Summer Home

I want to start with an apology, I failed pretty hard at blogging during my Palmer Station trip in August.  It was a very quick trip and I landed back in Denver during the busy season.  Then I failed again at getting this updated as I headed back to my summer home AKA: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

I've been on station for 19 days now and only 3 flights have made it from McMurdo.  Nothing like starting the three month season one month late.

For the sake of time, this post will be mostly photos with a little backstory for each one.

Part I: Getting Here

USAP Hanger at Christchurch, New Zealand

I started here.  After teaching about a week's worth of safety classes I finally got on a C-17 headed for the ice.

C-17 on Phoenix Field, Antarctica 

After a 5 hour flight on a C-17 Globe Master, we touched down on Phoenix Field, Antarctica.  Last year was the first year for this new White Ice Runway.  My flight out last year was actually the first time a C-17 landed on the new runway.

Hut Point, Looking at McMurdo Station and Observation Hill

Looking back on McMurdo Station from Hut Point.  The hut was built in the early 1900's to support Scott's expedition to the South Pole.  I got to go inside, but that's a later blog post.

'Ivan' the Terra Bus

Once my time at McMurdo was done we boarded 'Ivan' the Terra Bus to head out to Willie Field (Skiway). 

Mt. Erebus

Mt. Erebus, the most southern volcano.

F-350 on Mat-Tracs

Sometimes you need your F-350 to be more like a snowmobile.

LC-130H on Willies Field

The largest plane with Skis in the US Military.  Based out of New York, I used to watch these fly over, little did I know 20 years later I would be riding them to work.

Inside the LC-130H

Still more comfortable than a SouthWest Fight.

Me

"I hope this doesn't suck"

LC-130H At the South Pole

ZSP-001, the first flight into the South Pole since February.  This marks the end of a long winter of isolation for the 'Winter-Over" staff. 

Welcome to the South Pole

The staff have been isolated at the station since last February and did an amazing job keeping it running.  There was a week this winter where they stayed below -100*F.  Some of them were a little "Toasty" by they did a great job.

Destination Alpha

The front door to the station, Destination Alpha.  When I arrived it was approximately -50*F with a -80*F wind chill.  The snow isn't really snow, it's more just 9,000' of ice crystals.  It's really hard to describe the sound they make as you walk across but it's a sound you'll never forget.  It was really strange to come back to such an isolated place to be greeted by familiar faces that remember your name.

Part II: Goings Ons

Fire Brigade Drill

Part of station turn-over is making sure the new folks are ready for the task at hand.  The fire brigade will be the only source of firefighting during the isolated winter.  With minimal training, team two got a taste of going "on air" in the station for the first time.  There is a lot of room for improvement but everyone did great for their first drill.

Wall of Doggos

The logistics team started this wall last summer.  Being away from human loved ones is tough, but the four-legged furry friends are the ones we really miss.  Ollie is up there twice.

ZSP-002: Second  LC-130H in for the Season

Flight 2 of 3 that has made it to Pole this Season.  Three successful flights in 19 days is rather challenging.  We haven't had real eggs or good beer in a few days now.  The struggle is real.

C-17 Globe Master AirDrop Flight

Only Aircraft on skis can land at the South Pole.  As a worst-case scenario, they do an annual training to do practice delivering goods to the South Pole.  If there is an emergency, this is a way to get emergency supplies to station in the darkness of winter. 

Part III: Science Lecture Sunday

Who needs a whiteboard when you have the base of the South Pole Telescope

 Every Sunday there is a science lecture put on by one of the various projects we support.  It is very easy to get caught up in the daily grind and forget why we are here so it's nice to get to learn about why we are here.  

Me with the South Pole Telescope

Because sometimes you need a pic with a piece of equipment that looks at the microwaves left over from the big bang.

OTHER NEWS

-50*F Looking for a GeoCache

Current Conditions at the time of Publishing

Gone Fishin'

On Thursday we headed back out to sea.  This was going to be a short fishing cruise to collect samples of Ice Fish for the IcemiR project that is studying the evolution of microRNA control in Antarctic Fish.  I have no idea what that means, but I was more than happy to help them catch fish.

