The three types of killer whales. From R. Pitman, P. Ensor, J. Cetacean Res Manage 5(2):2003.

Ross Sea killer whales appear in the McMurdo Sound area and the southern Ross Sea, in early December and ply various fast ice edges (ice attached to the land), which as the season progresses recede further and further south toward the continent. They also apparently forage under or along the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf by Cape Crozier on the other side of Ross Island. These whales feed on fish that live under the fast ice and as the ice recedes the whales are able to exploit more and more feeding territory. Sightings of these whales, from land, helicopters and ships have been carried out through the years, most recently from the Cape Crozier and Cape Royds penguin colonies on Ross Island, where it has been noticed that the presence of whales (including minke whales) follows a shift in the diet of the penguins.

Killer whales foraging in a sea ice crack.

In 2005 the ratio of C to B killer whales was 50-1, but over the next few years it steadily dropped to 16-1 by 2008. As the observed numbers of B whales (seal eaters) did not change during this time, the altered ratio was due to the decrease in Ross Sea killer whales. During the years of these observations another important series of events was taking place.

Although commercial fishing of the Antarctic toothfish (sold as “Chilean sea bass”) in the Ross Sea began in 1996, it was expanded in 2004 from 9 to 22 fishing vessels; not surprisingly that same year the catch reached its allowed limit of 3500 tones. These boats target the largest adult toothfish, which is the same size those taken by the whales. Toothfish are a slow growing species which do not reach maturity until 16 years old. Many of these fish taken in the fishery were over 25 years old, some older.

Antarctic toothfish.

Since 2004, the commercial catch has remained steady year by year. Catch and release efforts of toothfish by scientists in McMurdo Sound remained steady from the years 1974 to 2000, but dropped 50% in 2001 a few years after the commercial fishing began and then to 4% in 2007, only 3 years after the peak commercial catches began. It would appear that the drop in Ross Sea killer whale numbers is related to the increase in the commercial fishing of the toothfish.

Are there any other animals that would be affected by the reduction in toothfish numbers?

Weddell seals also take toothfish as a primary food source and their numbers have not decreased in McMurdo Sound, though trends elsewhere along Victoria Land are unknown. Seals are able to dive deeper and stay under longer than the whales and therefore able to catch the fish which are safe from the whales. Seals therefore not only forage where the whales forage, but also in areas the whales can not reach, places covered with extensive fast ice where small cracks provide breathing holes. Seals also eat silverfish. It is thought that whales also eat silverfish but there are no confirmed sightings for this. The whales therefore may be more sensitive to changes in toothfish availability. If the toothfish industry continues to extract the current yearly numbers, it is predicted these creatures will decline more rapidly.

For more information about the Ross Sea, the toothfish industry and how it is affecting penguins, whales and seals go to The Last Ocean.

We heard that sound again two days ago at Cape Royds, having heard it before in January 2005, when a several square kilometer opening appeared in the fast ice just offshore in a matter of hours. The ice was dissolving, or would we call it melting?, and it was happening so fast that you could see it disappearing without even needing your imagination to be going overtime. It’s kind of like putting an ice cube in a cup of boiling tea water to watch it disappear; only here the water is just a degree above freezing. That’s plenty warm as ice goes. In 2005 the fast ice was thinner, so it went from white ice to blue water; this year it was much thicker, so for a couple of weeks it slowly turned darker shades of gray, as it took on more water. Then, fzzzzzzz.

Otherwise, except for this new patch of open water within the ice, called a polynya (a Russian word; without a doubt the Inuits have a name for this, too), there is still fast ice to the horizon as I have described in various of my previous dispatches.

The Swedish icebreaker Oden going south, very slowly, through the ice a few kilometers out in McMurdo Sound, while a polynya begins to form next to Cape Royds.

The south ‘shore’ of the polynya, the day after it initially formed, showing proximity to the Cape Royds penguin colony (tan area on left side of image). The polynya is to the right, beginning to dissolve the gray ice in the center of the image.

