Southbound

I'm beginning my 13th season on the Ice and my 11th journey south. Every season's flight is very different, and this year is no exception. I would have preferred to fly on the C-17, but instead I arrived on the A-319 Airbus. It's funny though how a little experience helps one have a better flight. I lined up where I needed to after the safety briefing in Christchurch and got a good seat on the bus to the plane, which in turn, got me
a great seat on the flight.

 
About 3.5 hours into the flight, we started to fly over the Transantarctic Mountains, which form the spine of the Antarctic continent. I never tire of this view of the mountains and glaciers. There is a Qantas flight that makes a similar route to ours on New Years Eve and that costs approximately $10,000 per person. Yes, I get paid to make this flight!


Once we start veering toward Ross Island (where McMurdo is located) we start flying over McMurdo Sound. There are lots of icebergs this season. Although they look smallish, each of these is probably about
the size of a city block.


I've seen this view many times, being on the ramp, (this would be called the tarmac at regular airports) but I don't get to see it often from inside a plane. It doesn't look that much different from last year, although I believe the Ice Runway is a bit closer to Scott Base this year.


This is the typical shot of folks leaving the plane after arriving from the Ice. I was contacted by a representative from the NSF (National Science Foundation) for a photo just like this for one of their early season documents. I submitted it, so I hope it gets used.

Chock Your Seal

Cartoon by Matt Davidson
A few years ago, a Leopard Seal caused the death of
a British Antarctic scientist when it dragged her to the
bottom, while the scientist was studying it in the ocean.
While Leopard Seals can be seen as dangerous predators,
we only have rather docile Weddell Seals in the McMurdo
Sound region. Although apparently one Weddell acidentally
became non-docile. A scientist's leg was injured when the
Weddell innocently rolled over on them, precipitating this
really funny comic from local cartoonist Matt Davidson.
I've heard that someone is actually trying to devise a
"chock" system as a result and I shake my head rather
dubiously. An urban myth? Only time will tell.

The Ice Pier's Been Found!

Earlier in the year, when there was still open water
in McMurdo Sound, the Ice Pier broke away from its
moorings and drifted away. Most people thought that
it had either melted in the area or drifted far enough
north that it would melt in warmer waters. Apparently
not, as a helo mission spotted it between here and
Marble Point. It's still relatively intact, including
equipment and a Jamesway that were in place when it drifted
away. I've heard there are plans to remove the equipment
so hopefully the whole thing doesn't continue to drift
away or melt in the meantime. As it is, it's pretty
well locked into the Ice, so it should be at least a
couple of months from now. Now there is a new Ice
Pier in place at McMurdo that they hope to have ready
by the time the Re-Supply Vessel arrives in January.

Houston, We Have An Icebreaker!

Many folks that read this blog are Ice Folks, or at least interested in
Antarctica, so they were aware that the United States Antarctic Program
was in danger this year of not having a fully running operation. Why?
Because there wasn't a world class icebreaker available to break open
the channel of McMurdo Sound. This has to be done so that the fuel
vessel and supply vessel can reach McMurdo to deliver their payloads.
Without them, the program as a whole would be handicapped. This
would also affect New Zealand's Scott Base and the Amundsen-Scott
South Pole Station, which also receive supplies and fuel because of
these vessels.

Years ago, the USAP depended on the Polar Star and Polar Sea U.S. Coast
Guard icebreakers to do the job. However, the Polar Sea is being
decommissioned and the Polar Star is being retrofitted and is not
available for a few more years. The past few years, the Swedish vessel,
The Oden, did the job nicely. However, it's been called back to the
Baltic Sea by the Government of Sweden and isn't available either. This
left the USAP without an icebreaker.

Today, it was announced that the Russian icebreaker, "Vladimir Ignatyuk"
has been contracted and will be performing the task. Most folks with the
program are very relieved. Everyone that was supposed to have a job,
will have a job. All the science projects that were supposed to be held,
will continue and overall a big sigh of relief was had by all.


