Blogs from Antarctica, Antarctica - page 34

Oh, and the light in my room just stright fell right on my head. luckly its just a plastic fixture, and conveniently fell on my head like a hat....I am still wearing it was we speak and am about to go march into the living room to show it off to the Span Fam. Buenas Noches... read more

After two days of excitement building up in Ushuaia (The Southern most town in the world) we finally made our way to the port to meet up with the ship - a Russian icebreaker called the Professor Molchanov. Sailing through the Beagle Channel to meet the open ocean and take on the legendary Drake Passage. The mood on the ship was full of anticipation as we were shown to our cabin by the Russian crew before going through the emergency drills....Sheena and I instantly made a name for ourselves by being the only ones to turn up to the muster point during the drill without our lifejackets! We sat in the water tight enclosed lifeboats being shown the equipment and rations of food/water should we need to follow in the footsteps of Shackleton and his crew ... read more

Just so you all know, it is NOT all work and no play here in McMurdo, Antarctica. Please view these photos of various recreation activities that are available here. Although daylight never ceases during an Antarctic summer, finding the time to take advantage of what McMurdo has to offer can be a challenge. People have crawled on their stomach through an ice tunnel to enter a spectacular ice cave on a tour offered by the Morale, Welfare and Recreation office. In addition to such organized trips, MWR also offers recreation equipment such as golf clubs, mountain bikes, and fly rods and waders. Other forms of entertainment unique to McMurdo include tours of the icebreaker ship when it rolls into town toward the end of each summer, Nordic skiing on frozen ice, tours of the McCrary Lab ... read more

I was chosen as one of the four carpenters to go out to Granite Harbor to pull out the field camp that had been established there for ANDRILL (www.andrill.org). Granite Harbor (~100 miles north along the mainland coastline) that had been established for the ANDRILL team to do test drilling (of sea ice and sediment cores) for a few weeks after which we were called in to take it down. It was AMAZING- the 50 minute helicopter ride each way was the craziest thing! We flew really low at one point to ride parallel to the glaciers stuck in the sea ice and actually touched down on a chunk of B-15 (the infamous glacier that broke off of West Antarctica in 2001 that was a wake-up call about global warming- it's featured in An Inconvenient Truth) ... read more

Cape Evans (77°38′S, 166°24′E) is a rocky cape on the west side of Ross Island, forming the north side of the entrance to Erebus Bay. It was discovered by the Discovery expedition (1901-04) under Scott, who named it the Skuary. Scott's second expedition, the British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13), built its headquarters here, renaming the cape for Lieutenant Edward R.G.R. Evans, Royal Navy, second in command of the expedition. Scott's headquarters building still exists and is known as Scott's Hut. Located about fourteen miles from McMurdo, The hut at Cape Evans is known as the Terra Nova hut, named after Captain Scott's ship and was used on Scott's last Antarctic Expedition from 1910-1913. Shackleton later used the hut on his attempt to cross Antarctica in 1917. It's amazing how well preserved the hut and its contents are, ... read more