Like most of my days thus far, today was another day of firsts.

I:
•    Took my first walk on the frozen ocean
•    Took my first ride in a piston bully (snow tracker of sorts)
•    Saw my first ice hole being drilled
•    Took my FIRST SCUBA DIVE UNDER THE ICE!

The ice dive was a clear favorite. ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! (For those of you who know me, you know I don’t use all caps and exclamation points unless I’m really excited.) More on that later.

Don’t get me wrong, some of those other firsts were pretty amazing, like the creation of our ice hole. We drove out onto the ice on our piston bully. When we arrived, I took that first step onto the frozen ocean, my back facing McMurdo Station and my eyes fixed on the half lit snow covered mountain peaks of White Island, glowing red in the distant morning sun. After a moment it hit me, I’m standing on the ocean right now. I don’t think I can find the words to do it justice. It was such an incredible sensation to know that you are standing on a solid sheet of frozen sea and somewhere 60-100 feet below in the icy waters there is an amazing community of sea creatures to be explored.

The rest of our ice drilling team showed up with three enormous trackers pulling our massive drill and ice hut. The sheet of ice is as solid as ice comes; I mean they can land planes on it. However, the new drill team assembled a massive 4-foot drill on an equally enormous tracker and cored that dive hole in no time at all.

Drill baby drill

The slowest part was all shoveling we had to do to clear the ice shavings from around the hole.  This probably took longer because I was standing there leaning on my shovel utterly stunned by everything. For example: the water temperature under the ice is – 1.8°C or 28°F, but I’m standing there watching steam, yes STEAM, rising off the water as if were a hot tub. It is just that cold down here that below freezing ice water steams like a hot evening bath…

The portal is now open

Fast forward a bit to the early afternoon, and our ice hut is centered over the hole with us inside and ready to go. We were all suited up and gathered around the ice hole testing equipment and reviewing our dive plan. Then one by one we slipped into the icy water, descending into the narrow ice tube made by the drill team earlier.

Going Below

Once below I was amazed by what I saw in every direction I turned. The ice ceiling above us created a soft soothing blue glow decorated with occasional Mini Cooper-sized ice chandelier. The visibility was unlike anything I’d ever experienced SCUBA diving. I could see clear to the anchor ice at the coast and then follow the sea floor straight down to 100 to 200 feet deep. The amount sea life totally shocked me–giant vase sponges, sea stars, fish, nemerdians (1-3 foot tape worm looking creatures), ctenophore, jellyfish, and more.

Sundays are slow days here.  Everyone works a six day work week if not more and the big day off is Sunday.  The main focus of the day is an amazing brunch of everything a heart could desire.  Rory and I took a few leasurly morning and then headed up observation hill to get a better view of the world around us.

The hike was essentially a straight up trek for 800ft in <.8 miles to the spot where Robert Falcon Scott’s crew waited for his return from the South Pole in 1912.  While he made it to the pole (within a month of being the first to ever do so) he never made it back to meet here crew.  A cross is perched upon the top of the hill in his and his fateful teams honor.  One of the amazing things about Scott is that his dedication to science never faltered.  When he was discovered by a search party he still had geologic samples that he had man hauled (i.e. pulled on a sled) all the way to the poll and back after picking them up on the southern trip.  Even running out of food and freezing to death did not deter his plan to return the samples in the name of science.

By climbing up to this historic point we also got our first view of Mount Erebus. We live on the flanks of this active volcano, and you can see the steam rising from its maw.

In addition we got a great vantage of the big john crack and the challenges that may present themselves to those scientists traveling north.

The day ended with a wonderful sunset and an evening in the lab getting sampling gear ready for the week.  Tomorrow we make our first hole in the ice and then go for a dive.  This week should bring samples as well.  Something I am greatly looking forward to.

The wind chill makes this a better day for the ice and a less appealing day for us to be outside. Although not too cold at -32 C including the wind. For scale those are helicopters in the right hand corner of the image.

