Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

Well, the new year came in ok on this side of the world. I hope it does for everyone else. The New Year is always a time of retrospection. I was thinking about my suspicion (before I got here) that McMurdo ran on coffee and diesel. We go though at least 8 tanks of coffee each morning (just for the breakfast hour). That is approximately 40 gallons. Of course that is not all the coffee consumed each morning by a long shot. It is just a comparative sampling. As far as running on diesel, the station also runs on "Mogas." "Mogas" is Antarctican for gas. Don't ask me. The select fuel of choice is however JP8 jet fuel. (Hmmmm... Fuuellll) Lots and lots of jet fuel. Those planes get thirsty. The fuel folks (fuelies) even have their own radio frequency. I have heard estimates of what diesel would cost at southpole if you take into account the distribution cost of getting the fuel to McMurdo and then to pole (by LC-130 aircraft). It is precious stuff. So, my original thought of the program running on coffee and diesel was right, but it really runs on plain old money. The program costs approximately 320 million a year. My position is that it is worth it. Those 320 million bucks buys some pretty cool dinosaur bones, meteorites, and 9 million year old ice samples (shh. it hasn't been proven yet.) and hundreds of other peaceful scientific projects.

I am working on my 2007 goals. I did pretty well on the 2006 ones considering getting to the ice was one of them. There were others that also got scratched off. The only thing I am absolutely confident about is that 2007 is going to be a great year.

Talking to the folks when I first got here they said that after Christmas it is all downhill. It will be easy and it seems like you are on your way home. The vessels come in and the pace and tone of town changes. All of these statements I personally found to be true so far. I am going to have some cool missions as we wrap things up here for the season.

I got these two pictures on yesterday's hike outside of town. The skua took a very nice bath I have on video. You can see the ODEN breaking its way through the ice over Discovery Hut on Hut Point. The ice pier is just this side of hut point. The ODEN was only about 6 miles away. Our ship will soon be in. After the ODEN the Polar Sea is following shortly after.

It is fairly easy to notice we have a lot less people on station now. The lower population causes less congestion during my daily walking commutes (mostly around the galley). The station population will grow a little bit, then ramp down quickly to 120 people slated to winter over. Feb 24 is the last flight and the offical start of winter at McMurdo. The offical start to winter for South Pole is February 14th.

The photos some ANITA one of the long distance balloons that was launched a while back http://amanda.uci.edu/~anita/

Updates to the Long Distance Ballon (LDB).

http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon4/balloon4.htm http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon4/balloon4.htm

The station mode is changing. We are changing from primarily an aviation supported group to marine supported. The Swedish ice breaker ODEN is more than halfway through the sea ice to station. They will be here is another day or so. It is pretty strange to consider that the ship will essentially be cutting a channel through our early-season ice runway where we were landing Air Force C-17s just a few week earlier. We are still hoping the sea ice will blow out to sea.

Ice breakers don't really cut through the ice. They have a hull that allows them to slide up on the ice and the ship breaks the ice by its weight. The ship goes back and forth breaking up the ice that is almost 9 feet thick. Pumps are used to transfer ballast and pump water on top of the sea ice to lubricate it so the ship can more easily move on top of the ice.

A co-worker got word that he will be on the Nathanial B. Palmer for a cruise or two after February. Getting this work on the research ships can be very competitive.

The bad news is we have a sick llama.

I went up to the ham shack last night. The 20 meter band opened up and the next thing I knew I has working the pointy end of a very large pile up. We did do some rag chewing and some of the contacts were especially fun. I will have to spend some more time up there. We have another 2 day weekend coming up for new years. I am going to volunteer in the galley, cleanup around the ham shack, and work on my movie.

This photo of a skua and her chick was given to me by a co-worker. The orca picture was taken last year in the shipping channel. The shipping channel is a cut in the sea ice made by an ice breaker in order to get the supply ships (and others) to the ice pier here at McMurdo. The Swedish Ice Breaker "Oden" is cutting the shipping channel this year. We are still hoping the sea ice will breakup and move out leaving a liquid McMurdo Sound.

