Tricky Whales

People have been spotting Minke and Killer whales off the coast of MacTown, but they are never there when I go look. Sneaky ninja whales!

Mugging!

I saw a skua totally own someone for their sandwich today. To my shame, I had a brief moment of schadenfreude. I hadn't seen a skua attack before, and I find that they are really hysterical! There's always this one skua that hangs outside of the dorm, and he is bold. He stares at you and gives you the "I can take you" look. I don't see how people forget that he's there.

The Coolest Thing!

On Monday, we were "picking daisies". It's an activity where everyone goes out around the station and picks up little bits of wire, plastic, and other things. Basically, we clean up the station. It's not half bad, as the weather was beautiful, and the scenery was compliant. The Oden has been back and forth around the Ross Sea breaking up ice. I need to go out today again and take a look. It docked for a quick re-fuel, but I missed it.

From Antarctica

Today, I did the coolest thing in my life up to this point. I rode a skidoo up to 1,400 feet on Mount Erebus. It was really relaxing getting to get out of town and pilot the skidoo. I rode as a passenger on the way there and drove on the way back. I didn't see much as visibility today was not very agreeable, but it was still a great trip. I am really grateful that I was able to do that, and I look forward to more cool stuff when I hit New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii.

More Penguins!

I went out on Sunday morning to go and check out the icebreaker, The Oden. On the way, I ran into some penguins off the shore of Hut Point. Everyone says they are adelie, but I couldn't see them closely enough to tell. Also, my camera still doesn't have enough lens to see that far away. I believe that the Oden should be in today or tomorrow. There was a call for linehandlers, but it sounded like heavy work that I wasn't well-suited for. I'd like to volunteer, but I don't want to end up in the drink or be unable to lift the ship's lines over the pylons that anchor it at dock.

The sea ice has melted near Hut Point, so the sound of the sea is here. I believe that all sorts of wildlife will show up in town. I hear that there are now penguin vagrants hanging around Pegasus. Tim, one of the guys from ATO, said there was a penguin sleeping on one of his pallets. He walked up to the pallet, and it looked up at him and squawked. It must have been something like, "don't bother me now, I'm sleeping!"

From Antarctica

Pulling Cable

Man, I'm so glad I'm down here! I could be freezing my butt off in Houston right now, where it is supposed to get down to 25F. Our days have only barely dipped below freezing for the last few weeks.

I volunteered to help Telco pull cable today and yesterday. It's been fun and interesting, as I haven't seen this type of work being done before.

Arrival Heights and Cos-Ray

From Antarctica

I took a tour of the Arrival Heights Science building and the Cos-Ray buildings last night. It was a very interesting tour. Arrival Heights is an ASMA that has no historical or biological features in it. It does contain a large number of physics, meteorology, geology, astronomy, etc. instruments that are collecting data for short and long-term experiments.

Cos-Ray is the Cosmic Ray building that houses the station's oldest running experiment. It's collecting data about Neutron particles with lead tubes. It actually has a bunch of sites not contained in the Cos-Ray building; I think a bunch of them are set up around Antarctica and the world. A similar project is the IceCUBE project, but I think that one involves burying glass tubes into the ice.

Anyways, very interesting stuff.

Icestock 2009-2010

I had a great weekend. Icestock is the music festival held at McMurdo during the Summer season. Freezing Man runs this weekend, but I think Icestock is a little bit cooler. Icestock was held this Saturday (1-2-2010), and the bands ran from noon until 1800 hours. I had a pretty good time, and the weather was very nice.

From Antarctica

In this picture, I can't figure out where that door leads to. It's a door that doesn't seem to exist on my floor of the building, yet it is visible from outside. Maybe it is in a jano's closet somewhere. It might also be where they are keeping the aliens.

Oh, BTW, I saw Whiteout yesterday. It was playing on one of the movie channels. It was pretty bad, and is not honest about anything here. That said, it isn't the worst movie that I've ever seen. I had the unfortunate displeasure of viewing that the other day; it's name was Camille. If you can avoid watching it in this life or the next, you would be doing yourself a HUGE favor.