One of the challenges of arriving at Winfly is that the station is just getting ready for science.  Winfly is a series of five or six flights that come in during a weather window right before the last hurrah of winter.  One of the great challenges is that we arrive at the same time as everyone else and all the people that make our science possible are going through the same rigorous training schedule that we are, and in many cases learning new jobs.  At this extreme edge of the earth our research would not be possible without their support which means that things sometimes move a bit slower than hoped.  Today was a big turning point in this regard.  Not only did we fulfill most of our last training courses but we also got all of the gear we shipped down and many of the items on station that were sent on our behalf.  We’ve been waiting for this since we arrived and it means we can get setup to actually do science, thanks to the wonderful people here getting caught to up with their training and then making out science a priority.

The other challenge that we have is the sea ice.  The sea ice is a bit over 1m (3ft) thick and will be thickening for the next month to three.  With thickening we also get less movement of the sea ice and cracks in the sea ice are a major factor to track.  Because of this the sea ice is not yet ‘open.’

This is the transition. Both sea ice and fast ice look the same, especially in flat light days like today.

The main link between land and the ocean is called the transition.  It is the transition from the fast ice (the ice that is frozen to the land – i.e. made ‘fast’ to it in sailing vernacular) and the sea ice which floats on the ocean and moves up and down with swell and tidal action.  The tides here are small (a 0.5 m (1.5 ft) is a big tide here) and swell are rare but even this small constant moving means there is always a crack that could be an issue for those traveling over it.  Making this as safe as possible the transition is constantly reinforced and checked for this connection between sea and fast ice. We have hopes that it will be ready for our dive check out on Monday but it is warm today which is a bad thing.  It is a balmy -19 C with predicted -16 C as the high for the day. At the moment I want COLD weather for better (thicker, stronger) sea ice.  The wind is trying to help by bringing the wind chill down to -30 which is more in line with my hopes.

This experiment in the Florida Keys ran for three years before being destroyed by Hurricane Isaac last week. The ice here in Antarctica protects the water from the hurricane force winds that are relatively common so experiments that were put up in the 60s and 70s are still in place even though we get winds up and over 100mph.

Better sea ice is imperative as one of our dive sites is in a place that can have cracks due to a shallow shoal that causes more cracks than other places.  However the largest crack (the ‘big john’ crack) is currently un-crossable is baring any research to the north and thankfully our research is south.  We monitor these cracks every day that we are on the ice and the vehicles that we use can comfortably cross a crack just over 2 ft but sea ice cracks are like many things in the Antarctic – there is the ability to do something safely or it is not done.  Constant Vigilance is the only correct approach.

The other news from the day is that we found out today that a project that both Rory and I helped with in the Florida Keys took the brunt of Hurricane Isaac.  This ended three years of manipulative research in one fatal (to the science) swing.  It was a great few years of research and somewhat fitting that as we sit in the coldest, windiest place on earth a storm destroys a wonderful tropic reef experiment.

Today was more of the same but the weather was amazing.  Here is what today looked like.

Sunrise 11am

Sunset 1pm

Our first two full days in Antarctica have been amazing. It’s a whole new world down here. The sun and moon skirt across the horizon like they are circling us, instead of rising in the east and passing over head.

The first sunrise didn’t occur until 10 days ago and already the sun is up for 6 hours. Each day gets longer and longer so quickly, I worry we’ll miss our chance to see the aurora australis (a.k.a. the southern lights). Within a month it will be light out almost all day long.

The first day was calm and clear, but still very, very cold. The second day I woke to 30-40 mph winds and a wind chill  of -39°F! To illustrate how cold that is: I squeezed in a short workout in-between some of our safety/survival training and was running a few minutes late.  I did not dry my hair thoroughly or I was still sweating from the workout when I ran out the door to make the next class. I put on my gloves with my hat tucked under my arm as I ran out. When I went to put my hat on mere seconds later, my hair was frozen solid. I freaked out and put the hat on immediately, so there is no photo evidence of my ice helmet.

The science and support staff at McMurdo station is out of this world. I’ve been to a fair amount of field research centers and this place surpasses them all. They have all sorts of high tech science “toys” and fancy equipment here and multiple people to help you use it, too. It’s really remarkable that a place this remote, in such an extreme environment, could run this smoothly. My hat is off to all the scientists and staff… but not for too long because, ya know, my hair might freeze again.

