A busy time in MacTown

Since we last talked allot has happened here in MacTown. On Tuesady we had 75 Navy Cargo Handlers arrive and invade the galley. They will be handling most of the ship offload duties. Also some people have already started heading out to the states and most of the winter over staff is here on station already. So we have lots of new faces, and some that we saw during WINFLY before last years winter people left.

Also the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel was in port for three days. We had a very nice tour of the ship, both the science area and the engine rooms. Today at noon the fuel vessel docked up to the ice pier and by 3pm they were offloading their 9 million gallons of fuel. This will take about 2 days to complete, and then they will take on 5 million gallons of sea water for ballast for the trip home. This will take another 1-1/2 days.

Right after that will be the cargo ship. They should be in port on Sunday sometime. We, as will most departments will be going to 12 hours shifts to support the offload. This will go on 24/7 until it is complete. Because of this I will have two days off this weekend, and Paula will get Sun. and Mon. of. So she will get to see the Super Bowl live and I will get to tape it and watch it later. And we don't get any comercials here so we won't see all of the high paid super bowl commercials.

And I will leave you with some good photos from our Sunday cruise.

13 days left.
R.J.

Hey! We really did go on a Three Hour Tour today!

Well if you didn't get enough of me after the last 1423 word essay (would someone please call any of my high school English teachers, I believe that I made it through school in just under 1300 words total) here is another review of a big day here in MacTown.

Today was cruise day. What is cruise day you ask, well it is when we all go for cruises. Duh! 400 people from town get ranomly selected to go on a three hour crusie on the Coast Guard Polar Sea. This is called ironically a 'Morale Cruise'. Ironically because as much as it helps morale, it also brings out most of the whiners in town that don't like how it is run, exspecially if they don't make the list. So there were two lists with 200 people on each, one for the 8am crusie and one for the 2pm cruise. And then there was a list of 100 alternates in case the full 200 didn't show up.

Well I was selected for the 2pm cruise and Paula was not on any list. So she would not get to be on either cruise. And so Paula decided to walk down to the Ice Pier with me and see if she could scale the side of the ship while no one was watching.

Here I am standing in line with 200 of my closest friends.



This is the indoor helicopter hanger/basketball court. They can fit 2 helos into the hanger. None were present today. We all were huddled into the hanger for safety instructions and generally wasting time and meking everyone sweat.



Please note here that I am in the photo. This is their one piece fire gear. All they need now is some sewn on booties to look really stupid. I don't know what the reason for the one piece suits are but that is what they have. I didn't take a photo of the MSA cartidge masks that convert CO to O3. The one crew member proudly told me that they would soon be switching to SCBA's. Welcome to the 1980's!?!? I know nothing about shipboard firefighting other than if you wait long enought it will sink and then the fire will go out. So I am just kidding with them.

Ok, so the reason that I am in the last photo is beacuse Paula is taking it. She did scale the side of the ship!!!



Here we are with the Polar Sea mascot. You can't even tell that Paula's clothes are all wet from swimming the channel.



Ah, a Diet Pepsi at last. It has been about 5 months that I have been waiting for this. I bought another one just to bring it back to town. It only has to last me until Feb. 14th.



Anyone need some Ice! Hey Al, TC is still in Antarctica. (Not you Burf, sorry for the confusion)



Here is a photo of the open channel. It is very wide at this point, probably 1000 to 1500 feet.


Here is the highlight of the day. Did I mention that I am watching ebay for a used Ice Breaker? The Captain took three runs into the ice to show us what it is like to break ice. That was GREAT! We were about 50 feet back from the bow of the ship and as the ship hit the ice it wasn't a sudden jerk, but instead we suddenly started going up. We would raise about 5 feet as the ship ran up onto the ice. And just as the ice edge would go past where we were standing, you would hear some loud cracking and then the ship would start to drop straight down. And you could watch this huge block crack off and get pushed out into the channel.

If you closely at this photo you can see the V on the left where the hull had ridden up on the ice. All of the broken ice that you see here is from one pass into the ice. Very Cool.



