STOP..... Tanker Time!

Today our crew went to a fuels briefing for Tanker Offload.  I capitalized the event because vessel season (for a couple three weeks starting in mid- to late-January, where various ships come into Winter Quarters Bay and remind us that McMurdo is, indeed, an oceanfront town) is the most exciting time of the season.  It's probably the most stressful time, and it's at the end of the season, so everyone's chomping at the bit to go home.

Tanker Offload is the name we give to the 4 or 5 days of setting up hoses, pipelines, and valves to offload a BUNCH (5 million gallons) of fuel from the fuel tanker ship into our bulk tanks on station.  People are working on offload 24 hours a day from before the boat gets here until after it leaves.  The GA's are, like always, the temp workers, and Alex Morris (the station Fuels Supervisor) will be taking 3 of us for the dayshift and 3 for nights.  They are 12-hr days, beginning at 0545 (that's 5:45am for you civilians) and ending at 1745 (5:45pm).  Read = time of massive exhaustion.  It looks like if I'm here for tanker (and there's a chance that I won't be because I'm going to WAIS divide next week), I may end up on the night shift, which means I get two days off to "transition to nights" and some time to transition back.  We'll see.

The GA's will have 3 jobs during tanker offload: walking the line, dipping tanks, and manning the pier valves.  Walking the line is exactly what it sounds like - we walk alongside the hard fuel lines for about 1.2 miles (each way) from the tanker at the ice pier to the bulk tanks at the top of the hill overlooking town.  And then we walk down again. FOR 12 HOURS.  My iPod will be getting charged a lot if I end up being a linewalker.

Dipping the tank is how we measure how much fuel is in a fuel tank; we use a special tape measure with a weighted bar and thermometer at the bottom, drop it to exactly the bottom of the tank, then read the tape like you'd read an oil dipstick in a car.  This seems simple, but does take some finesse.  Firstly, the tape is flexible, so if you don't pay attention to exactly when the weight just kisses the bottom of the tank (and for a Madagascar 2 reference, "just a little kiss, like you're kissing your sister"), it will fold down and ruin your reading.  And, a fuel-soaked tape and a dry tape look very similar, and if you don't have a guess within a few inches of where the transition from shiny black tape to slightly less shiny black tape is, and you don't have a very clear, sunny day but not too sunny and no wind, it's easy to miss.  We are in Antarctica, so you can imagine the chances of a perfect day.

The last task is manning the pier valves.  There are 6 valves (if I remember correctly) on hard metal fuel lines at the pier.  During tanker, we'll run soft hose from those valves onto the boat.  If you're lucky, you will watch the valves for 12 hours and nothing will happen.  If you're unlucky, something will happen and you will have a spill or leak on your hands.  It's one of those low-probability but high-consequence situations where it really is worth having someone there if something goes awry, because there's about 800 gallons of fuel per minute going through those lines.

Fuel tanker will be exciting, I think, despite the horrendous hours, monotonous tasks, and immense responsibility.  Plus we get to carry radios and say things like "Roger that" and "over."  Isn't that enough?

More ridiculous Antarctic acronyms

For some reason, Antarcticans (or maybe scientists in general?) will go to extreme lengths to make their project into an acronym.  Some are such a stretch that I'm beginning to think they choose the acronym and design the description of their  project around it.  For example, the project that I was working on at Lake Bonney was called ENDURANCE, which stood for "Environmentally Non-Disturbing Underwater Robot in ANtarCtica's Environment."  It was a super sweet project and I loved it, the acronyms around here just make me laugh.

Other beeker project acronyms:

CREAM - The Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) experiment was designed and constructed to measure cosmic ray elemental spectra using a series of ultra long duration balloon (ULDB) flights.  

AMANDA - Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (the forerunner of the IceCube neutrino telescope project at the South Pole)

SuperDARN - Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), a consortium of 9 nations operating 16 identical radars over the Arctic and Antarctica.

NICL - National Ice Core Laboratory

ANSMET - Antarctic Search for Meteorites

Ja-ja-ja-ja-jaded

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Josh is jaded

Well, I've reached the mid-season, and McMurdo charm is ebbing away like the snowpack in town.  It's great to know my way around the town, but it's really frustrating sometimes to not be in control of your own time whatsoever.  The work weeks is really getting to me... we work 10 hour days, 6 days a week.  By the time Sunday rolls around, I have so much stuff to do that I feel rushed on my day off.  It's not truly a day of rest as I feel like it should be.  Maybe my self-righteousness is due to the fact that this is my first real-world job and have had the luxury of college for the last 4 years, but it's how I feel nonetheless. (I think this picture of Josh pretty accurately represents how I can feel on some days).