In fact, in the Arctic, Inuit villages — and, for that matter, seabird colonies — are located near to polynyas. And, wouldn’t you know, so are penguin colonies, although at the opposite end of the Earth. This is because polynyas allow these predators much easier access to their food. Normally, McMurdo Sound is one big polynya, and the penguins are here at Royds because of it. As I’ve been making the point in previous dispatches, the Royds penguins have been having a hard time of it this season, because their polynya didn’t form, owing to calm winds which allowed the ice to thicken until not even the strongest winds could blow it away. So, they’ve had a very long walk to get food. That is, up until a few weeks ago, when the few remaining penguins still having chicks were provided a large crack to feed in, just 4-5 km north of the colony. Now they’ve got a full-fledged, mini-polynya and all is right in the World!

Well, just like in 2005, within a day of the polynya forming, a couple of minke whales showed up in it! Where they came from, I’m not sure, but they may have followed the Oden into the ice (35 km from the fast ice edge), and then pealed off when a crack that intersected the icebreaker channel allowed them to get to the Cape Royds polynya. Maybe they heard it fizzing! Or the sounds of joyful penguins!

The minke whales, for several hours, cruised around the polynya feeding all the time. They’d submerge for 6-8 min at a time and likely were like big “Hoovers”, i.e. vacuum cleaners. Between dives, they exhaled (i.e. whale “blows”) 4-5 times, clearly audible in the still air from a kilometer away. Within a couple of hours after the whales’ arrival, the penguins’ diet switched from krill to fish. I’d been monitoring it by watching what passes between adult and chick everyday for the past few weeks. Wow! I knew that the whales could do this to the penguins, but I didn’t realize that the whales were so efficient! Not long after the whales left (they’ve not been seen for about 24 hours now) the penguins’ diet switched back to krill. Therefore, this is pretty good evidence for what we call “interference competition”. The whales certainly eat a lot but also their vacuuming causes the krill to try to escape, of course. And what krill do when being pursued, if they can, is to dive deeper and, it seems, deeper than penguins want to go, especially when there are enough fish to be had at shallower depths, though apparently not in a density that in this case would interest a minke looking for easy pickings. If the whales had vacuumed all the krill, when they left, there would be no food for the penguins. As it was, the krill ventured back up into the light (where the phytoplankton occurs that the krill eat), to then be caught by the penguins again. Both whales and penguins go for the easy meal, i.e. that nearest the surface.

Parent feeding its chick. With binoculars, if you get the right angle, usually it is possible to determine whether krill (pink) or fish (gray) is being fed to the chick.

Well, so, you’d think that maybe whales are an annoyance to Adélie penguins. As it turns out, though, minke whales are life savers! Adélie penguins, if given a choice, would always want to have minke whales around, despite the whales’ appetite and despite the best (?) efforts of the Japanese whalers. You see, minke whales — because, like Adélie penguins, they are pack ice denizens — have evolved a very long and sharp “beak”. When you see the whales in areas were the sea is freezing, it becomes quickly obvious why this is a good thing. The whales use their rostrum to break breathing holes in the new ice.

This ice is thick enough that penguins walk over it. With the whales around, though, the penguins can swim between whale breathing holes much faster than walking. In fact, several years ago, when on an icebreaker at the time of ice freeze-up in the Amundsen Sea, one day there were whales and penguins swimming around, and then the next day, with a dramatic drop in temperature and a freeze, there were whale holes but no whales or penguins. Together, they had escaped north far enough to move away from the area of freezing.

A minke whale pushing up through recently frozen sea ice, the ice around it being 4-5 cm thick.

All but one of these penguins found a hole left by a minke whale; the next whale breathing hole is just behind the lone penguin and this flock of penguins is next going to appear in that hole.

These penguins are not walking on frosted glass. They are walking on ice thick enough to support their weight, but not thick enough that a minke whale could not break a hole.

It is good for Adélie penguins to have as many minke whales around as possible. This one, like the pied piper, is making a “channel” through new ice, soon to be followed by a flock (school?) of penguins, who would much rather swim than walk.

Penguins need whales, especially minke whales, as friends.

John Weller prepares for a dive in McMurdo Sound.