Heading into some Brash Ice (<2M)

After sailing for about a day we reached one of the fishing grounds.  Hugo Deep is about 640m (2099 ft) deep so with the trawl dragging on the bottom we had about 1,500m (4,921ft) of cable pulling the net.  Each cast took about 3 hours total so it was a lot of hurry up and wait.  Once the net was on the back deck the science team went to work looking for samples.  The goal was to keep the samples alive and return the unwanted by-catch as quick as possible to minimize impact.

Working on the back deck.

Digging through the catch looking for target species.

We got really lucky with the weather, we had pretty calm seas and it was in the mid 20's with 10-15kn wind.  We were only on the back deck for about an hour at a time so it wasn't that bad.

Dr. Thomas Desvignes with his catch.

Antarctic Ice Fish

Skate

Working in the aquarium room in

On Friday night we fished from 6:00 PM to 6:20 AM, It was a long night on the back deck and helping with samples in the wet lab but being in good company made the experience enjoyable.

Dr. Desvignes and Dr. Alligood taking samples from an Ice Fish

Dissecting an Ice Fish 

Palmer Station has science lectures on Tuesdays so in a few hours, I'll have a little more knowledge about the research.

After the science lecture on Ice Fish, we're watching SHARKNADO!!!!  It's gonna be a wild night.

JNIII

Journey to Palmer Station

My travels so far:

• Flight from Denver to Punta Arenas, Chile.
• Two weeks in Punta Arenas waiting for the vessel to arrive.
• Four days on the Laurence M. Gould crossing the Drake Passage.

While at Palmer Station I’ll be working with the winter station crew to develop safe work practices and evaluate the facility to see if there are opportunities to implement "Prevention through Design" type concepts, you know, safety stuff.

ARSV Laurance M Gould

Similar to deploying through Christchurch, NZ, one of the first things participants do is pick up their Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear.  The gear is a little different since working on the vessel requires protection from the wet marine environment.  It's mostly Gortex type gear, no "Big Red" parka this time.

ARSV Laurance M Gould

After experiencing weather days due to some massive storms in the Drake passage, the vessel finally arrived six day late.  During the three-day port call, science samples are off loaded, new supplies were loaded, the vessel is refueled.  Within our program, about half of the crew are being swapped out with replacements.  The boats are chartered so the task of operating and maintaining the vessel fall under a different company.  We're only responsible for the labs and science operations.  During port call, we moved out of our hotel and onto the boat.  Normally it's two people to a room but there are not that many on the cruise so we each got our own room.

Berthing on the LMG

During our time in Punta Arenas, we did take a day off to go explore the city.  Its the middle of winter here so the weather was cold mixed in with rain and snow.   No one complained though after all, cold and snow is kind of what we do.

There were stray dogs all over the city.  This guy followed us for most of the day so we named him Osito which is Spanish for "Little Bear."

Osito (Little Bear)

We checked out the Punta Arenas Cemetary.  The cemetery had a very unique history and was rated by CNN Travel as one of the top 10 most beautiful cemeteries in the world.  The cold, snowy day made for a somber backdrop to the thousands of graves.

Cemetery of Punta Arenas

Finally, the time came to get underway.  After weeks of waiting, we were finally starting our four-day journey south.

Sunset While Getting Underway

Not knowing how I was going to handle the seas, I took the "Recommended" dosage of Dramamine.  That stuff could tranquilize a horse!  I ended up going from a full 50mg pill every 6 hours to 1/2 a pill with breakfast and one before bed.

Sunset on my first full day at sea.

We had an almost perfect crossing of the Drake Passage.  Swells ranged from about 6 to 12 feet compared to the 30'+ swells just a week before.  We crossed what they call "Lake Drake" with calm seas and no major weather.  My coworkers are giving me a hard time that the bad weather always happens on the North Bound leg of the journey so we'll see how that goes in a few weeks.

Calm Seas on "Lake Drake"

 On the last day of the trip, I slept in because the seas were calm and we had to slow down for ice (Made for good sleeping).  Being a bit sleep deprived and medicated, falling asleep is easy but getting good sleep is challenging.  I woke up to daylight and the first sighting of land.  It was an incredible feeling to know that I was back in Antarctica.

