Thanksgiving Saturday

At McMurdo, we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday on the Saturday and Sunday closest to the the third Thursday of November.  Normally, we get only Sundays off but for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays, we get a second day off.


Workmates getting snazzy for the holiday weekend



That's how we roll in Southern Hemisphere Information Technology

For Thanksgiving, we have a fancy, dress-up meal with assigned seatings at 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 PM.  For the past three years, the band Condition Fun has played our Thanksgiving gig later that evening.  Condition Fun is a band that started in 2005 by Sandwich and Bill.  Sandwich isn't her real name, but it might as well be...no one knows her real name anymore.  Sandwich and Bill wrote catchy tunes on guitar and tuba (yep, we even have a tuba at McMurdo) about the unusual vehicles here in town - the pickles (Case M4K forklifts, which are painted pickle green), Ivan the Terrabus (a big tire Foremost bus), mattracks (Ford trucks with triangular tracked wheels, and Pisten Bullys (tracked snow "pods" often used for grooming ski-trails at resorts).  They had friends join them on different tunes and played open mic evenings at the Coffee House.

Several years ago, Condition Fun decided to re-group and add drums, keyboard and bass.  I was asked to play drums and Ralph joined on keys.  The four of us have been playing together for the past three years.  The bass has been played by a rotating group of scientists and stand-ins.  The heavier sound leant itself well to doing more rock tunes and we added some cover songs with revised lyrics, like C-17 (our military airplanes) instead of "Sweet Caroline"  ("C-17, you're a really big airplane.  So big! So big! So big!") and 155 is Blue (referring to building 155, which they painted Ikea blue) to the tune of  "Nothing Compares to You". 




Susan rockin' the bass

The idea is to make people smile and poke fun at some of the ridiculous things that happen around here.  I guess it is sort of a Weird Al Yankovic concept.  It goes over well on Thanksgiving night because the crowd enjoys mellow entertainment after the big tryptophan fest.

Our friend, Kish, opened the show with his unique songs and thought-experiments and then Don McGlashan performed.  You could say that Don is a New Zealand legend.  He has been a big part of the Kiwi music scene since the early 90's and his work as the lead singer of The Mutton Birds yielded platinum selling albums (at least in New Zealand).  Don was invited to Antarctica by Antarctica New Zealand on an Artist and Writer grant and he ended up OPENING FOR US at our gig!  Only in Antarctica do a bunch of amateur hacks get a platinum-selling national icon as an opening act!

Kish opening the show

 

Don McGlashan




Deed of Sale

Yesterday, I received the electronic copy of the deed of sale for the house.  The deed spells out who the buyers and owners are, where they were born, where they live now, who they are or were married to and all of the official details about the location of the property.  As you might imagine, a notary office in small-town, rural France had a superbly difficult time trying to understand how to deal with an American (with a Dutch passport) and a Dutchman (born in Ethiopia) with a domicile in Alaska, but no actual house there and "living" in Antarctica and occasionally reachable in the Netherlands.  Somehow, it all worked out.

Here are the two photos I sent back to the notary's office to prove that we didn't make up the whole story.

By the way, YES, that is a lot more gray hair than you might be used to seeing.  This has been a stressful process!

Back by popular demand; Penguins.

OK you've all been asking for penguin pictures, so that is what you'll get.

Palmer Station is know for its great opportunities to see wild life and so far it has met all my expectations in that respect. There are lots of birds (that will be another post) and up until recently we had seen the occasional seal and penguin close to town. However, it is now far enough into the season that penguins are here in great numbers.



Just to get an idea of the number of penguins we're talking about.

Surrounding the station are many little islands, some of which are off limits to mere mortals (non-scientists) like myself and some of which are (partly) accessible. We have several Zodiac inflatable boats with an outboard engine that are used by the scientists or us for operational needs, and then there is the "Rec Boat", which is purely for recreational use.  The waters around Palmer have been marked on a map with a "safe boating" zone which is some 2 miles around station and markings on (is)lands indicating their level of forbiddenness. Also on this map it shows where emergency caches and landing sites are.
You need to have done the "Boating 1" course to step into a boat, and "Boating 2" course to be allowed to drive it. When the weather is good (below 20 knots winds and not to much swell) and after approval of the Boating Coordinator you can organize a boating trip. Usually there will be a announcement on the white board with some sign up spots that will fill quickly. The driver of the boat will try to get an idea of which destinations people want to go to and will drop you off or just take you along for the boat ride itself.