Alas, on this trip to Antarctica all my underwater exploration has been by proxy through John’s photos and footage, but also through the unique under-ice vehicles SCINI and Endurance. SCINI (Submersible Capable of Under Ice Navigation) is a remote operated vehicle, or ROV, designed and operated by the team of Dr. Stacy Kim and Bob Zook of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. We dropped in on a SCINI demonstration the first week we were in McMurdo, an event Bob and Stacy hosted for the community here.

Stacy Kim and Cameo Slaybaugh drilling a hole for SCINI to dive through.

Stacy Kim with SCINI, the ROV that lets her explore under-ice marine ecosystems.

Here’s video of SCINI being deployed through her dive hole:

This slender little ROV, only six inches in diameter, can fit through an eight-inch hole drilled into the sea ice. SCINI is portable (Bob calls it a backpack ROV) so it only needs two or three people to launch and operate it. SCINI’s flexibility allows the science and engineering team to explore very remote places in waters up to 1000 feet (300 meters) deep and inaccessible to SCUBA divers. The ROV is being used by Stacy, who is a benthic ecologist, to study the creatures that live on the bottom (“benthos”) of the ocean. But it’s also a tool that can be used by lots of other scientists in many disciplines. SCINI can provide underwater eyes to ocean sediment coring operations, like ANDRILL, that let scientists see the drill core and properly adjust their setting. It can be also used to map krill distribution for David Ainley’s whale and penguin studies and to map the ocean floor.

SCINI engineer Bob Zook driving the ROV with a game controller.

SCINI being prepared for a dive by Francois Cazenave.

In this video, Stacy explains how SCINI navigation works underwater:

Last year, Bob and Stacy used SCINI to explore some “lost” experiments in McMurdo Sound placed there in the 1960s by benthic ecologists John Oliver and Paul Dayton. Searching the sea floor with SCINI, they were able to locate these tethered experiments and hope to come back next year to collect samples from the sites. This season they took SCINI to three different locations near McMurdo station to study communities of sponges under sea ice and permanent ice shelves and also to explore areas where icebergs have scoured the bottom. For more about Stacy’s research, watch the webcast we did with them in McMurdo.

SCINI with her underwater lights turned on.

I also got a wonderful opportunity to watch the deployment of an underwater bot much larger and more complex than SCINI. Called Endurance (or affectionately dubbed “phatty” by Stacy Kim) this autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, was developed by Stone Aerospace and funded by NASA. The research camp at Lake Bonney in the McMurdo Dry Valleys is being run by Peter Doran of the University of Illinois in Chicago with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Traveling by helicopter out to the site, I caught my first glimpse of Blood Falls, a famous feature on the Taylor Glacier first described by British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. The striking color comes from an iron-containing salt, ferrous hydroxide, that seeps out of the glacier and stains the water and ice a rusty red. After landing, I strapped ice stabilizers on my boots and headed out on my first walk on a frozen lake. The patterns of the ice were gorgeous.

On the helo trip out to Lake Bonney, we saw glaciers pouring out of the Dry Valleys.

Blood Falls gets its color from iron salts seeping out of Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys.

Arriving at a big canvas-covered “garage” on the lake ice, I watched as the roughly spherical-shaped Endurance was deployed. Endurance requires a much larger hole than SCINI and the use of a hoist and several people to guide it into and down the ice hole. Once through the ice, the bot is programmed to take measurements throughout the water column, map the bottom of Lake Bonney and probe for evidence of microbial life. For this experiment, the bot is tethered with a fiber-optic cable that can send photos back to the team in the tent and keep track of its whereabouts.

The Endurance command center on Lake Bonney.

Patterns of ice on Lake Bonney.

Patterns of ice on Lake Bonney.

Enurance is being used in the Dry Valleys LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) program to better understand the ecosystem of Lake Bonney. But a scaled-down version of Endurance could one day probe under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa, perhaps the best candidate for finding water and alien microbial life in our solar system.

Endurance is being hoisted to its dive hole.

My task for the day is to set stakes at every 100 meters in a straight line in a distinct orientation atop the sea ice over McMurdo Sound. Each flag represents a location for data collection about the sediments below the sea floor. Our goal of 8 kilometers a day is doable for our three-person team but not always pleasant in the Antarctic cold. My job of sighting each flag through a scope is tedious and requires stillness. In Antarctica stillness is not your friend. It is only in movement that you can find warmth at temperatures of -15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Me, completely bundled up. (This is my usual fashion out on the ice).