Work is slow. We are between science teams I guess. I lot of scientist have headed home in time for the holidays. Some have just headed out in the field. I am fixing shortwave transceivers today. The shortwaves are primarily used as backup comms for the field parties. Primary comms are generally done with iridium satellite phones. The HF radios get issued with the following materials; a durable case, 2 batteries, a radio, a solar charger, a microphone-handset, a tuned dipole and instructions. Good luck! The radios are good for 20 watts which is fine for this purpose. You can contact Pole or McMurdo depending on the frequency you select. We use 5 different frequencies. Of course we have very good radios systems at both Pole and McMurdo stations.

I snagged this pic from our common drive here on station. A bunch of penguins came to town the other day. I missed them though.

We find ourselves talking about our favorite foods that we can't get (or enough of) on station. Pizza, chicken wings, pickled herrings, and nachos came up today. It is a strange assortment of folks on station that’s for sure as part of these discussions. I was talking to a Dining Assistant (DA) last night that has retired from a telecom job and lives in Mountain View CA (near Stanford) with no bills, and is now washing dishes and resupplying napkins. The pay for a DA is almost nothing. I think it is less than minimum wage. This brings me to the very arcane laws here. I mean very arcane. You have to figure a jurisdiction and then argue legalities from that point. My employer is in Denver Colorado, in the US. My permanent residence is in NY. I am living on a US sponsored science base on a continent where no country owns the land and no passport is required to enter.

Work is kind of slow compared to how it has been.

This is a picture of me at Scott base a few nights ago. Thursday nights are American night, inviting us Americans over from McMurdo station. They have a store and a pub. The pub is much nicer than anything over at our base. It is more like a regular English style pub where people come and talk and it is more like a living room than a saloon.

The ham radio shelter here on station is organizationally "unowned." I was pretty disappointed about the lack of care and support for amateur radio at McMurdo. But now, I have at least one email saying a department "does not" have the resposibility of the ham station. Organizationally, it appears that having the responsibility is good if it works for you and bad if it works aganist you. And that a choices can be made in this regard. South Pole station has a Amateur radio club that has offical ties into the organization and they have an active ham radio community. It is totally different at McMurdo. A couple of us pried 20 meters open the other night with contacts in Hawaii, Japan, Pacific Maritime Mobile, Australia and New Zealand.

The other pic is our National Science Foundation station representative posing with community-made gingerbread houses at Christmas dinner. I like the the mobilehome one complete with a car getting an engine pulled.

It is Christmas on the ice. A white Christmas is pretty much inevitable I suppose although it is kind of gray and a little breezy today. There is volcanic dust blowing around a bit and it feels kind of dirty and cold outside. I opened my presents I had here and Bonnie sent me photos of the others. She didn't even have to wrap them. Our dinner last night was fairly spectacular. We had lobster tails, beef wellington and roast duck. Life is harsh in Antarctica, just not here, just not today. I went the chapel at 12:00 midnight and that was sort of weird having a midnight mass with the sun shinning thru the stained glass. There is just no getting used to that sun. I gave some sneak previews of my video I will be entering in the film festival on January 22nd. I will being doing some more editing, but I think the bulk of the work is over for now.

This morning an individual comes running up to me in the galley morning, "Charlie, Charlie", he says... I didn't recognize him at first. It took me a couple of minutes. We met early in the season and has been out in the field for the last 7 weeks. He lost a lot of weight and grew his beard. He also had a peculiar look like I was the first human he had seen. And in some ways I guess I was. He had some great stories and it was interesting watching him describe stuff and decompress over his experiences of tent fires and the night he almost died. They are back now and it sounds like they did some great science. What a difference between these science camps and the main stations. There is no comparison.

I got on the ham radio this morning and made a nice contact on the north island of New Zealand. I will be going up there later to see what else I can raise.

We had our town Christmas party last night. Interesting finger foods, music and company in the Vehicle Maintenance Facility (VMF).