My destination of the day was Torgersen Island, which is really nearby, but houses some Adelie penguin colonies and half the island is accessible to mere mortals. The number one rule in dealing with wild life is that "if the animals alter their behavior" you have gone too close. Luckily, penguins have had no reason to learn to be fearful of humans and have seen many scientists come to the island, so getting close did not alter their behavior in the least bit. It was nice to just sit down and look at what they were doing. It is nesting season for them and they are busy finding the best little stones to bring to their mate at the nest site. This one individual I observed kept fetching rocks and then dropping them a couple of feet from his/her mate. I think he was daunted by the idea of having to run the gauntlet; to get to his mate he would have to pass a couple of others who would invariably do a little pecking and squeaking at him.

One of the scientists counting the penguins

A few of them had eggs already.

Skua, waiting to see if it could steal some eggs.

Hard to tell what it is, just seeing the backside.

On the island was also this beautiful Weddell (I think) seal. Just like the penguins, it was not phased at all by our presence.

The other critters that we saw were a couple of Elephant seals. The females are not unpretty, but the males remind you of why they have the name. They have a big nose and humongous torso. They are full of bloody wounds and scars, because they have had to defend their harem from other males.

Lastly, the beauty of the day was in the surroundings themselves. It certainly is not as sunny here as in McMurdo, but when there is some sun peeking in between the clouds it makes for beautiful light. The brash ice has such beautiful geometrical shapes that I am reminded of my dad's collection of fine glass art. If it were up to me this blog would be filled with just these dreamy forms, but I have done my best to make it just a small selection.

Meanwhile, back in France...

The notary has signed the final act of sale on our behalf and as of today, PP (pronounced "pay pay" in French) is OURS!

Home Sweet Home!

Baby Seal Video from Henry Kaiser

Henry Kaiser has worked many years in the United States Antarctic Program as a diver and videographer in support of several different biologic research groups.  He is also a musican and composer.  He often uses his compositions to provide the sound track to the beautiful underwater videos he takes here in McMurdo Sound.  Some of this footage has appeared in Werner Herzog's films "Encounters at the End of the World" and "The Wild Blue Yonder".

Incidentally, the band Condition Fun, for which I play drums, was lucky enough to have him join us for one song at the Crary Lab Grantee Social (otherwise know as the Beaker Ball).  He played a rippin' guitar solo and sounded great!

Recently, Henry posted this video to Youtube.  Enjoy!

This video gives a really good introduction to Weddell seals and also has underwater footage from Henry Kaiser.

Inside the Historic Antarctic Huts

When I wrote the post on Cape Royds, I forgot that Google has created the opportunity for the world to see inside some of the historic huts of Antarctica.

Here is the link to the "street view" of the hut at Cape Royds: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/gallery/antarctica/shackletons-hut-cape-royds-on-ross-island.html

This one is for Robert Scott's Hut at Cape Evans, a common recreational trip (at least in past seasons before our Deltas (large-tire vehicles) all broke down and we had enough mechanics on station to repair them. http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/gallery/antarctica/scotts-hut-cape-evans-on-ross-island.html

Passenger Delta

Actually, I just discovered that not only are the huts on Google Street View, but so are the Crary Science Center (where all of our scientists work), South Pole Station and the Berg Field Center (BFC), where scientists and field support personnel get their outdoor gear for field camp work.  The BFC has also been known as the Building Full of Chicks or the Building Full of Caffeine depending on who is working there each season.

Check out the fabulous and in-depth images here:  http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/gallery/antarctica/

When nature calls in nature

You probably haven't ever wondered how we deal with going to the bathroom in Antarctica but this blog post will explain that it is way more complicated than you might imagine.  Skip this post if you are squeamish about the realities of dealing with bodily waste.