I bundle all the way up. Face mask, goggles, hat, glove liners, and gloves are all required on days full of stillness. The waiting and stillness required for this job make it my least favorite. So, I lose myself in the landscapes. As my two team mates chat between flags leaving me in limbo, I consider the millions of years it took for glaciers to carve out Ferrar Valley. I wonder what is causing Mt. Erebus to throw out plumes of smoke today as compared to only sputtering yesterday. I imagine all of the various sea critters nestled in grooves in the ice below my feet. I am struck by the daily realization that I stand and live atop the frozen ocean surface.

In the distance you can see icebergs that have been frozen within the sea ice.

The ice I live on moves like the crust of our planet. Our amazing planet spins as it zooms around the sun. All of this movement, yet I am still cold? These are the things you consider while trying to pass the time in Antarctica.

Mt. Erebus and our straight line of flags.

This is why I love science. Because it is about the value of perpetual questioning. Because at its core it is about considering and then reconsidering the facts. It is a constant and unyielding effort to find and reveal something that is more true. Even in science there are few truths but many partial ones. So, we hunt and we dig. We travel to the bottom of the world to gain more facts that we can consider and then reconsider. The power of science resides not in its answers but in the questions it provokes. Legendary scientists are remembered less for the answers they’ve given us and more for the questions they had the courage to ask. As I gaze out over the sharp shapes of white and blue and hear the buzzing of my radio calling me back to duty, I make note of these realizations. Walking back to my scope, I make a small promise to myself. “I promise to never lose sight of the power and potential of questions.”

Flags and my team mates as they travel to the next flag location.

During the first few weeks, we had to drive out to Cape Royds from McMurdo on snowmobiles every few days. This was because the folks at McMurdo were way backed up in being able to install solar power at our camp. Thus, we couldn’t set up a permanent camp. It’s a 35 km trip from McMurdo, taking about 40 minutes. We had to drive out in order to look for banded penguins, whether they laid eggs, and to change the batteries in the time-lapse cameras. Here we are on one of the trips; for safety two snowmobiles were required…we took along people from McMurdo so that they could get a chance to see Antarctica:

It is a 40 min drive from McMurdo Station to Cape Royds on snow machines. Here we take a break to watch the plume on Mt Erebus, the only active volcano in Antarctica.

The reason the penguins arrived early, is that with a lack of wind during the winter (that’s true, it wasn’t very windy), the large-scale extent of sea ice in this portion of the Southern Ocean was much less than usual. The penguins winter at the pack ice edge, so with the edge much closer to Ross Island, they had a much shorter, maybe 1000 km less, trip to make.

The situation with the ice patterns involves the wind rather than temperatures. The temperatures are cold, regardless. When the winds blow off the continent in the winter the ice is blown farther and farther northward (away from the continent) leaving open water at the coast which allows more ice to be formed, which then gets blown north and the cycle goes on continuously (in most winters-springs). It’s like a conveyor belt. Winters with continuous winds, which is the usual, create pack ice a long way from the land sometimes as far as 2000 km. This last winter the winds were not strong or persistent and not as much ice was blown away from the continent. Thus, the penguins were not very far away when the sun rose and they began their southward journey. Not having as much distance to cover during spring migration, they arrived earlier than usual.

Once the first penguins arrived, the ‘flood’ began. Throughout the following few weeks, birds continued to come ashore, build their nests, find their mates and on Nov 5th we saw the first egg.

The first egg of the 2008-09 Adélie Penguin breeding season at Cape Royds, a bit early this year Nov 5.

Here’s a graph of penguin counts from the PenguinCam, comparing this year with last (the spaces between counts were days when it was too windy or snowy to get a clear image…many more of these windy days in 2007):

Arrival of Adélie Penguins at Cape Royds, based on photos from the Penguin Cam.