I have two days off. I am primarily working on my video for the McMurdo film festival. The criteria is they must be less than 5 minutes, rated PG-13 and must be edited (and primarily filmed) in Antarctica. I also plan on getting up to the ham shack with a spectrum analyzer to track down some interference. The South Pole Station has a brand new ham station. it sounds like they have been getting out to the US occasionally. So I will be using that station the 7 days I am at pole. I will also be publishing a time I will be in front of the webcam when I get there. Somebody will have to take a screen dump of that for me. I won't be hanging around outside for hours I am sure (well maybe). It is about -40 at pole (it is summer after all). It has never been above zero F at pole so the temperature is always refered to at an absolute number..."Today it is 40", which means 40 below zero F.

On the 20th the program had a test/milestone in logistics. We had a Air Force C-17 fly from Christchurch, land in McMurdo for fuel, fly to pole, air drop 70,000 pounds of supplies turn around and fly all the way back to Christchurch. They may have to do this in the winter. They want to be prepared. The following photos show the event. I wish I had seen it in person.

I participated in a art project last night. They were looking for volunteers. It seemed strange enough, why not?

Rather than have me try and describe "the work" you can read all about it here.

http://www.stellaraxis.com/

Overall, I decided that this was an interesting way to seek into nice fashionably designed homes with nice interior decorating, fancy canapes and expensive champagne. My plan is that I can sneak in as part of a Magazine or coffee table book. My photo will be in the pages. I am hoping that my entrance will otherwise be unnoticed in these fashionble living spaces. Wish me luck. I am going in.

Whoo Hoo!. I am getting a trip to pole. (We don't often say South Pole since it is pretty much redundant). I will getting a week long visit at pole filling in for a tech who will be on R&R for a week. Sometime between 1-15 and 1-20 I will be heading down there. It will be good to see the differences between mactown and the brand new South Pole Station. I will see the dome before it gets shipped back to the states and ends up as a mueseum or a bar... or both.

I took this pic in the dry valleys a while back. Critters just get lost I guess, really lost. This is many many miles from the sea.

I went to another session of cruise ship tour guide school today. We may get a couple of ships in January.

I do miss being home for Christmas. It was choice, a tough one. I am here. The thing I don't miss is all the BS and hype about Christmas from the advertisers and all the stress and all that. There is none of it. The holiday is a lot easier to appreciate as a solitude and a personal event rather that a "made for TV" peer-pressure *not really* competitive buying frenzy it is back in the states. Give me a break already. We have a town Chistmas party in the Heavy Shop this coming Saturday night. They pull all the equipment out and wash the floor real nice. I bet you can hardly tell it is very busy heavy equipment garage. I bet you can hardly smell the diesel and gear lube.

I am headed over to Scott Base tonight as something different. Work is kind of slow. We are working on problems and fixing stuff but the consequence/fixability ratios are getting close to unity.

I have a bunch of small presents that Bonnie has shipped to me to open on Sunday.

Here are a couple more shots from Mt. Terror. It looks like I will be getting up to Mt. Erebus pretty soon. Erebus is in the background. Some one was telling me they saw some time-lapse of Erebus and the smoke coming out of the cone pulsated like a steam train. Any change in your perspective of time can be illuminating.

The other night we had our shop Christmas party, one of the guys made us all traditional Russian food and drink. We had to draw the line at that silly dance they do.

I made it up to Mt. Terror today. It was a totally different scene from the other day. It was calm and the snow had become the familiar "styrofoam packed" stuff that has a predicable rheology. We landed after a few passes and only one attempt. The helos have a problem with "contrailing" in these conditions. It can be very dangerous. The craft becomes engulfed in its own contail making visibility impossible at landing. It takes a lot of skill and experience to avoid the situation. It was expertly done. The ship was really steaming on our final approach.

After we landed we still had to climb up an ice sheet to the summit where the gear is, about 200 feet in altitude.The training with the ice ax is really appreciated... such as how to use the ice ax after you fall down a glacier face to save yourself.

It was a peak experience.

