Tripsource.com - Andy's Antarctica

June 9, 2004

Chicago

The cubs won. I had an excellent hot dog (Hebrew National) and some St. Pauli Girl beer in the park, and cheered on the cubbies to a late 6-1 victory with all scoring in the 7th and 8th innings which was fortunate since we arrived late and hung over. Then a leisurely afternoon repast at the patio of a Mexican joint, followed by a killer nap, and dinner out at Mas where the food ranked right up with the best I've ever had. Roast Quail with a mango reduction sauce, grilled Pork Loin (they do pig quite well in this town) and Sarah had the seared Tuna, plus Mojito's and wine. Today we're meeting Hank in the hotel bar for cocktails, followed by who knows what. Excellent time. Plus we got to see Vronsky and Izzy yesterday.

Andy

May 26, 2004

The seas have finally calmed down. Very rough last night. Just ridiculous
really. I was sliding from one end of my bunk to the other. Sometimes
practically standing up on the end, then getting slid the other way till my
head hits the other wall. No real chance of falling asleep. Stuff sliding
around the room. Almost impossible to stand up. The poor guys in the galley
had food slopping all over the floor. The lounge was a sea of books and
magazines and video tapes just sliding loose everywhere. People finally
gave up on picking them back up. Just leave everything at it's lowest
energy state. But it's over, we're behind Tierra del Fuego now and only 20
or so hours from port. We're going to get in at the ideal time. Too late to
do any cargo, but early enough to make it out to the bars.

Cheers,
Andy

May 23, 2004

Well we're in it now. Barometric Pressure is rising so maybe we're past
the worst of it, but last night we took some monster rolls. Right after
picking up the Ukrainian guy (who's doing fine) we got off shore and it got
sloppy. Last night we were just hanging on. Chairs flying around my room ,
speakers smashing against the wall, like being in a washing machine. Then
this morning I got to see the damage on the rest of the ship. The dry
stores in the galley was the worst. Several big bags of beans smashed open,
then mixed with several cartons of liquid soap to make a fine goulash all
over the galley. Both vacuum cleaners escaped new and sturdy straps to self
destruct in the bosun's locker, and in the E-lab all the paper trays flew
out of the printers, all the keyboards and mice are flying around loose,
and my soldering iron will never be the same. Then there's the MT shop
where whole drawers of big wrenches broke their latches and ejected
themselves across the room. Out on deck fire hose lockers broke open and
the hoses are washing around on deck like crippled snakes. Big fun all
around. No fair having two rough northbound transects in a row.

The Gould makes Headlines - click here to read the CNN report

May 21st, 2004

We're heading to the Ukrainian base for patient pickup now. Fortunately,
they're doc is coming too, so I shouldn't need to do any IV's myself.

Did some drinking at Rothera last night, but winds picked up and the
captain ordered everyone back to the boat around midnight. We did get all
our cargo loaded this morning. Big fun with swinging cargo in high winds.

Yeah the volcano thing was pretty cool. I'll have to check out the news
reports when I get home.

Fairly rough and high winds now. I'm wishing I had a beer or two less at
the party last night.

Cheers,
Andy

Rothera Base

May 20, 2004

We just left Palmer Station en route to Rothera to pick up some airplane
landing gear ski's for the Twin Otters.

This morning I got IV training from the Palmer Doc. Yes, that's right I got to
stick needles in people. Do you realize how brave you have to be to let
someone like me, after a night in the Palmer bar no less, stab your vein
with a needle for the very first time? Astounding. I wouldn't have been on
the receiving end of that fun for a dump truck full of money. Nope Nope
Nope. But anyhow, I guess I did it OK and aside from a few jets of blood
across the room, no real problems. Let's hear it for the heroic volunteers!

In other news, if you haven't heard from your other Antarctic sources,
McMurdo Station on the other side of the continent got hit with the mother
of all storms. Blow doors off garages, peeled siding off buildings, and
rolled 40 foot milvans down the road like tinkertoys. They have no idea how
fast the wind got because their last wind meter blew off the roof at
160mph. Attached are a few pics. Enjoy.