I'm certainly doing fine here and am not desperate to come home or anything, but being in one spot without the freedom to go anywhere, with VERY little free time is taking its toll.  I miss my mom, my dog, trees and friends.  I think two months might be enough for me at a time - it would be nice to come down for 6 or 8 weeks as a scientist, live at a remote field camp and go back home.  It's not like "Antarctica" (the concept, the exoticism, the vastness) has itself become stifiling: I don't think that could ever happen on this white block of ice - it's that being a labor worker in McMurdo has become stifiling.  And I'm one of the lucky ones; my job takes me around the continent more than any other first-year job.  I feel very fortunate, comparatively.  If I could come down in an ideal capacity, it would be as a scientist.  I would be down here in a project in which I was emotionally invested, I would see the project through and leave when it was done (as opposed to seeing little bits of projects, working with them in a way that a mercenary fights in a war- not caring about the true meaning or cause, just down to make a buck.  I don't like feeling that way about my job, but it's set up to be that way.  Sorry for the long metaphor.)

There are still fun things that I'm getting to do, though, like working at the BFC (basically a huge Outdoor Program) and possibly (nothing's for sure yet) going to the South Pole for a few weeks.  And the fuel tanker ship and supply vessel offload sound pretty exciting - I love a "final push" mentality about organizations.  Maybe that's why I was so good about procrastinating in college.  My boss is a good and fair boss, but I don't like not being able to budget and allocate my time, or keep my own schedule.  If I could work 10 hours a day on projects, but have a little freedom to push and pull things around in my schedule, I could still get my work done and not feel as much like a piece of equipment and more like a responsible person.

the Ob Hill Uphill

Josh probably won't write about this, so I'm going to do it for him.  Today was the Ob Hill Uphill, a 1-mile scramble of a race to the top of Observation Hill, the highest point around McMurdo Station.  So instead of sleeping in this Sunday, Josh got up and ran straight uphill.  I admire runners....

Just like the Turkey Trot at Thanksgiving, he got 4th place!  Way to go Josh.  Pictures to come.

 

The Stream Team

Today was spent, like many Antarctic days, trying to fit something into an area much too small for it (see "making sleep kits at the BFC").  In this case, it was pounding metal stakes into a rock-solid streambed.  Sounds simple enough, except for here, there is no soil.  We're on an island of volcanic rock, with pulverized volcanic rock (called "fines") as our dirt.  Anything below 4" deep is either permafrost fines or solid rock.  Wonderful :) We needed to anchor these stakes 12" deep into a flowing stream, so they would support a probe that recorded velocity.  We also used the stakes as beginning and end markers for our velocity tests (really high-tech - we floated a pingpong boll down a section of stream and timed it).

Rosa does have extremely cool equipment used for stream profiling.  Her super hi-tech profiling device consists of a wire frame with thin wooden poles that drop down to the bottom of various points in the stream, forming a mirror image of the streambed on the bottom.  We hiked all around the town looking for drainage patterns and mapping them out, and hiked way above the town to the snowfields at the beginning of the drainage basin, in order to identify the source of the streams.  To the left is me holding the stream profiler, which we took pictures of its pattern while in the stream.  The adjacent picture is Rosa looking out over the town.

Rosa is working with CRREL (Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab) and the Corps of Engineers' main goal is to assess the erosion patterns of streams and ditches passing through town.  "Soil" is somewhat of a resource here, since the ground on this island is mostly rock or ice.  Rosa and her teams' report will help the NSF make better planning and engineering decisions about how to improve the layout of the base.

Dry Valleys wrap-up

to view the full Lake Bonney photo album, click here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30396637

Lake Bonney was a blast.  My boss, Barb, informed me that Dry Valleys gigs were really special for GA's, since usually the BFC girls get to go there, not our department.  I do feel very fortunate to get to go on this gig, as I got to spend a week with some great people in a beautiful place, learning lots of new stuff.  For example, I can now drill holes in really deep ice and melt them to a preffered diameter using special equipment.  I can safely drive a 4-wheeler on said ice and remain in control (huzzah!) and carry passengers and cargo.  I can pack and wrap a helicopter slingload using cargo straps and cargo nets.  I can, indeed, sleep in a tent and not shower for a week with little loss of face, seeing as everyone else smells as bad as I do.

To those of you at Lake Bonney, thanks for the great week and letting me be involved in your scientific research, if only in a small, labor-mule type way.  Good luck with the rest of the season!

My life in Mariokart

Nash, Geoff, and BK: this is for you.

