part of the morning is mostly office staff talking about when/if they’re getting sent home and if they’re going to be furloughed when they get there. Since all the grantees are getting sent home, there isn’t much action happening in Crary.

    In the afternoons I head up to Arrival Hights, which is my main “out-of-town” work site. From what Liz, my predecessor, says, it is a nice walk from town in the summer, but right now it is a little on the chilly side to do that. Arrival Heights is an Antarctic Specially Protected Area, so the McMurdo and Kiwi RAs are the only ones allowed up there without permission. If anyone else wants to go up, they have to go through me! I get to manage the permits for the AH ASPA since my projects are the main reason that this area has been given that designation. Up at AH, I’ve got another set of daily checks (these ones have to be done after midnight UST, so that’s the reason they’re done in the afternoon here) that are pretty similar to my morning checks, except that I am also checking on some actual instrumentation, rather than just computers and graphs. I’ll also check an make sure that the building is in good shape, warm enough, no snow blowing in, etc.

    I’ve also got a number of once/week, bi-weekly, and monthly checks to do. Since some of them involve hiking into Second Crater, about a 45 min hike from the building, I get to take a buddy. Usually the RAs take someone from the galley or supply staff, since they don’t get off station much, and from what I hear, there are usually lots of volunteers.

    I have gotten some time to do a little bit of exploring around McMurdo. I found the “gerbil” gym (cardio machines and weights), the aerobics room, the big gym (with a small climbing wall), the library, the coffee house and the bars. The bars are closed right now, indirectly due to the stop order. The management decided to go to ship rules (the rules that get put in place when the ice-breaker and supply ships are in town), and stop the sale of alcohol, since there are a lot of stressed-out and unhappy people around. Speaking of, all the people who were told they’re getting sent home on Monday or Tuesday, are still here. There are probably a couple of reasons for that. One is that between the people here and the people in Christchurch, there are a lot of people getting sent home, and not enough flights back to the States to put them on. There has actually been rumors that they are going to start flying the people who have been in Christchurch for the last two weeks down to the Ice, because it is cheaper than leaving them in hotels. Another reason is that they have been fairly conservative when calling weather delays. Last week’s Monday flight down to the Ice was very exciting. The ceiling lowered fairly quickly, so the Airbus ended up circling until it was almost out of fuel. At the point, the passengers, including my boss and Liz, were told to prepare for a crash landing. They landed fine, but it seems to have but the people in charge of flights a little on edge, so there haven’t been any flights in or out since last Wednesday, when my flight and one other came in.

Pressure ridges along the shore

    That’s all I’ve got for now. Tomorrow I get the keys and the pager, and Liz gets to sit back and relax.

I made it...

I arrived at McMurdo on October 9th...on the “worst day in US Antarctic history”, as the Senior US Representative in Antarctica put it. 

I started the morning at 3:45AM to get ready for a 4:30 pick-up and a 5AM check-in at the airport. As I walked out the door of my hotel room, I found a note that said the pick-up and check-in had been pushed back by 2 hours. So I hung out for another two hours in my room.

I got a lot of these while I was in Christchurch

I got checked in, which means my passport got checked, my bags got weighted, I got weighted, and I got my boarding pass. Then we did our pre-flight orientation (i.e. we watched a video about the program, the Antarctic treaty, and McMurdo). After that we had a 45 minute pause. I figured it was a weather delay, which had been a pretty regular occurrence (our group had already been delayed in CHC two days waiting for the weather to get better). As I found out later, it was actually because the ASC had received a partial stop order from the government, and they were trying to figure out if they should fly us down or not. They did eventually decide to fly, so we turned in our boarding passes, went through security, got on the bus and then onto the plane. 

The last time I was down, I took military planes to and from the ice. This time, since it is so early in the season, most of the US planes aren’t down in NZ yet, so we took an Australian Airbus for our 5 hour flight down to MCM. The flight went smoothly, we got our cold weather gear on and deplaned. Then we got on our ride to McMurdo, a huge snow-bus. Once at MCM, we were herded into the Chalet for the usual orientation briefing, which is were we found out that the stop order had been issued and a lot of people were going to be sent home. They still don’t know who exactly is going and who is staying. We should find out in the next couple of days.

After orientation, I met up with the current Research Associate, Liz, who I (hopefully) will be taking over for after training finishes up. We had actually already met briefly at the CDC in Christchurch. I also briefly met my boss, Cara, but she had to run to a teleconference about planning for the stop order. Liz gave me a short tour of Crary, the main science labs at MCM, and of the major landmarks in town. Then I headed to my room (Dorm 209, the pi room). I’ve got a room-mate for the next 18 days. Wendy works in the water plant, and this is the end of her 25th season on the ice. She’s planning on three more, and then retiring to Arizona. 

Dinner was a much more subdued affair than my previous experiences with McMurdo. Usually there is lots of noise and laughter as folks meet up with friends they haven’t seen since the last time they were down, get to know the new people they’ll be working with this season. Everyone is worried about their jobs, the program, and what comes next. 

Deplaning from the airbus