Ob Hill from the lab

As with every Antarctic adventure the first few days on ice are getting our new remote lab set up and lots and lots of training to make sure 1) we are safe and 2) that we do not damage the pristine environment that we study and 3) that we actually get our science done. In that order. That involves the following trainings:

Outdoor Safety Lecture
Food Room
Field Communication
Crary Lab Orientation
Laboratory Safety
Diving Briefing
Environmental Field Briefing
Protecting Antarctica’s Environment Briefing
GPS training (optional)
Refresher Snowcraft training
Sea Ice Safety
Snowcraft training
Information security awareness
Piston Bulley training (i.e. how to drive a tracked vehicle)
Small equipment training (drills, generators, and chainsaws)
Light vehicle training
Light vehicle practical
Arrival briefing
Science support briefing
On-Ice POC meeting
Waste management briefing
Propane heater training.

And all of that has to be up and running by the time we get to do science.  We have gotten most of them scheduled or completed so while we wait to get in the water to collect samples we can be all set to be ready to handle them.

Other than that we were greeted with nice weather to start the trip and get used to the cold that we get to enjoy. In addition we are thawing out some buildings that have had a rough winter. For example my bed is next to window that has some extra insulation that does not work in more gentle climates (i.e. Ice on both sides).

The night before our flight we received word that our departure time had been pushed back and we were not report until noon instead of our original 6:30am. Extra sleep is always nice. We were greeted with an introduction safety video showing some of the wonders and dangers ahead of us. Then things got real as we suited up in our newly issued safety survival gear and gathered with the hundred other support staff and handful of scientist for the final pre-flight briefing. The scene reminded me of the scene in Star Wars: A New Hope where brief the pilots before they attack the Deathstar.

Then it was off to board our flight, a HUGE C17 aircraft. This was my first flight in a military cargo plane and I was blown away by everything. You could have driven a dump trunk inside the cargo hold and still had room left over. The insides were mostly exposed and you could see all the inner piping and wiring making up the skeleton of the C17. Oh, and the seats were great. I had more elbow room and twice as much leg room as any of the previous flights, I wish I could have taken this plane the whole way from the U.S.

Five hours later our flight crew informed us the current temperature and time, negative 31°F and I’m not sure about the time because all I heard was NEGATIVE 31°F! The pilot came on the speakers to welcome us to Antarctica and warn us they intended to take off in 45mins, so the engines were not going to shut down, and we were to turn right upon exiting or risk “items” being sucked into the jet engine. The doors opened and there we were sitting on a giant glacier. WOOO WHOOO!!! There is only a about an hour of light each day this time of year, and it was dark when we landed but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to step out a see the first glimpse of Antarctica. The runway was abuzz and all lit up with all the transport vehicles. I was so excited I almost didn’t realize the cold… almost. I was quickly made aware of the cold when the steam from my breath froze on the balaclava I was wearing. We were able to get one quick snap shot on the run way and then rushed into our waiting hagglund, a sort of snow tractor transport to McMurdo Station. The expedition has officially begun.

Airports are wonderful places to catch up on work mid travel. LAX was no exception.

The first leg of our trip takes us across the pacific and south to the lovely island of New Zealand.  Both Rory and I departed Portland Airport within a few hours of each other for Los Angeles but on separate airlines.  I flew on United and Rory on American as the later had the more cost effective ticket but the former flew directly to NZ instead of OZ and then NZ.  I was traveling with frozen phytoplankton that was not allowed in Australia so couldn’t have a layover there, and was only allowed in NZ with a permit (which I had).  My flight was a red eye that took me directly to Auckland, a wonderful flight, and then on to Christchurch where spring is starting to rear its face and the long winter is abating.

The flight was 13 hours from LAX to Auckland. MAF (the equivalent of US Agriculture) was very friendly and processed my permit right away.  However it still took them 45 minutes of a 1.25 hour layover and I made my connection with literally one minute to spare.  I lost a bag on this last flight but it joined me later at the hotel with no problems. Overall a great trip. Rory arrived later that day and we went out for a wonderful meal and then returned for a good night’s sleep.

The next day (now yesterday) we headed over to the CDC (clothing distribution center) to get out survival gear allowing us to be safe and warm in the frigid temperatures that we will face… Hopefully on Monday.   Strong winds and mechanical issues have kept the flights south behind schedule (which is part of the schedule –being delayed). However we are off to the airport with hopes of a cold reception as we land at McMurdo station.  Or not? One never knows