Here is information about the icebreaker from the Murmansk Shipping
Company, which owns and operates it:

Diesel Icebreaker "Vladimir Ignatyuk"

SHIP DETAILS:
Ship Name VLADIMIR IGNATYUK
Built JUL 1983
VICTORIA YARD, BURRARD YARRROWS CORPORATION, CANADA
IMO No. 8127804
Ship Type MULTIFUNCTIONAL ICEBREAKER-TOW
Flag RUSSIAN
Port of Registry MURMANSK
Class KMICEBREAKER7 [1]
Classification Society RUSSIAN MARITIME REGISTER OF SHIPPING
Ice class ICEBREAKER7 (at d < 7.7) Features ANCHOR HANDLING STANDBY-VESSEL FIRELIGHTING CAPACITY HELIDECK - BELL 214 DESIGN HELICOPTER BERTH TOTAL 34 TONNAGE / DIMENSIONS DWT 2 076 Length (OA) 88 GT (Gross Tonnage) 4 391 Length (BP) 75 NT (Net Tonnage) 1 317 Breadth extreme 17.82 DISPLACEMENT 7 077 Depth moulded 10 Draft 8.3

MACHINERY
MAIN ENGINE (4) Stork Werkspoor Diesel. 5600 hp each
RPM 600
PROPULSION POWER 23,200 hp
AUXILLARY DIESELS 2 x 750 KWT each
THRUSTERS BOW/AFT Abt 1100 KWT/CPP 500 HP
FRESH WATER MAKERS 15 tones/day
PROPELLERS 2 C.P.P 4 blades
BOLLARD PULL Over 200 tones
AUX POWER 2 shaft generators. 1000kw each
2-750 kw diesel generators

CAPACITIES
AT DECK DIMENSIONS 37m x 13m
DECK CARGO CAPACITY 800 tones
BULK BARITE/CEMENT CAPACITY 34 m3 x 3 = 102 m3
MARINE GAS OIL, DMA (90%) 1760 m3
BALLAST WATER 1432 m3
DRILL WATER 194 m3
PORTABLE FRESH WATER 41 m3
LUBOILS TANKS 48 m3

DECK EQUIPMENT
TUGGER/WINCH 2 x 10 tones pull
CAPSTAN 2 x 12.5 tones pull
TOWING AND WORK WINCHES Complete Van der Gessen Electric winch package. Tow winch has a no­mi­nal bra­ke holding ca­pa­ci­ty of 450 ton­nes and is equip­ped with fric­ti­on rol­ler­set. Tow wire is 77mm diame­ter and is 1500m long. Doub­le an­chor handl­ing winch can ge­ne­ra­te 200 ton­nes line pull (all stall). Unit has a wa­ter cooled high speed bra­ke.
DECK CRANES 2 x 5 tones SWL Hagglund (can be rigges for limited 10 tones lifts)

LIFE-SAVING
LIFE BOAT Enclosed Watercraft Model 7.8 m
RESCUE BOAT Rigid Bottom Inflatable Lucas Model 700 D

CONTACTS
If you need more information, please, Contact Chartering / Operations Department.
Tel.: +7 (815 2) 48-10-78
Fax: +7 (815 2) 48-10-65

SCHEME

Open Water

We have a phenomenon here this season called
"Open Water". Although McMurdo is located on the
shores of McMurdo Sound (which is the southernmost
place on Earth that a ship can be sailed), we rarely
see more than a few acres of open water. McMurdo
Sound is usually covered by an ice sheet. This same
ice sheet makes it easy to travel around on trucks,
snow machines, etc. However, this season, more and
more ice has blown out and many square miles of water
are visible. In fact, a sailboat was seen just north
of here earlier in the week! No one knows who it
belonged to, but it didn't sail all the way here, even
though it could have. I hope even more ice finds its
way north of here. Call me greedy, but it would be
wonderful to see!

Oops

Last year, it was determined that the old Ice Pier
had lived it's life and during the winter and early
summer, a new Ice Pier was constructed. The Ice
Pier is used just like a pier elsewhere in the world,
but it is unique in that it is made entirely...of ice!
It has a dirt covering, but it literally floats on top
of the water. While the new Ice Pier is functioning
well and serving it's purpose, the old Ice Pier is
sitting off to the side while they decide what to do
with it. Well...today something bad happened and the
mooring failed. The old Ice Pier started drifting away,
and into the middle of the channel. This is blocking
the Fuel Tanker from leaving. I've heard they are
already moving the pier back into it's old position.
However, where else in the world would something like
this happen? Antarctica is a unique place indeed!