The window of successful laying at Cape Royds is short. If the eggs are not laid by about now (24 Nov), it is unlikely that parents can be successful. That’s because the winter comes early! A major factor that will contribute to the success rate of this year’s colony is the distance the birds will have to walk to find open water and food. After the female lays her eggs, she leaves the male in charge of the nest and returns to the sea to forage. This year, because of the lack of wind, a very extensive continuous sheet of ‘fast ice’ was able to form. Normally, wind would have blown new ice away, but the wind didn’t happen, so the ice sat in place and got so thick that whatever the strength of the later wind, it was not strong enough to budge the ice. It was locked fast in place by various points of land (kind of like a jig-saw puzzle). Now it is a long way from Cape Royds to the ocean and food, 70 km. This means two days of just walking, one way. Many females may decide not to return to relieve their mates, or will return a few days too late. The males will not sacrifice themselves for the sake of the egg, the drive to satisfy their growing hunger outweighing the inclination to raise progeny, and if the females do not return they will abandon the eggs. Only time will give us the answer to this one, but it is likely that the ice will remain in place until January, when the icebreaker arrives.

Here is an image taken by a NASA satellite a few days ago. It shows where Royds is located, and where the edge of the fast ice occurs (out by Beaufort Island). So, the penguins at Royds have to add 4 days to a foraging trip, 2 for walking out and 2 for walking back. Added to that are the days needed to catch food and replace fat reserves, i.e. several days. Four days of walking is a long time when you are hungry.

Satellite image of ice conditions in the Ross Sea area.

Sea ice over McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

The rattle of my tent varies with the wind. One manmade sound comes and goes. The generator rages only when the solar panels cannot feed our computers and technical equipment with enough energy. Some in our party claim to have heard penguins last night, I did not.

Sea ice over McMurdo Sound.

The lack of darkness brings one perk for an insomniac. No flashlight is needed and fear of the dark does not keep you from roaming the ice at night. It’s not the dark but the cold we fear here. I bundle up and wander through our small camp and count, then recount the tents. I analyze the subtle differences in their shades of yellow.

Our tents and the sea ice.

My thoughts travel home to red ants on oak trees and mustard greens in the breeze. I am a long way from home. There is nothing green here, nothing grows toward the sun. I wonder when I might feel sand between my toes or here crickets in the darkness.

Tomorrow the work we came here for begins. Data collection is only hours away. I plan on leaving nothing of myself. I will work till my body aches. I will have peace of mind and body once the day is done. Tomorrow night I will defy the sun and make my own night as I sleep.

MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA– The Hagglund awaited us as we prepared to depart for sea ice training. This was a requirement since our expedition is to be based on the ice that forms over the ocean of McMurdo Sound every austral winter. We had to learn how to identify cracks and do thickness profiles of the ice across them, how to determine if a crack was safe to cross depending on what type of vehicle we were traveling in, and how to make ice anchors to secure things like our tents or equipment to the ice.

The Hagglund that brought us out to the sea ice.

The first introduction was looking at the tide crack just off from McMurdo Station. This forms between the fast ice which is attached to land and doesn’t move and the sea ice which succumbs to the rising and falling of the tides. A tide crack forms everywhere where there is sea ice meeting land. We poked at it with bamboo poles to check for snow thickness and competency to make sure where we were walking was secure.

The tide crack at the transition between the fast ice near McMurdo Station and the sea ice.

We hopped back into the Hagglund and drove north along the flagged Cape Evans Road in search of cracks between plates of sea ice. We drove past the Erebus Glacial Tongue, through the Dellbridge Islands which are actually the high points of a former volcanic mountain that is buried beneath the ice. Soon we came up on the crack we were looking for.

Driving along Cape Evans Road.

We pulled up to some flags marking a crack that crossed the roadway. Now we would learn how to travel safely across the sea ice. Most first-year sea ice is about 2-meters thick (or about 6.5 feet), but the minimum thickness of ice to travel on is 30 inches, so in most cases we would be okay. The gap that forms in a crack is of critical importance to determine whether or not you can ride across it, and the minimum width is dependent on the length of how much of the vehicle is in contact with the surface. A crack is considered safe to cross if it is 1/3 or less of the length of the vehicle treads.

Flags marking a crack crossing the Cape Evans Road.