For the last few days, my mind has kept going back to Friday nights in college, where all my runner friends had practice the next day and couldn't drink, so we played video games like Donkey Kong and MarioKart.  I have nothing specific to say about Antarctica with respect to DK, but holy shit, I feel like I am in a MarioKart game.  Right now I'm at a field camp next to a frozen lake, the middle of which is very bumpy and hard to walk/ATV across.  However, the edges of the lake melt seasonally and stay completely smooth.  We use ATVs to get around on the lake, and though we have chains on the tires, we fishtail around every corner of the jagged shoreline and spin cookies when we park.  It feels exactly  like a MarioKart racetrack, and you guys would love it.

Our work site is about 2 or 3 miles from camp, and we take the ATV's from camp along the edge of the lake to the site in the middle of the far side of the lake.  I have to go back and forth several times a day, and each time it's like doing my own little virtual reality of those Friday nights at C of I.  When I get back, I'll be able to kick ass at MarioKart!

to view the full Lake Bonney photo album, click here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30396637

Lake Bonney Day 3

Highlights include:

• Dragging some generators back and forth again, due to either mechanical problems or hoses being melted into the ice
• Chipping out hotsy hoses from the ice (in conjunction with turning them back on) to be able to remove them from the ice
• Visiting the Blood Falls camp, where we were informed that there would be extra food and drink we could bring back once they packed up their camp.  Much excitement.
• moving the portable Hotsy (in 3 boxes, plus the generator) from West lobe LTR to East lobe LTR sites. It took a few trips on the 4-wheeler and banana sled.

Also, I've been trying to figure out how to describe what it's like to be surrounded by a bunch of glaciers.  The glaciers in Taylor Valley look like merengue, or semi-molten marshmallows, pouring over the ridges.  Not completely molten, b/c it has crusts and cracks in it, but it looks like it was in the middle3 of being thick slush when it decided to freeze....

Lake Bonney Day 2

Highlights of the day:

• Moved a shit ton of fuel barrels
• Moved a generator from bot hut to the LTR (Long-Term Research) hole in the ice, discovered that the bot hole had frozen up too much to let the bot into the hole, and had to move it back to the bot hut.
• Started drilling at the West lobe LTR site, but did it with a dull drill bit, so it took us 45 minutes to drill about a foot into the ice (we should have been down two feet or so by then).  Then it was suddenly dinner time, and Maciek and Jim went back after dinner to drill out the rest of the hole.

The Dry Valleys

to view the full Lake Bonney photo album, click here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30396638

On Saturday afternoon, just as I was about to finish my afternoon of data entry, my boss Barb called me and asked on short notice if I'd be willing to fly to the Dry Valleys for a week to help out in the Lake Bonney camp.  One of their support staff strained his back and had to fly to McMurdo.  He'll be back in camp while I'm here, but needs to take it easy, so I'll be his workhorse and follow him around to do all the heavy lifting.  So this morning (Monday), I got on a helicopter, flew across McMurdo sound and into the Dry Valley region.  The pilot, Dustin, flew me by the Dailey Islands and pointed out Uberuaga Island, the one named after Jules!  It was really neat to put a face island to the name.

Holy hell, it's so cool here.  I'm in the Taylor Valley, just on the coast of mainland Antarctica. The Taylor Valleys are in the Dry Valley area, so called because they're situated in a way that only the mountains (and glaciers) around us get snow, and the valleys themselves are full of frozen lakes, but they're all just volcanic soil deserts and foothills.  I'm currently sitting in the Jamesway of the Lake Bonney camp, which is a couple of semi-permanent buildings right next to the lake shore, with small mountain tents scattered around the hillside.  The hillside reminds me a little bit of the final scramble up to Mount Dhoom in LOTR, where Frodo and Sam throw a blanket over themselves to hide from the Orc army passing by.  

Aaaaaannnnnywho, nerd parenthesis aside, the Dry Valleys are the shit.  Pictures to come soon, but since I didn't know they have WIRELESS INTERNET (!!!!!) here, I didn't bring my laptop.  The scientists have solar-powered wifi routers that I'm assuming connect to a satellite.  This proves that McMurdo doesn't have to be as lame and internet-retarded as it is, they just choose to have it that way.  

Today I got to assist with a dive into Lake Bonney.  We cut an 8ft diameter hole into the ice (12 ft deep), and Vicky went down in her scuba gear to scope out the hole.  The ultimate plan is to put in the team's huge underwater robot (the same size as the hole), so the robot can scope out the lay of the underwater land.  This AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) is a possible first step in making a similar one to go and scout Jupiter's moons for fresh water.


We'll see what tomorrow brings!