First Iceberg

Early morning arrival at Palmer Station.

Palmer Station

Tomorrow morning we are going on a four-day fishing cruise to attempt to catch some science samples.  I'll make sure to get another post up in a more timely manner.

JNIII

KC4AAA

One of the coolest experiences I've had at the South Pole was operating the Ham Radio station. Back in the states, my call sign is KJ4ZMQ, but while operating here at the South Pole I use the call sign KC4AAA (The call sign designated for the station). There are currently three ham radio operators here on station.

Ham Radio and Emergency HF Communications Equipment

In the Ham Radio world, one of the goals is to see how far your equipment can reach. When that’s the goal, reaching the South Pole from anywhere in North America ranks pretty high on the list of stations to contact. When the South Pole station gets on the air it’s what’s known as a “pile up.” Everyone is trying desperately to make contact so they can add it to their log book.

QSL Card: Stations exchange these to confirm contact was made via radio

One of my goals this season was to get my father (KC2ZDC) a contact with Antarctica. While calling out on New Year's Eve, I made a special effort to make sure I made contact with him. The second time I made a specific call out for his call sign I hear a faint voice that I recognized. While I couldn’t make out a full message, I could tell that he could hear me and he was listening with my Mom and Ollie (My Dog). It’s mind blowing that with a dipole antenna made of wire and a radio sitting on the desk, we were able to communicate between New York and the South Pole.

While on the radio today I was able to make contact with the following States:

Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Connecticut, Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Virginia, New York, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Utah, California, South Carolina, Maryland, Massachusets, Ohio, Washington, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Lousiana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Texas, Nebraska, Mississippi

About 33 States Total.

In other news, January 21st is scheduled to be my last day at pole.  There is a slight chance I'll make it to New Zeland on the 23rd and I might even make it back to the states by the 25th.  That all depends on weather and the mechanical status of the LC-130s.

Cargo and Fuel Ops

LC-130 at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station from Jack Norray on Vimeo.

After several weeks of little or no flights, today we had four LC-130s make it to the pole. Having fresh veggies for the fist time in two weeks was amazing!

Christmas at the Bottom Of The World

Cargo Strap Christmas Tree created by the Materials/Logistics Team

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are the only two day weekends we get while we’re on the ice.

Friday night was just your average relaxing Friday night… dodgeball in the gym with 15 co-workers, then watching some movies in the lounge.

Saturday, December 24th

Christmas Caroling to the other stations and field camps.

On Saturday at noon, all US Antarctic stations tuned to our High-Frequency communications frequency to serenading the entire continent with Christmas Carols.  As we gathered around the communications office, we belted out the tunes while one of us held the mic open.  At the end of each song all of the other stations around the continent would cheer to let us know they had heard the song. 

The Dinner Menue

Christmas Dinner - Lobster Thermidor and Beef Wellington

Good Company

Saturday Evening was the formal Christmas Dinner, Beef Wellington, and Lobster Thermidor.  All of the food was fantastic!  It wasn’t home cooking, but it was incredible for being at the South Pole.

Christmas at Grandma's House

Live Christmas Rock Music

After dinner, the festivities commenced with a rock concert/Dance Party at “Grandma’s House” (the gymnasium). No photos were taken at the dance party to protect the careers of the innocent.

Sunday, December 25th

A few hours of sleep, we were off to the races with Sunday’s Festivities.  December 25^th is when the residents of the south pole compete in the “Race Round The World.”  The race is approximately 2 miles and can be done on foot, ski, snowmobile, or just about any other means possible.  My good friends Shelly, Adam, and Doug were already competing with some couches being rigged a snowmobile so they hooked up a tow rope and found some skis so I could join in the fun.

As a special treat, we were invited to the camp of some tourists about a kilometer from the station.  Hannah and Ricky were nice enough to write a song about living in a tent next to a government funded research station.  Hannah has skied from the coast to the pole six times and currently is the camp manager.  Ricky was the camp cook, and I've yet to meet a bad cook on contenent. 

Current Weather:

Temperature

-25.1 °C (-13.2 °F)

Windchill

-35.2 °C (-31.3 °F)

Wind

7.8 kts Grid 106

Barometer

689.6 mb (3,130 m/10,268 ft)