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Antarctic Undersea ROV

 

Hi Mindy,

My students want to know what sort of town McMurdo is? Do they have a police force and jail? Do they have a hospital? Do they have regular cars? How is the food, do they have restaurants with fried chicken? Are there penguins around McMurdo?

Have fun in Happy Camper School. Maggie  (one of my students) said she hopes you don't get too cold.

Kirk

Sat, 10/06/2007 - 14:18

Mindy Bell

Hi Kirk and students,Maggie - thanks for your concern about how cold it is.  You tell Mr. Beckendorf that he is a lucky guy to go a little later in the year when it will be WARMER down here.  It was -60F with windchill and I frostbit some of my fingers at Happy Camp.  It was awesome training though and I will write more about it in my journal posting!
MacMurdo (or MacTown as they call it) is sort of like a little town but it is not very attractive.  I'll post pictures of the buildings soon.  It is designed to function in strong winds and extremely cold temperatures so there are no "quaint" or cute buildings.  And the "bridges" to go over snowdrifts, heating fuel pipes, etc. are not very darling either.
There are about 70 structures and Mr. B can show you a picture from his United States Antarctic Program Participant Guide that he is carefully reading right now!
There are some vehicles here that look like normal Texas-style trucks but they are all running on JP8 diesel and most of them have crazy tires.  There are a lot of really strange looking vehicles and I'll do a journal entry just on those soon!
The food is all served in one place - the galley - and it is fantastic unless you like fresh salads.  All the fruits and vegetables are canned.  Tell Mr. B to bring down some dried fruit if that is something he eats!  But there is a large variety and huge amounts of food.  I am guaranteed to gain weight down here!  There are no restaurants though - everyone eats in the galley.
There is a hospital.  Photo of that coming soon as well.  There is no police force or jail down here, but the Station Manager is a Federal Marshall.  Sometimes people have to be taken out of Antarctica but there is not a big crime scene down here.
I haven't seen penguins yet but you can see Adelie and Emperor Penguins from here later in the season.
Keep those brilliant questions coming!  And don't forget to check the SCINI blog as well at scini.mlml.calstate.edu in the updates section!
 

Sun, 10/07/2007 - 00:23

Stacy Kim

Ms. Bell hasn't found about about it yet, but there actually IS a restaurant here! It's called "Burger Barn" and is only open 2 nights a week for a couple of hours. The menu is limited to hamburgers and veggie burgers, but they are open a little later than the regular galley hours, so on those nights when we are late coming in from the field, we always hope that it is a Burger Barn night so we can get some hot food!