Date: November 28, 2006
Location: Taylor Dome
Latitude: 77 degrees, 47 minutes South
Longitude: 158 degrees, 43 minutes East
Temperature: −22°C (−8°F)
Wind Speed: not given
Wind Chill: not availble
Elevation: 2,365 meters (7,759 feet)
Meters of core collected: 100
Written by: Lora
Happy Birthday Joe
Joe is the first of our team to celebrate his birthday on the ice. Joe started off the morning with a few presents and hand made decorations in the Kitchen. There is no regular mail here so Joe had to bring his presents with him from home. He was very excited to receive new clean clothes, (laundry is next to impossible in the field), and DVD’s to watch for some entertainment. At dinner Joe got some special treats, a carrot cake and fancy cheddar cheese. We also sang Happy Birthday.
After spending 4 days out in the cold drilling the ice core we all needed a rest. We spent today doing small camp chores like melting water and organizing gear. Joe, Andrei, and I palletized the core boxes for shipment back to McMurdo. Palletizing is when we load gear on metal pallets that can roll into the cargo space in the LC-130 airplanes. When the gear is set on the pallet, the next job is to strap it down. This can be done in one of two ways, with cargo straps or cargo netting. Cargo straps are long pieces of webbing, similar to seat belts with a ratchet and hooks on both ends. To use the strap you simply attach the hooks to pallet and ratchet until tight. The cargo nets, on the other hand, are not as easy to use. They are large nets, about 12 feet by 6 feet, with lots of hooks on the bottom and two sets of tightening straps in the middle of the net and one at the end. It takes two nets to encircle a pallet. First you untangle the net and then figure out which direction it goes on. Then you start attaching the bottom of the net and pulling it up over the gear. Once the net is surrounding the gear, you start tightening the straps. All together it took about an hour for us to remember the proper way to hook the cargo nets and secure the ice core boxes. Others in camp were working on getting things packaged and ready for the traverse and Josh groomed the skiway in preparation for tomorrow’s flight.
Date: November 29, 2006
Location: Taylor Dome
Latitude: 77 degrees, 47 minutes South
Longitude: 158 degrees, 43 minutes East
Temperature: −19°C ( −2 °F)
Wind Speed: not given
Wind Chill: not available
Elevation: 2,365 meters (7,759 feet)
Meters of core collected: 100
Written by: Lora
Driving School
We are waiting in camp today for two LC-130 flights. These flights will bring in and take out cargo. They will also take Greg, the carpenter, and Paul the mechanic, back to McMurdo. The first flight is scheduled to leave McMurdo at 7:00 pm tonight. So far the weather looks good and we expect the flights to come in. One of the flights will bring us fuel barrels. Running the generators in camp and all the machines requires about 50 gallons of fuel per day. All of this fuel must be delivered and then the empty cans returned. We will also send back our trash and the ice core boxes. The ice core boxes will be stored in a freezer in McMurdo until late January when they will travel by boat back to the United States.
This morning Josh gave us all driving lessons on the Challenger 55 Cats. These are the Cats that will pull the two trains of sleds when we are moving. It was fun to drive big machinery; most of us have never had the opportunity to drive a Cat, and we all passed our driving test. We had to maneuver the Cat between a few flag poles and pull it up to the fuel barrel. Thank goodness we didn’t have to parallel park! We learned how to fuel the Cat, drive and put the forklift up and down, even though we will not be allowed to forklift things yet. The cabins of the cats are really nice and have heat. The dashboard is very high-tech with computer read outs of engine temperatures, RPM’s, speed and which gear you are in. The Cat has 14 gears and is an automatic. I am very happy the Cat is an automatic because I am short, and my feet can barely reach the brake and the clutch. Not being able to reach the brake is not really a bad thing. The brake is rarely used because the friction of the Cat’s tracks on the snow stops the machine almost instantly without using a brake.
Date: November 30, 2006
Location: Taylor Dome
Latitude: 77 degrees, 47 minutes South
Longitude: 158 degrees, 43 minutes East
Temperature: −21°C ( −6 °F)
Wind Speed: 8 knots
Wind Chill: −30°C ( −22 °F)
Elevation: 2,365 meters (7,759 feet)
Meters of core collected: 100
Written by: Lora
Today started, or yesterday ended, with a C-130 flight that arrived at 1:00 am. A flight earlier in the day had not been able to load the large Berco sled we were sending back to McMurdo. With the first flight we had built a large snow ramp to load the sled into the back of the plane. This, however, did not work. On the second flight, at 1:00 am, The 109th Air National Guard brought a special metal ramp that allowed our sled to be loaded into the plane. We were all excited to see the sled go after all the work.
We slept in after that and have had a bit of a slow day. Most of the day was sent cleaning up camp and getting cargo sorted.
Date: December 1, 2006
Location: Taylor Dome
Latitude: 77 degrees, 47 minutes South
Longitude: 158 degrees, 43 minutes East
Temperature: −19°C ( −2 °F)
Wind Speed: 15 knots
Wind Chill: −31°C ( −24 °F)
Elevation: 2,365 meters (7,759 feet)
Meters of core collected: 100
Written by: Lora
Looks like another storm may be brewing. It is windy and snowing. We stayed indoors most of the day watching a few movies and waiting for a Twin Otter flight to arrive. The flight was canceled unti lMonday Dec 4.due to the weather. We are expecting the rest of our team, currently in McMurdo, to come in on Monday. We are in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for flights, supplies and people from McMurdo. With the bad weather we cannot do much science. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be better.
We invited the neighbor camp, the environmentalists as we call them, to come over to watch a movie and socialize. Having new people in camp is fun. It makes Antarctica feel less desolate.