We were supposed to be dropped off and the other tech was flying to our "end user". It turned out the "end user" was totally fogged in and they couldn't land so the helo came back and landed for close support. We fixed the stuff we needed to fix but we found a couple other issues that we had to "jury rig". It took us a little longer than best case, but less than plan. The system is working.

In the photo you can see Mt. Erebus in the background. It is about 1000 ft. higher than terror but it is less difficult to land. We have equipment up there too.

When we went to leave, interestingly enough the helo wouldn't start .. Yep. It added a new scenario in my head that I had not originally considered. There is probably no other spot to land another ship up there when the parking place is taken. We all went through some head scratchers as we tried again and we got both engines on the 212 going. A good scenario to consider. We all know it now. Hiking down the hill was obvious... but to where? And how do we get the mechanics and gear to the disabled ship? The ship is definately not going to be safe up there for long the way the weather is around here.

We all had a swearing session at one point on the mountain today, the pilot, techs, everybody. It was probably only -30 up on the mountain. Warm by Terror standards. The altitude effects are immediate; the air is so thin in Antarctica to begin with. Hypoxia is all part of it. Knowing the early signs and pointing them out in your teammates is always a source of entertainment. The swearing is a lot more of a release rather than a dialog.

A lot of people have been to Antarctica. Not many people have been on Mt Terror.

Today is Sunday again. I got up early and walked up oberservatio hill before 7 AM today. The cross at the top has a great inscription.

From Wikipedia:

Observation Hill is a large hill (750 ft/230m) adjacent to McMurdo Station in Antarctica and commonly called "Ob Hill" (prononuced Obie). It is frequently climbed in order to get good viewing points across the continent. Regular clear skies give excellent visibility.

Robert Falcon Scott's party was found by a search party led by the surgeon, Dr. Edward Atkinson. They were found dead by the members of the base camp, who took their photographic film, scientific specimens, and other materials. They had to leave Scott and his men in their tent, and later parties could not locate the campsite, since that area had been covered in snow. So Scott's party eventually ended up drifting out to sea as part of an iceberg as the ice shelf made its way to the sea.

The search party then returned to what is now known as McMurdo and climbed Observation Hill. There they erected a large wooden cross, inscribed the names of the fatal party and a short quote from an Alfred Tennyson poem which reads "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Climbing ob hill by yourself early in the morning is a great simple pleasure. It is not easy to climb, first of all. The view is fantastic and the solitude and respite from town, welcome. It took me less than an hour. My clothes were still in the dryer when I got back.

I have been working on my 5 minute movie for the annual McMurdo Film Festival. I am happy with the results so far. I have a lot more editing to do.

The building in the picture is the National Science Foundation administration building on campus, the Chalet. It overlooks my shop, bldg 159, AKA; the puzzle palace.

The ANITA payload launched the other day. The next payload (BLAST) may launch tomorrow. You can check out ANITA tracking here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon8/balloon8.htm

Looks like we are going to try for Mt. Terror again Monday. It may take weeks to get up there waiting for weather and willing souls.

The first picture is an area we have been blasting at to get ready for an addition to the building there. At 4:30 PM almost everyday we get the "kaboom". Blasting is also used to hunt for fossils. The fossil hunters look in very particular strata. Dynamite makes the job practical.

The second picture is observation hill here at McMurdo. I will walk up there tommorow for fun. There is a running race up and down "ob" hill on Christmas day. I may participate if my ankle feels up to it.

Today was an exciting day. I seem to have a lot of those here. We flew up to Mt. Terror (12,000 feet) today. We tried to land three times... and it was time to go home. Mt. Terror is named after an early exploring ship. It was not named after any modern-day attribute. We remind ourselves of that fact frequently. My high altitude training comes into play in very practical ways. I learned a lot in that class and other classes in a short amount of time. Me and my co-workers often do the helo flight pre-briefs as a group discussion kind of thing now, each of us sharing and being moderated by the helo techs who really do the briefs. I took about 300 pictures today. I will post some close ups of Mt. Erebus since I got a bunch as we flew by.

