What a day! I took my first-ever helicopter ride in a 25 knot wind – very exciting! Paul, our pilot, did a great job. He took us out over the ice edge for a good view back to where our camp and test site would be. The water has opened up (remember when I said it was black ice? Well, not anymore!) It was so cool to see the water glistening in the sun. A seal was hanging out where the helicopter was supposed to land so we had to move 50 yards further west so we wouldn’t squash him. He land-paddled away quickly, though.
Within an hour we saw a penguin! And, not just any penguin, an Emperor Penguin. I first spotted him about 400 feet away but he saw us out there and waddled over to see what was going on. They are so curious and totally not afraid of us. They will come within 5-10 feet of you just to see what’s going on. A million photos later, we got to work. Even John D. was kind of excited because his groups have never seen Emperors before, always Adelies. Anyway, a short while later, a couple of Adelies came running over to see what’s going on. They didn’t stay long though, just kind of passed through. They remind me very much of the little penguin in the bugs bunny cartoon.
We got the tents set up in the morning, in a strong wind which made it a challenge and worked on unpacking our cargo etc. In the early afternoon we started working on the sea ice. This test wasn’t instrumented, it was just sort-of a dry-run (actually a wet-run would be more like it). It took about 3 1/2 hours with four of us working (including Eric, the Field Safety guy; Gigi didn’t go out) to get a 5 meter by 5 meter plate shoveled off (not easy shoveling, about 6 inches of very crusty snow), cut out with the chain saws and tested. John D. and Geoff ran the chain saws. Although it is kind of cool to operate a chain saw with a four-foot bar, it is also very hard work and the people doing it get soaked! Still, I’m hoping to get a turn soon :-)
Two sides of the plate were cut out about ten inches wide, this part is called the kerf (a new word for me – take note scrabble players). The other two sides were made with a single cut. Once the plate breaks loose, this leaves an average of five inches on each side. A cut was then placed from the mid-point of one of the sides to the center of the plate. Into that cut a flat-jack was placed, then inflated with nitrogen to split the ice. Being on the floating plate felt very much like being on a swimming raft and when it broke it was, of course, extremely exciting. I got to stand on the plate to videotape the crack while it was happening; it was just awesome! Because I was videotaping, I neglected to get good photos of the test while it was happening! Oh well, I’ll get those on the next test. We plan to do two more test breaks on Friday.
Oh yeah, all afternoon while we were shoveling, chain sawing and testing, a total of five Emperor Penguins came over and watched us. The chain saw didn’t seem to bother them at all. They sort of reminded me of when I used to work at a gas station, there were two or three old guys who would come in and hang around and watch while you worked; the penguins were like that, sometimes not paying much attention, just chatting amongst themselves, other times really wondering what you’re up to, but always hanging around. It was amazing!
The helicopter to pick us up didn’t arrive until about 8:30 pm so we got back to McMurdo a little after 9:00 pm. The cafeteria had held four dinners for us which was very nice of them. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t help but go back to the office to download the pictures. I finally got to bed at about 11:30 pm and slept in a bit this morning. Like I said, “What a day!”
Stay tuned for the full photo gallery entries.