This is a Russian based cruise ship that is visiting the McMurdo area. I really know nothing about it, but it was cool to see. And they waived at us.



More ice cubes. Some of these are the size of our house. We took a walk down under the deck to listen to the ship go through the broken ice. Even though it is broken ice, it is still very hard hitting.



A profile view of the right side of the ship. I remembered the nautical terms for about 20 minutes. They are long gone now.



And Paula allong the right side as well. Did I mention the whinners before. Well the real reason that Paula got on the cruise was that so many of the 200 people on the list didn't show up, and so many of the 100 on the alt. list didn't show up that everyone standing around on the pier got to go on the cruise. Ok, now raise your hands if you really believed that she scaled that side of the ship. (Please note that my hand is up now.)



Here is a view of the upper deck. There is a stupid naudical term for this as well, it is the upper deck here.



And you all felt sorry for her when you thought she wouldn't make it on the ship. She has been on the Polar Star once before as well as on a Russian ice breaker back in the day.



Some wildlife was in the area, We saw several Minki whales surfacing along the trip, as well as a few Emperor penguins swimming in the channel. We have photos of seals sleeping. They are much easier to photograph.



A nice view off of the front of the ship with a good view of Ob hill in the background.



And a nice view of the left side of the ship. I like the open water trail where the breaker has been. The ship is 399' long and 83' wide. That is a wide channel.









And back to the Ice Pier we are.




This is a nice little chunck of ice left over from the ice cube that blocked the pier last week. Notice the vertical distance above the water line. That is a big chuck of ice underneitht.





And we round out the post with a few more photos of the Ice Pier. You may have noticed the five 6" hoses running off of the pier over the bridge and to the pipeline. These are for the offload of the fuel tanker. The tanker should be in port on Thursday of this week. But first on Monday the science ship the Palmer will be in port for 3 days.

That is all for today.
16 days left.
R.J.

Back home from Antarctica. Well I have been back home for a week now.

Well after 5 months I finally have my Hero shot from Antarctica! This proves that I have made it to the actual continent. That’s all I need. Our trip to Marble Point was very relaxing and enjoyable. Not a heavy workload which was very nice and lucky.

This post will be one of my longest. So Burf don’t go over break time reading this and Kate you might have to keep the boys through lunch to get this one done.

Here is a little tour of the Marble Point facility. This is the main house; it has an office, kitchen, dining room, living room and two bedrooms. It is your average mobile home. But remember this is in the middle of the most environmentally protected land in the world. So some things are different than back home. The barrels that you see in the foreground are full of urine. Think that is disgusting? Guess what is in the barrel around the other side of the building next to the outhouse. You get the idea.



This is the workshop and the generator house. The red building is the workshop and the white building is where the two 30kW generators are housed. We had to finish up a 2000 hour preventative maintenance service on each, which included setting valve lash and some other items. Also these generators have been modified to run on an electronic governor system and one of them is malfunctioning.



Next on our tour is the guest house. It is a nice little two bedroom place with sleeping for 8. Hope you are all good friends when it is full. Luckily we only had four of us staying this trip.



And here is the business end of Marble Point. This is what a helicopter gas pump looks like. “Filler up with AN-5 and check under the hood” (AN-5 is a kerosene type fuel; you are on the web if you want to know more look it up!)



These are the six 25,000 gallon fuel tanks. All the way to the left is the fuel pump and the helo landing pads. They now can land four aircrafts at one time.



So the other main mission of Marble Point is a cargo launching point and collection point for the Dry Valleys. Marble Point is about 50 miles from McMurdo and it is at the base of the Dry Valleys which is a very important scientific area in Antarctica. So rather than carrying all of that cargo all the way from MacTown via helicopter most of it is delivered to Marble on the first traverse across the sea ice. Fresh equipment and fuel is delivered on the traverse and last seasons waste is returned on the traverse. This is a huge savings on precious helo time during the main season.





This is the equipment that Keith and I worked on. These are the Gen Sets.



