I find yoga balance poses challenging even on solid land (or ice). I can imagine how difficult they are on a moving ship. Michele is heading for Happy Campers tomorrow (this is the nickname for the Snowcraft I course that teaches us the basics of surviving in the Antarctic should we get stuck anywhere) and I will forward your greeting to her.

Best, Stacy

There is a nice You Tube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slawv64kWyE that shows how SCINI moves, and where the thrusters are positioned. All five of SCINIs thrusters can run in forward and reverse. Because SCINI has such an awkward torpedo shape, she tends to move in one dimension (forward and back) very well. So we just have one powerful thruster to help her pull her tether in that dimension. To move sideways, SCINI has two maneuvering thrusters that allow her to not only translate left or right, but also to yaw or turn right or left. And there are two more maneuvering thrusters that move SCINI up and down, and also allow her to pitch, or tilt. All this gives SCINI complete maneuverability in three dimensions, with 5 axis of motion. As you can see in the video, SCINI is very responsive.

SCINI is neutrally buoyant, so that we do not have to fight to keep her off the bottom or from floating away. Though overall she is neutrally buoyant, she has a strong righting moment, which means that her floatation is positioned high and her weight is positioned low. This helps keep her from corkscrewing when her main prop is turning.

Have you decided how many thrusters your ROV will have? Sometimes you have to give up one or more axis of motion, so it can help to decide what motions are most critical to achieving your mission goals. Good luck and keep me posted on how things are progressing!

Best, Stacy

Karleigh and Hadi, the water is not too cold for plants to grow. It is minus 1.9 degrees C, but even at that low temperature plants can grow. The problem for plants, and for algae that grow in the ocean, is that the ice can be so thick that not enough light gets through for photosynthesis, which is how plants grow. So near McMurdo we have very little algae for the 10 months of the year when the sea surface is frozen, but then a bloom when the ice goes out.

Michelle, even though the ice is so thick, it is still floating on water, so most of the ice is below the surface of the water, and only 10% is above. That can still be more than a foot of ice in some places, so we have a rope ladder to help us climb out, as well as volunteer dive tenders who lift out our heavy tanks and weight belts before we climb out of the hole.

Luis, our lips get very cold when we dive. But your head and face have excellent blood flow, unlike your hands and feet, so it is not too bad. When we come up to the surface we often cannot talk very well because our lips are too cold to help us form sounds. We sound very funny, and our dive tenders have to get good at recognizing our confusing babble.

Cheyenne, we are wearing drysuits with really thick plush underwear – like snowmobiling suits – underneath them. I would not say we are warm when we are diving, but we are not so cold that we are miserable. And sometimes, the things that you are seeing are so beautiful that a little discomfort is worth it.

Grecia, one of most common things we do down here we call chipping and dipping. That is, we chip the ice in the hole and then dip it out. So the answer is, the hole does ice over, but we keep it open by breaking it up and cleaning it out constantly. That’s another thing our wonderful volunteer dive tenders get to do!

If you would like to see some more videos of SCINI and divers in action, Henry Kaiser has made several and posted them on You Tube. One example is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slawv64kWyE

Best, Stacy

I’m an PolarTREC teacher that just got back from the Arctic. I love your video – they give a great sense of daily life there. I also attempted some yoga while in the field. It was also challenging, as we were on a rocking boat! It’s a bit hard to balance while the ship is hitting pieces of ice!

I know that you also have a PolarTREC teacher with you. Tell Michelle I say hi and hope that you guys have a great field season!

-Cristina Galvan