I went to a great science lecture the other night by Allan Allsworth. He is a very experienced explorer whom I met early in the season. He has been out in the field fossil hunting and just returned to town. He brought the latest fossils from the dry valleys. It is very impressive. These fossils are all very exciting. Every single one of them.

This is a pic of blood falls near lake Bonney. It is red from the minerals (Iron). It is pretty from the air. I did not take this pic. I snagged it from our common drive here on station. I do have a pic or two in my collection but only from the air.

The skua gets a bad rap. This bird is somehow considered to be of poor moral character because it eats penguin chicks and eggs. It is a lot better than what humans do. The skua is really quite amazing. They live 30 to 40 years and of course they are pretty tough birds. They get lighter in color as they get older. There was a skua about 30 feet away from the helo when we took off the other day. I thought for sure he was going to get blown away. Somehow this bird (only very slightly ruffled)stayed on the nest.

Today I am off to the top of Mt. Terror. It can get cold up there of course. The weather really needs to be watched. None of the helo pilots like to fly up there. I think they really do like it, but they make it a bigger deal as sort of a self-created drama.

Dave Infantine retires from work today from Raymond and before that, IBM. Congratulations Dave.

It was kind of a gray day for being out in the field. They all can't be brilliant. We went up to Cape Bird which is a very large penguin rookery. I didn't get the time I hoped with the penguins since we were having problems with the equipment, but I still got some really nice shots. I took 219 photos and movies today. The penguins are definately fun to watch. They walk around and they look like they have some place to go and others follow only to all turn around and decide there wasn't anything to see there after all.

I am told the population is approximately 40,000 birds this year. That's a lot of guano no matter what the breed of bird.

The trip to Cape Bird was cancelled yesterday due to weather (visability). I just checked the helo schedule and we are planning a launch in 2 hrs. Cape Bird has one of the largest Penguin rookeries around. We are setting up some internet access for the scientists today.

The picture of the seal was taken the other day at Hutton Cliffs. I picked the photo off the common drive here on station.

I volunteered in the galley this morning for 4 hours. Time went fast. I cut and arranged fruit for the weekly monster brunch we have here at McMurdo every Sunday. Since I have professional cooking experience I was not relegated to the dish tank, although that would have been fine. I will do it again. The experience reminded me that there is so much for people to explore if they just step off their normal course just a little bit (anywhere on the planet they may be). I am now an insider in the galley. I really need to be conscience about my job since I get to travel and go on mountain tops and so on. Most folks on station are pretty much experiencing the station. They do not get the trips that I do. Greatness starts with gratitude. Gratitude starts with goodness. You can't fake it.

I am working on a great presentation when I return. I have music. I have images. I have video. I have the public speaking skills. The combination is working out well.

In the following satellite image of the Ross Sea area you can see the sea ice is breaking up (if you had seen this before). The island in the lower left is my home, Ross Island. Mt. Terror is an old volcano on Ross Island (one of the three points you can see on the island). I am planning to be on the summit Tuesday. The dry valleys are off to the left, primarily at the nine o'clock position. It takes about 40 minutes to fly to the dry valleys in a helo. That will give you some scale.

The other little guy below is getting a lot of attention form some scientists this year. I had lunch with them (the scientists) a while back.

Today we went up to a NASA building to peak the antennas for the Erebus Volcano cam. We squeaked about 4 additional dB out of the signal. The golfball is the radome for satellite tracking. You will see the web cam is not functional at this time. I am not sure if they are going to feed the video I worked on today to the web or not. There are alot of good movies and what not at this site though. http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/mevo.html

The other pic is of my boss and a rigger who did the hard part up the tower. All I had to do was setup the Spectrum Analyzer and give adjustment instructions over the handheld radio to the riggers at our site and atop the volcano.

Next week looks exciting. I will be going to a large penguin rookery Monday and the the summit of Mt. Terror Tuesday (weather permitting).

