"We worked hard, ate heartily, and enjoyed life." This quote by Douglas Mawson, an Australian geologist who made several expeditions to Antarctica in the early 1900's, sums up my experience so far.…
The first major polar expeditions in Antarctica began over 100 years ago, so there have been centenary anniversaries for various expeditions over the past six years, with more celebrations to come. …
Today I got to see my first Weddell seals! Stacy and I met Susan Detweiler from the Field Safety Training Program and Carl Klimt, our volunteer for the day, and drove out on the sea ice in the…
Marcus and Stacy started the day with a dive that went down the dive hole in one Tomato and came up in the other one. This kept our divetenders of the day, Matt and Mandy, really busy!
First we…
This morning was Condition 2 - the winds are blowing snow and the temperatures are cold (surprise!) and the visibility is low. I took a radio with me and gallumphed down onto the sea ice in full ECW…
Yesterday we did our first dive out of the Tomato. There were three strikes against the Tomato dive. The biggest one was the five-foot drop down to the icy water. The Tomato sits higher up on the…
Yesterday we met Tom and Adam out on the sea ice in front of the station with the giant Reedrill rig pulled by the humungous Challenger Caterpillar.
The Reedrill can drill four-foot diameter dive…
Most nights we work in the lab (really!) but tonight was a special night. The first American Night at Scott Base. Scott Base is the New Zealand base in Antarctica, and slang for New Zealanders is "…
One step forward, two steps back is how it feels sometimes - but progress is being made!
On October 16th the guys went out to try and get the transducer "unstuck” from the ice. This took a funnel…
On Monday, October 15th, Nick and Marcus put SCINI together. It may look like giant lego pieces, but all the cables have to line up and connect, and everything has to end up waterproof!
Nick (…
Antarctica, says writer Bill McKibben, is "…this planet’s greatest margin, its strangest edge.”
Nick and Stacy under the ice. Photo by Rob Robbins.
And the edge of the ocean as it meets the…
"What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment." Katrin Linse, a marine biologist with the British Antarctic Survey, said this…