And here is the 931 track loader that is used to load and unload Deltas during the traverses.



And here is a 1968 D4D dozer. This has been out here for the last few years for some projects including building two new helo pads. It is a LGP model (Low Ground Pressure) and so it is not really designed for work on rock. It will likely go back to McMurdo in the next year or two. It is a bit of a liability here if it has a major breakdown. We had to winterize the D4D while we were here.



Here is the 931 in action. There was a few carpenters and pipe fitters building new fuel tanks for the generators. If you look at the first photo of the Gen house you will see the old fuel tank next to the building. It has been replaced with two double wall tanks. This is the platform base being lowered in for the third time.



So that is the facility. Now it is time for a walk in the countryside. I went for a nice 3 or 4 mile hike on Wed. night to see the sights. This first shot is looking North at the Bay of Sails. I really liked to see icebergs off in the distance. It is a stunning sight and one that we do not get to see here in town.



Here is just a really cool eroded rock that I found. This are has many different types of rock unlike McMurdo which is mostly volcanic. I don’t know enough to identify the type that I saw, but I will learn incase I get back for another trip sometime. And since there is nothing but rock to walk on and look at, you spend allot of time studying the rock.



Here is a view of the complex from the bay side. You can see the fuel hose that runs to the station from the bay. It is a six inch hose that runs for a mile from the bay to the fuel tanks. This station is refilled either by traverse or but the fuel tanker ship if ice conditions cooperate.



Well headed back behind the station you will find two interesting things. First are five lakes that are filled by runoff. And this little thing called a GLACIER! This thing is huge and photos can’t do it justice. From the station it looks like a big wall, but it is about a 300’ wall of ice.








You can see in this photo the running water from the glacier runoff. This was my favorite place that I have found in Antarctica yet. I found a nice large flat rock and laid back and took a nice rest. The bright sun kept me nice and warm with just my windbreaker on, and the running water reminded me of sitting by either Cazenovia Creek or next to the Merced River, and all of that time I was staring up at a huge glacial wall. It was a very nice place to stop and enjoy the day.






So my little nap buy the glacier was over by 4 pm so I wouldn’t miss my flight home. Or flight was early and we left about 5:30. We did a hot load into the A-Star helo which is a much smaller craft than the Bell 212 that we flew out on. Our pilot, Mike, was great. It was his last flight of the day and so he didn’t have a pressing schedule to keep and he took us for a nice tour of the ice edge.



Here you can see the ice edge as well as one of the icebergs that is trapped in the sea ice. There are several bergs just off of Marble Point.



Here you can see one of the ice bergs that we were flying right towards. Mike asked if either of us had been close to an iceberg before. As you can imagine we hadn’t so we received an up close look at it. We did some high speed banking turns around and over the berg.



This shot is just as we crested over the edge of the berg; remember this is about 200 or 300 feet above the sea ice. Then Mike asked if either of us had been on an iceberg, which was a redundant question, so he touched down the skis on the berg and announced to us “now you have” and then we were off again. When we got to the edge we did a sharp dive off of the side with a banking left hand turn thrown in for good measure. Very Exciting!



This is brash ice that has been blown out of the shipping channel.



And another spectacular view of Erebus. The two dark islands that you see to the right hand side are Inaccessible Island and Tent Island. And for our loyal readers you will remember these names from our Delta trips to Cape Evans and several Pisten Bully rescues. We were driving 25,000 pound wheeled vehicles out there about 2 months ago.



If you look very closely along the ice edge here you can see a whale that is surfacing for air. We likely saw about 100 whales in the open water and in the shipping channel. Tons in the channel.



And here is the Oden in port back and lovely McMurdo. The light tan buildings on the right area our dorms.



And we end the story the same way as we started. The Antarctic hero shot. I may look stupid, but it doesn’t matter, I just came back from Antarctica and I got a killer helo tour of the Ross Sea. Most of the time life is dull here, but on days like this they don’t need to pay me. You can’t buy an experience like this.



And FYI 19 days left.
R.J.