I have volunteered in the galley Sunday morning. That will be different and fun. I told myself I was going to pitch in as I always like to do.. so I am.

Today was an interesting day. I got up at 4:30, had an hour teleconference. Went to work. Flew to Mt. Aztec and got picked up 3 hours later. The geology, rock formations, ventifacts and views were great. The most interesting thing about this site (in the dry vallys at 6500 ft.) is that it is a new site. It is likely that only 6 people have ever been here. I know them all. We repaired the repeater (I was paged Saturday night when it went down) and it is back up and running.

An Astronaut stopped in the shop this afternoon. Don Pettit who spent 3 months about the Space Sation is working with the meteor hunters down here. He stopped by in particular to discuss his needs for a pilot project for the just-announced moon base. They are planning on building a pilot moon base here. Why build it? It is already here. Sounds interesting. You never know who you sit down to dinner with down here. A world class scientist, an Astronaut, Mt. Everest guide, they are all here.

The vehicle is a .... well uh, I'm not sure, but it is specially designed for....uh... Antarctica! Notice the name on the vehicle. Almost all the vehicles get a name. The rigger truck is called "Rigger Mortise". There are pickles (forklifts) called heckle and jeckle. The names go on and on.

Some detail oriented folks noticed fans and open windows in some pictures I have posted. Today you can see both. I am at lunch on a particularly nice day in town. The palm was added for an added touch. The cool drink is a typical Antarctican cool drink, water in a Nalgene bottle. The local custom for the cool drink is usually served frozen, often solid. I have an insulator for my Nalgene bottle with a few chemical hand warmers ready to help keep it liquid. Interesting enough it is very difficult to melt water from snow if you don't have a little water to start the process (when it is colder than 20 below out). The water actually will get a nasty burned taste. This is absolutely true.

Here is a borrowed picture of a C-17 landing on the sea ice a couple of days ago. We get about two C-17 flights a week. During the summer season we have about four or so LC-130 flights to the pole a day. There will be approximately 54 C-17 flights (from New Zealand) and about 300 LC-130 flights (to the pole). There will be approximately 400 containers on the cargo ship when it arrives. Approximately 1/10 of the total cargo movement to/from the ice is done on the C-17s.

Here is a public domain picture I snagged of the Penguin rookery at Cape Royds. We have some radio equipment there, maybe I will get up there. There is a Shackelton hut up there from the Nimrod expidition.

Work seemed particularly busy today. I was in a weather satelite radome for a while and worked on all sorts of other problems with a huge varity or radios and problems. It tired me out today.

I am still thinking quite a bit of why I am here. It is not obvious yet. I have had some great insight and inspiration, but there is more. I know there is. There is a very clear purpose that has led me here. It will become clear. I will go to the library again tonight.

Its Tuesday Morning here. I was up top of Crater Hill a couple of times yesterday. Crater Hill is part of T-site (kind of). It is the larget peak adjacent to McMurdo. It is a restricted area for most because of all the transmitters and what not. It is actually quite nice. There is a crater on top as shown is the first picture. There is a nice little pond that is frozen solid. I suspect it is deeper than 10 feet. The ground is difficult to walk on. it is very irregular. Some of it gives and some of it doesn't.

The second picture shows what is left behind from the Ice Runway. Early in the Season the Ice Runway (which is on sea ice very close to town) handles all the air traffic. Once the sea ice starts getting a little soft they move primary flights operations to Williams Airfied (willy) some miles from town on the ice shelf. There is also another ice runway on more solid sea ice called Pegasus which gets the C-17 flights from Christchurch.

Mt. Erebus is the active volcano near McMurdo. Some days there is a little steam and some days there is a considerably more. It burps out bombs and ash fairly regularly.

The last shot was taken with a level camera out the window of the Pisten Bully. The hill up Crater hill so so steep you cannot get up it with a wheeled vehicle or a matt track. Only a pisten buly or a dozer can make it. The lines in the photo are the defroster lines in the side window of the Pisten Bully. The hill is so steep if feels that teh Pisten Bully may flip over backwards on the way up.

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