Saturday I finally saw a Condition One. In Condition One you are not allowed out of any building. This ended during breakfast, so we were all able to get to work on time. At one point I had an appointment with the physical therapist to take a look at my hands, and when that was over it was Condition One again, so I was stranded in McMurdo General Hospital for an hour or so with several doctors and a trumpet-playing dentist.
Upon arriving in the shop I discovered at some point during the previous evening someone had snuck in an entire stage for the bands playing later that evening. Kind of surprising when it wasn't there when you left work the day before, and now there it is! Saturday's tasking consisted of cleaning the place up to make it ready and safe for visitors. All the large shop tools were powered off and covered. One large table saw was covered in a small stage with railings for people to dance on at the party. To hold drinks we(and by we I mean ME) had filled two large plastic troughs with clean white snow. Later these were moved over to the shop via forklift and I assume someone carried them in by hand. When I was cleaning up in the shop, I decided to think as if all the drunken party-goers were six-foot-tall toddlers who would get into everything and anything. After work I wandered away for a while. I did end up at the party, but can't really much of those next four hours other than wandering around talking to people.
Today several of my coworkers and I had Sea Ice training. We showed up for an hour or so of classroom instruction which mainly just went over things we already learned in a previous class, but then we loaded up into a Hagglund, a two-compartment treaded vehicle, and rode for the next hour or so along bumpy ice roads. I can't remember much of the trip, since the windows would ice over on the inside so we could not see out and then it was dull enough that people were napping for the first portion of the trip. The compartments are heated, but cramped. Especially when everyone is required to travel with their Extreme Cold Weather gear which takes up space.
The Sea Ice training course teaches you how to identify safe ice to travel over in the field. Aircraft usually land on six feet of ice, I believe. Most vehicle travel needs to be over at least 30 inches thick. When you drive across the ice, you need to stop and check the ice depth along any large cracks you come across. The first we saw was where the older, multi-year ice (ice that has been around for several years) met the first-year ice (ice that formed within the last year). You could identify this because of a noticeable shelf in the miles and miles of ice. It was only an inch or so drop, but when you dig down into the snow there is a difference in the depth of snow over each part of ice. The ice itself varies in depth between the two fields. For the experience we had drilled two holes, one on either side of the shelf. We started with a hand-crank auger, which took quite a while because our instructor had thought it was the brand that was the counter-clockwise turning abomination, and whenever I tried to point this out to the girl who had the first turn on it, she kept on turning the drill the wrong way which did not get us very far. Eventually we (and by we I mean SHE) figured it out and got it working, and we switched out as we drilled through the ice, one person leaning on the auger handle to push it down while someone else turned the crank. After showing us how it was done by hand, out instructor pulled out a small powered motor as we started drilling through much faster.
As you drill the ice shavings come out like snow-cone ice. We tasted this, which was sea ice, and it had a slight salty taste to it. When you get down lower to the water, the ice shavings come up more damp up like a blended drink. We tasted this too, and it was a lot more salty. Now we just need the tequila and lime. Eventually you break through to the sea water below and it burbles up through your hole.
Normally you drill several holes along a line across a break in the ice. Vehicles are allowed to travel over ice thinner than 30inches so long as the distance of the too-thin ice is 1/3 the length of your vehicle track/tire. Or some nonsense like that.
I finally saw some animals today! (live ones, not like the stuffed penguins in the Crary Labs) From where we were the seals looked like small little wriggly black things in the distance. You are not allowed to interfere with the animals here, so we had to steer clear, though if you do see seals that is an indicator that there is thinner ice over there, since they chew their way through and just lie about all day.
I got plenty of photos in the several hours we were out there, some of which I will upload later on.
2 comments:
so how many cases of tequila and limes do you want me to send you?
You planned to STOP sending them at some point?
Post a Comment