27 February--Last Day in Antarctica

The day before I was working on packing the Pegasus Road with a Delta, driving back and forth along a 6 mile section to compact the road in preparation for the following day's transport and to help repair the damage from the blizzard.  It was nice to be out there again for one last time.  Without passengers.  Without a deadline.  With the clearest and most crystalline skies anyone could imagine.

A last view of the Royal Society Range, part of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.  What appears like a cliff is a pretty well-developed Fata Morgana mirage.

We transported at 0400 on Sunday, the 27th.  Waiting for people to appear the skies were pinkish with morning glow, something not seen around here for a long time.  Amusingly, 2 people on the manifest did not show up and will presumably be escorted to Monday's flight by someone holding their hands to make certain that they make the plane.  Unconsciously wanting to overwinter?

Pegasus was -11 degrees Fahrenheit with no wind.  Bitter but bearable.  When the sun finally came up over White Island it was spectacular.  Something I've come to expect of this place.  A tinge of sadness at leaving.

We flew in a US Air Force C-17.  What an experience!  So noisy that earplugs were really needed, not just recommended.  Spacious, cavernous.  Seating along the outside wall, but rows of 5 seats from the front back to the cargo.  Sort of like theater seating.  No windows to savor the views.

Landed in Christchurch and had a few hours there to turn in our ECW gear and, for some people, to stash gear for their future seasons in Antarctica.  Then it was off in a RNZAF Boeing 757 humanitarian flight to Auckland. The idea was to prevent us being a burden on the already stretched resources of hard hit Christchurch.  There were already approximately 60 of us in Christchurch or the South Island before we arrived and they all had to be accounted for and assisted.  Only 1 person had a slight injury, though a number of people had to flee their rooms with what they wore.  Some people lost everything in hotels too dangerous for reentry.  It would have been bad form to drop another 200 of us on the community.

Auckland is such a contrast to McMurdo!  Warm and humid.  Green.  Lush.  First visit was to the amazing (and free) botanical garden. 

Thanks, readers, for being part of all this over the last 5 months.

Addendum:  I ran across this picture after getting off the Ice.  It's taken from the ridge separating Christchurch and Lytteleton a few moments after the earthquake.

26 February--Eddied Out in Antarctica

Wave action, tidal fluctuations, wind, and relatively "warm" currents under the ice continue to nibble away at the Ross Ice Shelf.  No one can remember this part of the Sound being so open in 20 years.  Climate change?  Maybe.  But we have to keep in mind that every year is different and we'd have to look at the trends over many years to draw conclusions.  The ice in the ice shelf is advancing every year and when in some years it's not knocked off, the front will advance.  In other years, perhaps like this one, it will be cut back and appear to recede.  What's it all mean?  Too soon to tell, in this case.

Look near the horizon for the Pegasus Road.  It's going to have to be rebuilt this winter and it's estimated that it will add 10 miles to the 13 mile route to the airfield.

Also, note that the pressure ridges have been blown away.

This an entirely new sort of ice to me.  It was floating on the open water and acted like thinly set Jello, dampening the height of the waves coming in.

25 February--New Plans, More Time on the Ice

An ice Rorshach test.  What do you see?

During the course of the blizzard, more and more of the sea ice was broken up and sailed north.  McMurdo Sound is more open now than old timers have seen in 20 years.  Look at the photo below  and concentrate on the floating ice.  You should be able to see that some of the ice is sea ice, shown by its uniform thickness.  A few of the other floes are considerably thicker.  These have broken off from the Ross Ice Shelf.

During the storm the sea ice was nibbled back to the edge of the Ross Ice shelf and a little beyond.  The open water is within 300 yards of the Half Way House.  Part of the fuel line from near Scott Base out to Pegasus Field was thrown into the open water and an emergency recovery operation is underway.

This is a view north towards Cape Evans, site of Scott's second hut.  At the beginning of the season we were able to drive Deltas north to visit it.  The white sheet is the Erebus glacier tongue.

I'm not sure whether these Adelies dug out these slight shelters in the slope of snow or whether they allowed the blizzard to cover and insulate them.  Poo like creamed spinach.



Open water all the way across McMurdo Sound.

There were two All-Hands meetings yesterday to go over what is happening.  Because of the emergency in Christchurch, we will be flown out on a USAF C-17 Sunday to Christchurch for a few hours to turn in our ECW gear and then will be flown on via a RNZAF Boeing 757 to Auckland.  A second flight will do the same on Monday.  There is an option to stay on in Christchurch, but they strongly dissuaded us from doing so.  Water, power, food, sewage, housing, and medical care are all strained to the breaking point and our presence would only complicate things there.  Kathi and I will be making plans to travel around the North Island instead



24 February--Supposed to Have Flown Out Yesterday

I checked my baggage in on Tuesday for Wednesday's flight, but...      The best laid plans of mice and men.

