Ice breaker cruise

I was picked to go on a Sunday morning cruise on the Coast Guard ice breaker, Polar Sea. Poor Nik signed me up for the lottery for this special event, but he was not selected to go. It was a great trip! At 7:30 AM we lined up at the ice pier and waited to tell the organizers our names so they could check us off the list and prepare an acurate manifest. We waited until the crew let us on board and we climbed up the gang plank. After a quick safely briefing, the ship left the pier and we were on our way. The goal was to see some wildlife and get a little trip away from McMurdo for a few hours. It was interesting to look around the ship for a while too, but the real attraction was the scenery. Although Chris and I did take a break from ice breaking to get a cappucino at the ship's coffee shop. The ice breakers are based in Seattle and those guys take their coffee seriously.
As much as I enjoy being here, I always enjoy leaving McMurdo too, even if it is just to get a different perspective. From the ship we got a good view of McMurdo, Ob Hill, Hut Point, Castle rock, Hut Point Peninsula and Mt. Erebus. Everyone was excited, wondering what else we would see as we ventured away from McMurdo.
The ice in the turning basin and in the southern part of the channel was still very slushy and had many ice chunks, but as we made our way to the ice edge, the channel cleared of ice. The water was calm and dark that day. There was very little wind. Sometimes we would see ripples on the water from where a seal had been swimming. Looking ahead I spotted the whale's breath. Several people near me gasped. Then after a moment I saw the dorsal fins and we realized that they were minke whales. (Orcas have much larger dorsal fins.) As we got closer we could see the minkes swimming along the channel. Then they swim right up to the ship and dove underneath us. There are also orcas in the area, especially along the ice edge, but the orcas didn't feel like visiting that day. Besides the minke whales, we saw two adelie penguins and many weddell seals. And of course, the infamous skuas were checking us out to see what we had to eat.
When we reached the point where we turned the ship, they gave us a demonstration of the ice breaking capabilities. They pointed the ship towards the western edge of the ice and we rose right up onto the ice and then started to break it up from the weight of the ship. They did this a couple of times so we could see, hear and feel what it was like. A skua came and landed right where the ship was headed, completely unconcerned by what was about to happen. The whole process was much smoother than I expected, but they did caution us to hold on. I couldn't tell how much of the creaking came from the ice and how much was the ship. I thought we might get stuck, but of course, we didn't. As chunks of ice broke off, we could see the brownish greenish color of the sea ice algae.
It was a calm day, but I can imagine that the weather in the southern ocean can be rough. I was very interested in the doors on the ship which were very well sealed, heavy and appearently tough. I can imagine that these doors come in handy on occasion. Maybe they were designed to keep skuas out too.

Distinguished visitors

January is the primary month for distinguished visitors, also known as DV's. This week we have a delegation from New Zealand visiting Scott Base to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the base and the New Zealand Antarctic Program. The head of the US National Science Foundation is also here. It has been very exciting to see. Sir Edmund Hillary gave a speech at Scott Base yesterday for the event. Besides being the first person to successfully climb Mt Everest with Tenzing Norgay he went on to have a career as a mountaineer and explorer and made many trips to Antarctica during the early days of scientific exploration. He is also featured on the NZ $5 note. He is a very interesting speaker and seems very humble and genuinely nice.
We had a dinner (by invitation only) in the dining hall with nice china, glass glasses (as opposed to the blue plastic cups we normally use), cloth napkins and waiters. It was bizarre, but also really nice and very festive. Sir Ed was there, as well as the Prime Minister of New Zealand and the other DV's. Speeches were kept to a minimum. It was a casual dinner, but it was by far the most formal event I have attended here. We all wore our best clothing, which for most of us was our cleanest jeans and nicest fleece. The Prime Minister of New Zealand gave a little speech and thanked us all for attending. We had Mt Erebus volcano cakes with raspberries and also truffles for desert.