Andy

May 6, 2004

The weather just keeps getting worse. Now it's blowing 75 knots with big
seas and big bergs splashing and rolling all around us and we're making a
stately 2 knots as we wind our way North. Yep, that's right, we're heading
back to Punta Arenas! I can already taste the cold cervesas.

We finally got a good run with the SCUD camera. This thing is a big torpedo
looking thing with an underwater video system. It's pretty much hand made,
just a pressure housing and car batteries and we tow it behind the boat.
We've been trying all trip to get some video with it, but something always
went wrong. Either the weather and ice stopped us, or something failed on
the system, dead batteries or shorted cables or something. But at last, we
got 45 minutes of sea floor video. Starfish and sponges and all sorts of
weird fish and krill. Very entertaining.

All for now,
Andy

Launching the Kasten Core

critters from the deep

April 29, 2004

Well it's really cold down here now. We've had winds gusting up to 60 knots
all day. The back deck is just coated in ice. You can see a wave splash on
deck, swirl around a bit, and then just freeze solid. We did get some
science done yesterday, and saw a single emperor penguin wandering around,
obviously lost and about 2000 miles from the closest known emperor colony.
They tried to do science all last night, but the ice was too thick, or the
seas were too rough, or the wind was too high to get anything done. We're
been going around in circles between Erebus and Terror Gulf and the Larson
A channel for days, and most science has had to be called off at the last
second. We get stuff set up and ready to go and then either can't get to
the deployment location, or we get there and the weather turns so foul we
can't work on deck. So between setting stuff up and tearing it back down I
get to catch up on my reading and watch a movie or two. The weather is just
not cooperating this trip.

Cheers,
Andy

Cliffs of Insanity

April 27, 2004

We crunch ice, stop, change routes, crunch more ice, etc. etc. We're trying
to get to certain spots, but there is a LOT of ice in our way. We went past
a 30 mile long tabular berg last night. So each shift we set up instruments
and cores, but so far no luck in getting on location.

Last night it was blowing 40 knots steadily, and gusting up to 54 knots,
but the temp was up to a balmy -8C. This coated everything in a thick layer
of frozen sea spray. Big waves would smack the bow and throw up a geyser of
water that fell all over the ship and promptly froze solid. Today we were
all out there chipping it off.

Andy in Antarctica

April 23rd, 2004

The story down here is it's freaking cold. We are South of the Orkney
Islands and ducking down into the Weddel Sea, moving wherever the ice is
thin enough for us to bash our way in. The ambient Temp is -4F and with
wind chill we get to -40. (if you didn't know, -40 is where Centigrade and
Fahrenheit cross, so -40 is -40 on both scales) The ocean is just on the
hairy edge of freezing, and we're having to heat up instruments with heat
guns before we put them over the side. Linger too long in the open air and
everything freezes solid.

We get pretty good sunrises though, followed in a few hours by a pretty
good sunset. Big bergs and broken chunks of the Larson Ice Shelf that
disintegrated last year. Just at sunset with a red/purple sky and wind
whipping snow clouds along the ice and looks like we're on another planet.
We're going to do a bit of science here, and then try to find a way
farther South into the ice. The major ops this time is mud cores, some from
way down at 3500 meters or so under the ocean. The mud down there is
compressed to something like 1000 years to the inch, so they get some cool
stuff out of it.

We also have seals and penguins all around, but with no land anywhere
nearby, they aren't in big concentrations like they are near a breeding
colony. The penguins get all confused when we crunch trough the ice next to
them and go tearing off across the ice at a fast waddle, often right in
front of the ship, afraid to turn to the side. A big bunch of them get
going one way and they never turn until they get to open water and jump in.
Sometimes we pass a bunch and they keep on after us like they're chasing us.