Two plane loads of people were supposed to have flown out yesterday, but it's now looking like it might happen tomorrow, Friday the 25th.  A blizzard descended on the Ross Sea area and visibility went down dramatically, at times to zero.  For an area known as being dry, a polar desert in fact, the drifts of snow are pretty significant.  At times the weather has caused Condition 1 to be called out on the Ice Shelf where the airfield is, meaning that anyone trapped out there must remain inside whatever building or vehicle they are in.  Things are supposed to improve today and we're likely to have good conditions by Friday.

The plan was for us to be flown out on the RNZAF Boeing 757.  With the earthquake they have been reassigned for more important work flying supplies south from Wellington, the capital, and people north out of Christchurch.  Thanks to my friend Mike Rettie I have this website for the latest news from Christchurch:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ 

I guess there's a fitting symmetry in my stay here at McMurdo ending this way.  I flew into Christchurch a few weeks after their big September 4th earthquake and will fly back there soon after this biggie.  I was stuck in Christchurch for a few day due to weather on the Ice and am now stuck again in McMurdo due to storms.  Like they say, it's a harsh continent.

18 February--Last Night Kept on Giving

This Adelie seemed to put up with a lot of folks invading its space.

I went down to Hut Point again in the evening and things were even better than they had been that morning.  From the hill with the Vince Cross, people had been seeing 6 or 7 Orcas cruising around the Sound.  There were several Adelies shivering as they molted.  The near shore area was getting  coated with ice underwater, giving the area a tropical paradise azure blue hue.  Surrealy blue. There were also blocks of sea ice that had been thrown up on the shore and then coated with layers of glare ice.  The shore itself was coated with layers of the same white ice, but the layers were arranged to make it look like the layers of travertine like in Havasu Canyon of the Grand Canyon.  But the highlight was when a Weddell seal hauled up about 25 feet away from us.  It gallumphed across the "travertine" ice and the coated blocks over to its mate.  I got several great pictures of it, but they got "lost" somehow in transferring from the memory card to my laptop.  I've asked a friend of a friend to try to retrieve them, but they're not here for you to peruse.  Looks back in a few days and it might be here.  Devastating!
Note: through the generosity of Blake Holt, I have 3 photos of that seal hauling out.  They're at the very end of this post.  Thanks, Blake!

Adelies seem to have a certain similarity to moles and voles.

A Weddell seal over by the Ice Pier.

These are the images Blake let me use from that Weddell seal hauling out near us.

I went back to Hut Point last night, hoping that the seal had a schedule that it adhered to.  I was able to see several seals, but they never hauled out while I was there.

17 February--Packing in a Few More Visual Treats. Wiki-Leaks Magnitude Download

The weather has been definitely turning colder and colder.  The austral winter is nearly here.  The last 2 of the 6 LC-130s left today.  The last ship will leave tomorrow.  All the field camps are shut down and people pulled in.  The South Pole is now cut off until November.  Only 5 more flights will go north before McMurdo is cut off, too.  The water along the near shore has been freezing into odd shapes and then is blown north by the winds.  It will take several months before the sea ice will be fast to shore and relatively safe to walk on.

This ice reminds me of the giant water lily pads in the Amazon with its slight ridge along the edge.

Multi-depth lenses of ice.  The surge and current were jostling these back and forth.



The molting process isn't always pretty.



A molting Emperor penguin.  Note how thick his down coat will be.  Toasty.



The sun keeps getting lower and lower in the sky and has dipped below the Royal Society Range peaks several times now.  The official first sunset is on the 20th.

This is the most active I've seen Mt. Erebus in my 5 months here.  The trail of sulfur fumes extended miles downwind.

Skuas ground nest while here.

Winterquarters Bay of McMurdo Sound (of the Ross Sea) opened up 2 days ago in front of the station.  Most of the sea ice melting is the result of relatively "warm" currents, not from the sun hitting the surface.  So even though it has been getting much colder, the melting is still going full speed.  The blue colors against the white and grays of the ice were spectacular.  Hiking the Ob Hill Loop today I saw a Minke whale surface and heard it breathe deeply.

"What the...?"  Nature sculpts; man does his best.

Pressure ridges highlighted by the low angle sun.