Same Season - Different Purpose

Click on Photo To Enlarge

I found this photo on the Common computer drive here
at McMurdo. It shows the difference only a few months
can make in the activities down here. Where there was
once an Ice Runway, there is now a shipping channel!
I stood on that ice many times this season and it actually
supported a small town dedicated to supporting the planes
taking of and landing here. However, in December, the
ice begins to thin and will no longer support aircraft. It
begins thin enough that Ice Breakers can plow through
it, creating a channel for ships to arrive. In the second
photo is the research vessel, Nathanial B. Palmer, on it's
way to dock at the ice pier at McMurdo. This water is
hundreds of feet deep here and still just above freezing.
I'd hate to try to land a plane on it now!

A Sense of Scale

A few days ago, I posted about open water
and how nice it would be if more ice blew out
of McMurdo Sound. Someone took this photo
from the top of Observation Hill and it gives
you a pretty good idea of how much ice would
have to blow out for McMurdo Sound to be
ice-free. A lot! Those mountains are about
70 miles away so about 70 miles of ice headed
north would take a pretty big gust of wind!

More Open Water

It's ironic that during one of the coldest times
of the season, more and more ice in McMurdo Sound
and Winter Quarters Bay gives way and brings a sight
we don't see very often. Open Water. Granted,
it took the Oden Icebreaker to begin the process,
but over the last few days, more and more water
is visible. Over the past few seasons, very little
ice left McMurdo Sound. Although I doubt it will
happen this year, the Sound has been blown completely
free of ice. The last time this happened was over
a decade ago. McMurdo's site was actually chosen
many years ago because it was the farthest point
south on the continent where a sea-faring vessel
could anchor. That still holds true, and this
year's ships have had no problem getting to us.

Ob Hill Loop

Overlooking McMurdo is Observation Hill...or Ob Hill
for short. It stands 750 feet above sea level and
provides a wonderful view of the surrounding area.
On this night however, I didn't climb Ob Hill...I
hiked around the base of it, on the Ob Hill Loop.
This is one of several fun hikes that make up the
Ross Island Trail System. At 3:00 in the morning
there are very few folks to share the trail with so
I found myself alone while making this interesting
hike.


Hiking around the base is a bit of a misnomer. In
most cases one walks across it, about halfway between
the summit and McMurdo Sound, far below. See the line
about halfway up in this photo? That's the trail. Not
a lot of room for error, especially since the trail is
less than a foot wide for most of it's length. When
I told Lynn afterwards that I hiked this trail by myself
(which is totally within the rules), she told me she was
glad she didn't know because she would have been a nervous
wreck!


On the backside there is a small crater that holds a
tiny pond. I had no idea this was here before I saw it.


Most of the trail meanders a bit, with lots of switchbacks
to cover elevation rises and falls.


Although there isn't any life along the trail (Characteristic
of all of Ross Island), there were some areas that seemed
even more barren than others, containing thousands of
square feet of volcanic cinders.


From one point, one gets a great view of Scott Base,
seen on the edge of the Ice Shelf. The fog was pretty
heavy, making it feel very "Brigadoon-ish".


Along one section there were bleached penguin bones
scattered along the cinders. Skuas apparently take
their penguin prey here for dinner and only the bones
remain.


The wind does some weird and powerful things to the
rocks, causing strange formations.


I found it really interesting to see all of the
different colors that were present in the volcanic
rock that makes up Ob Hill.


I knew I had reached the end of the trail when I saw
the trail marker sign showing the beginning if coming
from the other direction.

It was a great hike. It was really really nice to have
complete silence away from town and even have my adreneline
flow a few times. Well worth the couple of hours to
commune with nature.

The Khlebnikov is Stuck!

Pictured in this photo I took several years
ago, and a frequent visitor to McMurdo Sound,
the Kapitan Khlebnikov is stuck in the ice in
the Weddell Sea. It's holding 105 tourists,
including a film crew from the BBC. Apparently,
no one is in any danger, but they've been there
for seven days now.