Ice breakers and penguins

The ice breaker has been working the channel for the resupply ship to come in next month. All of this activity has brought adelie penguins to McMurdo. I have seen penguins here plenty of times before, but never like this. I estimated that I saw at least 100 penguins on the sea ice near McMurdo yesterday.
I wish I knew more about penguins. One thing I know is that they are fascinating to watch, especially when they are on the move. Yesterday there was a large group of them near Hut Point when the Swedish icebreaker, Oden, started moving up to the dock. The penguins were running across the sea ice as fast as their three inch legs would carry them. When they needed a change of pace, they would flop onto their bellies and toboggan along, pushing themselves with their feet and flippers. Most of them stopped on the ice on the sides of Hut Point. A few came onto land to check us out. The people here are curious about penguins and they seem curious about us too.
I saw the ice breaker coming in from across Winter Quarters Bay. I walked to Hut Point to get a closer look at the penguins. This year there have been many sightings of penguins near McMurdo. I think it may be that the foraging is easier than it has been in recent years because the big icebergs have finally drifted away. They have better access to food now that the ice bergs have moved on and the sea ice edge is moving south. So maybe the penguins have more energy and time to explore. The ice breaker channel is like a penguin super highway. We hear rumors that the orcas are not far behind.

Blood Falls

When I think of Antarctica in color, I think about white, blue, cerulean, azure, grey, brown, and occasionally black (orcas, penguins). There is a feature on the terminus of the Taylor Glacier called Blood Falls. It is a surprising rusty red color. Blood Falls is not very well understood, but there are some theories about why it is there. Today my friend Jill and I went to collect some samples and talk about her research a little more. Jill is a microbiologist and I am a geochemist. Even though we have different interests, we both think that Blood Falls is fascinating.
People have been curious about Blood Falls since it was first observed by Scott's party in 1903. They noted in their journal that the terminus of the glacier had a red color that they thought might be from algae. Scientists who have seen the site since then have been surprised by it and several have studied it.

The water that gets discharged from the top of the terminus is very salty, similar to the salinity of seawater, but the chemical composition is a little different. It is also anoxic, meaning that it does not contain any dissolved oxygen. It also has high concentrations of iron in reduced form. Once the water works its way out onto the top of the glacier and flows down, it is exposed to light and oxygen and the dissolved iron starts to oxidize... just like that bicycle you left outside. Jill studies the bacteria that live in the water. I am interested in the chemistry. We both want to know why it's there, how often it discharges, why it is anoxic, where the iron comes from, why it is salty, whether the bacteria are thriving or just surviving. We have answers to some of those questions. But that's the exciting thing about science, there is always more to know. It is about adding pieces to an ever expanding puzzle.

Weather or mechanical?

We are having flight delays that do not affect me directly, but seem to get everyone on station talking. The question is usually "Is it weather or mechanical?" In Antarctica, the delays are often caused by weather. The planes land on sea ice, so even if there is no new snow falling, there may be enough blowing snow from the winds to cause poor visibilty on the sea ice runway. The picture below was taken minutes ago looking across McMurdo Sound. The bright strip on the sea-ice is blowing snow. The weather scroll informs us that it is weather condition 2 on the road from the ski runway (for the ski planes) to the ice runway (for wheeled planes). Meanwhile, we just received an email stating that the road to the runway is closed to wheeled vehicles due to drifting snow on the snow roads. The snow road is still open to track vehicles. Condition 3 is normal weather. Condition 2 and 1 are severe weather and may be called due to extreme cold, high winds or poor visibility.


People who were originally planning to fly south from NZ on Jan 2 were delayed until the 4th. Now they may not fly south until the 7th. The reason for this is Mechanical. Maybe it is just as well that they did not fly today because they may have had to boomerang if they did make it this far due to Weather. Some of my LTER team members who have been trying to get here boomeranged twice on Tuesday. Now they wait in New Zealand. People who were planning to head north from here have been waiting for this plane from NZ, but many people will be leaving today on an Air National Guard LC-130. This is not normal operations, but it's very good news for the people who have been waiting to leave. Most of the ones who have been delayed here waiting to fly north will probably miss their commercial flights and the rumor is that there are no reservations available until Jan 11. This is bad news for people heading back to university for classes. This is all part of the adventure for researchers in Antarctica.