McMurdo Report,
Saturday February 10th
From
Michael Burton.....
Well
I'm finally out of Pole, and on my way home. With luck, this
will be the last report from Antarctica that you, the patient
reader, will have to endure! After 5 flights in a row being
cancelled on the Wednesday (for reasons that were never explained
to us, but certainly wasn't to do with the weather), the first
"off-deck" from McMurdo actually did take off at
7am on Thur, and we knew there would finally be a flight for
the Pole. There were 17 "pax" on the flight; most
of the remaining science contingent at Pole, apart from the
10 or so staying on till "reverse winfly" (or station
close, to use English, as opposed to navy-speak) in about
10 days time (who happen mainly to be AMANDA guys desperately
trying to calibrate their instrument before winter by firing
flashes of radiation into the ice and seeing what they can
detect from these "false" neutrino signatures).
Unfortunately
I didn't leave the IRPS in the best of states. In the past
24 hours, since the time I was originally due to depart, the
instrument has been displaying some strange characteristics.
These may just be due to one of the temperature sensors deciding
to be temperamental, or it may be a more serious affliction,
and its not something I was able to readily diagnose in the
time I had available. So I left Chris Bero, our winter-overer,
with some emergency instructions to keep the IRPS alive and
hang on until Jamie arrives back and can check it out properly.
At least the instrument can still take data!
So
we arrived in MacTown in mid-afternoon of the Thursday into
unbearable heat - it must be 3 or 4 below zero with just a
light breeze! On our shuttle ride back to the base from the
ice runway at Williams Field I spotted a small green and gold
building waiting on the skiway ready for loading onto an aircraft
- it was our AASTO! After being checked in I rapidly made
some enquiries to learn the AASTO was ready to be loaded into
a Hercules in the very near future ready for transport to
Pole tomorrow! So I rapidly gathered up my camera gear and
the University banners I had been lugging around Antarctica
and found the first shuttle bus I could back to Willy Field
(incidentally it had NT plates - "Outback Australia"
- though heaven knows why?!).
So
a few minutes later I was standing outside this green and
yellow building out on the Ross Ice Shelf again. I had the
combination for the lock (Jack Doolittle's office phone number!)
- but in fact it was emblazoned in large numbers on it anyway.
Actually I was a little disappointed to find the AASTO looked
somewhat shop-worn. Despite Jack's careful attempts to keep
it clean by wrapping it in plastic, it had obviously been
torn off on arrival and various packing and freighting labels
had been adorned over it! It needs a fresh coat of paint,
and subsequent enquiries extracted the promise that we will
be able to use one of the heavy vehicle maintenance sheds
at Pole in mid-Dec (the hot season) to do the job!
The
AASTO wasn't quite an empty shell; it was equipped with some
furniture and even a ladder (to get on to the roof). I adorned
it with ANU and UNSW banners and started shooting away. Only
just in time. A large fork-lift soon arrived, driven by a
kamikaze navy cadet, to whisk the thing away. He didn't even
want to wait for me to get out and lock things away before
lifting up the AASTO. Within a few minutes it was shoved onto
a transportation platform and whisked into the back of a nearby
Herc by a whole gang of these cadets, with my both trying
to capture the whole incident on film with out being impaled
by a high-speed fork lift and my praying they weren't going
to impale the AASTO into the side of the Herc!
Standing
by all this time were 2 members of the AGO field service maintenance
team. These are the people who are now contracted to go out
into the field, recover the data from the AGO's, and service
the modules for another winter seasons work on the Ice. They
had been there to test whether a new fuel delivery system
for the AGO could actually be made to fit into the Herc! None
of this get a tape measure and design it to fit - it seems
the best way is to build it first and then see if you can
get it in the back of the plane! Apparently the AGO's have
been encountering some difficulties with their fuel lines,
with leakages, and here was a new compact package designed
to alleviate some of the problems. It might well be that our
AASTO will be the first module to benefit from the new system!
Anyway the service crew were keen to press upon me their services
when we need a field crew to go and maintain our AASTO!
That
was about it for me for the day; after dinner I was exhausted
and went to bed and slept for 11 hours. The next day I found
we had a "bag drag" scheduled for the evening (when
we check our luggage in), for a probable departure the following
day. So it was then a matter of packing in as much sight-seeing
as possible in the day.
There
is a hike to a prominent rock outcrop, Castle Rock, a few
miles off base that is a popular day trip, but you not only
have to go in pairs, but need to see a safety video and be
checked out. So the morning was spent sorting these details
out - enjoying a video telling you about all the people who
have died out on the route you are about to take, and how
you must follow the right flags (the red and green ones, not
the black ones which lead into crevasses, or the yellow ones,
which are to be used for peeing around (yes, seriously!)).
Bob Loeweinstein, one of CARA's stalwarts (and leading cross-country
skier) and myself then finally set out on the trail to Castle
Rock. The first section is in fact dreary, winding up the
back of McMurdo past the station rubbish dump, and the "Arrival
Heights" area (scene of one of the most protracted disputes
ever under the Antarctic Treaty system between NZ and the
USA about trespass over a site of special scientific interest,
that got so complicated that only the lawyers in the end knew
what people were arguing over!). But then the route reaches
a ridge, and the view becomes spectacular as you head towards
Castle Rock. Erebus, the mighty volcano is directly behind
Castle Rock (and another 40 km away!), McMurdo Sound is behind
you with the Transantarctic Mountains 100 km away across them,
the open Ross Sea to your left, free of ice, and the Ross
Ice Shelf to your left! We were lucky that the day was beautifully
clear and the wind virtually absent, and got to see the most
spectacular views of Antarctica, once we were out of sight
of the ugly mess that is McMurdo.
 On
returning we bumped into a colleague who had just obtained
the keys to Scott's Hut, so we went and had a quick tour of
that historic monument too, past the remains of food, clothing
and equipment used by the early explorers in that part of
the world. Despite all the "specials" they had delivered
from London in graphically labelled food boxes, it certainly
was a tough existence for them.
That
evening, after a climb up the local hill, "Observation
Hill", I was just snooping around the Crary Laboratory
(the delux science labs they have here) when I was caught
by the director of the Lab, and given a personally guided
tour of the whole establishment! You might wonder why a director
has the time for such personal service - well he had been
due to travel out the same flight as me, but had been "bumped"
off it at bag drag earlier that evening and now had an extra
day to kill in Antarctica! The Crary lab is certainly an impressive
place, stocked with the latest equipment serving a wide range
of sciences. Though concentrating on the biological sciences,
there are facilities for ice core analysis, balloon launches,
electronic mapping, geological analysis, electronics labs
etc. etc. And all apparently vastly under-utilised! In fact
the place is a zoo in the early part of summer, but in late
summer, when it no longer becomes safe to venture to the ice
edge to collect your samples, most of the visiting scientists
head home, leaving a vast expanse of free space. As the director
impressed upon me, anyone wanting to work here from late January
on has virtually unlimited call on the labs resources. Maybe
this is the solution to our space crisis in Astro back at
UNSW?!
After
this I crashed again, and now, all being well I simply have
to wait around till 4pm for check in for todays flight out.
All being well, it'll leave at approx 7pm, to get into CHC
around 3am, to end another expedition to the great white continent.
But these could be famous last words.........
Michael
Burton
 
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