In an attempt to mitigate the environmental impact of thousands of scientists and support staff leaving pee and poo all over this icy continent, the Antarctic Conservation Act requires us to collect all of our bodily waste for disposal off-continent.  We do a great job of complying with this requirement in almost all locations we (the US Antarctic Program) inhabit.  If we are recreating off-station, we bring pee bottles and funnels (for women, only, of course).  At field camps, the carpenters rig up special outhouses.

Having lived in Alaska, I'm no stranger to outhouses.  Most outhouses in Alaska have quarter moons carved into the door.  This harkens back to the days when there were separate outhouses for men and women.  Men's outhouses had a sun depicted on the door - representing Helios, the masculine god of the sun.  Women's outhouses had a moon depicted on the door - representing the moon goddess, Luna or Selene.  At some time in history, they decided to economize and build just one outhouse and they (whoever "they" were) decided to keep the women's outhouses, thus the moon symbol you see on outhouses today.  In Antarctica, however, none of this is relevant.  Here's what we do....

Inside, men's urinals drain into 55 gallon barrels (called U-barrels (U for urine)).  Solid waste goes to another container and women's urine toilets are coffee cans that have to be poured into the men's urinal.  The light blue styrofoam insulation is what makes it possible to sit down on those seats in -40 degree temperatures.  Fun, huh?

Cape Royds

About once a season, I get a call or an email from someone in the IT department (my boss or someone from the Communications part of our department) to tell me that I'm going on a really cool trip in a helicopter.  This year, the destination was Cape Royds - an adelie penguin rookery and the site of one of Ernest Shackleton's huts.  Built in 1908, this wooden hut is undergoing restoration work by the Antarctic Heritage Trust of New Zealand.  The hut is off-limits during the restoration work, which last year, turned up five crates of whisky.  The whisky was distilled by Mackinlay Distillery in Scotland and has since been reverse engineered and re-created.  Incidentally, you can buy it online, but the reviews have not been all that positive.  See here:  http://www.connosr.com/reviews/mackinlays/shackletons-whisky-mackinlays-rare-old-highland/good-but-not-worth-the-hype/


Ernest Shackleton's hut - 1908

 Anyway...I didn't go out to Cape Royds to drink 100+ year-old whisky.  I went to see penguins while my IT co-workers rigged up the antenna, wiring and equipment for wi-fi and telephone (land line and VOIP phone) for the scientists who will be continuing their on-going adelie penguin studies.

The day was uncommonly calm and warm - so calm that all I could hear was the sound of thousands of penguins calling for their mates.  And warm enough for me to sunbathe, albeit in parka and wool hat.

Here are photos of the site.  You can see the hut and the penguin rookery to the right of it.  In the background is annual sea ice with the ice edge not too far off in the distance.  On the other side of the hut, is active volcano, Mt. Erebus and perhaps you can also see Barne Glacier beyond.


Adelie Rookery



Mt. Erebus



Hut, Rookery, Sea Ice and Mt. Discovery in the background

 After I returned to McMurdo, I ran into the educational outreach coordinator for this science work.  She has been working with a penguin researcher for many years and does daily blogs with school kids back in the States.  I asked her to help me understand some of what I observed at Cape Royds.  You might notice that the penguins are standing on a pile of small stones.  Those are nests.  The males come in from open water (running and sliding over the sea ice) to Cape Royds and gather stones and pebbles (lava rock from Erebus) to make a nest.  Then they make a lot of noise and flap their wings in an attempt to attract a female.  Penguins are monogamous for one year.  They might attract the same female as the year before or they might choose a new one each year.  Sometimes jilted females peck and squawk at this season's chosen mate.  In some of the photos you see birds with their wings out - these are apparently the males trying to get attention.  If you see any penguins standing on a lying down penguin, that's sex.  I did see some of that but the shots were blurry.  Sorry no penguin porn on this blog.



Penguins returning from the sea





Molted penguin feathers



My terrific colleagues - riggers Andrew and Emily