Flooding The Transition

This isn't a current picture, but you'll get the idea.
Every winter, Fleet Ops is tasked with Flooding the
Transition. What is this you ask? Ok...first the
Transition, or it's official name, The VXE-6 Transition.
It's the area where land and sea ice meet and can be very
broken, rough and choppy. That's where Fleet Ops comes
in. Every year, a road is built over the Transition.
Most years it serves as the jumping off point of the
Pegasus Shortcut Road, cutting the trip to Pegasus Field
almost in half. It also goes to the Ice Runway that is
built during WINFLY. However, the Ice Runway won't be
built this year, so it makes the road doubly important
as the main "expressway" to Pegasus. I always wondered
why the Transition had to be flooded. It's in Ice already
after all. So while eating lunch today with Nick who works
in Fleet Ops and is one of the guys flooding the Transition,
I asked him...why? His quick answer...to make it smooth.
Simple as that. Kind of like spreading new asphalt onto
a road to make it more drivable. Only in this case, water
is used to "flood" it. After it's flooded, layer after
layer of snow is bulldozed on top of the Ice to give it
thickness. It seems odd to add Ice to a place that is nothing
less than the iciest place on Earth. But that's exactly what
they do. And to do this, they add a million gallons of water.
Yes...a Million...with a big "M". No exaggeration. It seems
like its a waste of water, but it really isn't. We get our
water directly from the sea, where it is processed using
reverse osmosis to make it drinkable. They're just placing
processed sea water back into the sea. All of this to make
a much smoother road...oh I forgot to say...It will melt and
become impassable by mid-December...one slushy pothole. I
guess it's job security for Fleet Ops. Kind of like filling
in the potholes back home every spring.

Pesky Power Lines

Some of the best scenery in this area is nowhere near
McMurdo, but miles and miles away across McMurdo Sound.
Unfortunately, most of it can't be photographed easily
and without some major effort involved. The trouble is,
the one thing that makes McMurdo 2008 much different than
pre-McMurdo 1908 is the presence of power lines. Lots of
power lines. You can't escape them. Yes, they bring
light and happiness to our existence, but they wreck havoc
on photography. Nothing can be buried below ground since
the ground is too frozen and rocky to do so. As a result
our forest of power lines are both a blessing and a curse.

Troubles at Black Island

I had one of those days yesterday at MacOps where things
seemed to happen from beginning to end. Things weren't
happening to me...just things happening during my shift.
While wrapping up the transfer of the Medical patient back
to the Nathanial B. Palmer, we received a call from the IT
department that the ventilation system had dropped at Black
Island and it was getting difficult to remotely operate
the equipment there. Almost immediately a Helo transport
was arranged for 1600 hours and when our friend Antz got
out there, it looks like he had to shut the system down to
begin fixing the problem. This caused us to lose communications
completely on the station except for Iridium phones and a
more difficult method of connecting through the NZ lines at
Scott Base.

"A satellite dish problem at Black Island has caused all
McMurdo Off-continent communications to fail".

My boss, the Site Manager, came to Mac Ops to call his
boss in Denver via Iridium to tell him all was well and
we were still here, albeit hard to contact. About an
hour later, comms was restored, but it sounds like they're
going to have to replace some equipment that helps them
run the Communications center via remote control.


Black Island is about 25 miles due south of McMurdo and
is fairly easy to reach (if you have a helicopter).
Otherwise it's a 7 hour drive over treacherous and
bumpy frozen ice, travelling over McMurdo Sound. On
a clear day, you can just see it as a tiny dot on the
horizon from McMurdo. It's one of the most important
facilities in the area though. Communications signals
from McMurdo bounce off the satellite dish at Black
Island and up to space, coming down in Australia.
This process is reversed for incoming communications.
This includes phone, several types of radio, television,
email, internet...the whole works. We are far enough
north that we can "see" the correct communications
satellites on the horizon, while the South Pole, which
is 800 miles farther south, is out of these satellites'
range. So when something goes wrong at Black Island,
it takes us back to the old days in a hurry.