First thing when approaching a crack is to identify the edges of it by poking a bamboo pole into the snow. The snow should be excavated across the crack down to the ice surface. Then you drill to penetrate through the ice into the underlying water. This is done on either edge of the crack and in the gap. The thickness of the ice is measured through the drilled hole and recorded. The profile of the crack is then complete. The ice around the crack we analyzed was more than 30 inches and the width of the crack was less than 1/3 of the length of the vehicle, so it was determined that it was safe to cross and we carried on.

Profiling a crack in the sea ice – drilling to determine ice thickness.

One of the more important things we learned was how to make a V-thread ice anchor. Being out on the sea ice there is very little snow cover. V-threads are used to secure things to the ice. The wind can be very strong in Antarctica, and anything not secured will surely blow away. V-thread ice anchors are constructed by drilling into the ice either with ice screws, as pictured below, or by using a drill.

Making a V-thread ice anchor.

Two holes are drilled at about 45-degree angles that intersect each other. A piece of strong rope is passed through these, knotted together, and anything that needs to be secured is lashed to the anchor line. The ice is quite strong, and when the wind blows powerfully, the ice anchors will make sure nothing blows away.

Once we were finished with our training we turned and headed back toward McMurdo Station with a steaming Mt. Erebus looming above us amid a picturesque swirling wispy sky.

Mt. Erebus steaming in the distance.

We could see the remains of an iceberg nearby that became locked within the sea ice when it froze during the earlier winter.

Remains of an iceberg frozen in the sea ice.

We passed through the Dellbridge Islands that we came through on our outbound journey.

Tent Island (left) and Inaccessible Island (right) of the Dellbridge Islands.

Yet what was in store was the highlight of the day. We found out that our next destination was an ice cave…

MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA– The last couple of days have been really busy down here at McMurdo. I’ve been going through a lot of training sessions and have had many meetings with our Team. We’ve been trying to get all of our equipment together for the long journey across the sea ice to New Harbor. It’s a really long process to make sure we have everything we’re going to need at the field camp.

But today I had some free time in the morning. The weather was incredibly clear and crisp. I took the opportunity to climb up Observation Hill.

Observation Hill.

Observation Hill is a large hill that is 750 feet tall next to McMurdo Station. It is commonly called “Ob Hill” by the people who live and work here. It is the most climbed peak in Antarctica. The hill was named by Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Expedition when they explored this area of Antarctica between 1901 and 1904. Members of Scott’s team would climb to the top to make weather observations.

The further I got up on Ob Hill, the better the views became. I could see all the way across McMurdo Sound. I could see Mt. Discovery (right), Black Island (left), Brown Peninsula (low, and in the middle), and the Royal Society Range of mountains (not shown) as they stretched to the north as far as the eye could see. The straight line on the ice was the roadway that I traveled on from Pegasus Field just a few days before.

Southwest view across McMurdo Sound looking at Mt. Discovery (right), Black Island (left), and Brown Peninsula (low, in the middle). The straight line across the ice is the road to Pegasus Field where we landed.

As I climbed higher and higher, it became windier and colder. Snow was blowing around and I was glad I brought my thick insulated gloves and my ski goggles with me. With the cloudless blue sunny sky above, I bundled up and continued up to the summit.

Almost to the top.

Finally I got to the top of Ob Hill. I gazed down on McMurdo Station 750 feet below me. It looked like a tiny town. There are fewer than 1000 people here now, with more on the way. The population will grow to nearly 2000 during the height of the summer season. I’m amazed at how efficiently this small community runs to support the lives and activities of the people who venture down to the white continent. Looking down at McMurdo Station from this vantage point reminded me just how isolated we truly are down here.

McMurdo Station from the summit of Observation Hill.

There’s a giant cross that was erected on the top of Observation Hill to honor Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the members of his expedition who died on their return traverse from the South Pole during their Terra Nova expedition between 1910 and 1913.

Observation Hill Cross.

Scott and his men got trapped in their tent on the Ross Ice Shelf during an unusually long storm. They were already very weak and they ran out of food. When they got trapped, they were only 11 miles from a depot where they had enough food to get back to their camp on Ross Island. On the cross that Scott’s men built is an inscription from “Ulysses” by Alfred Tennyson which reads: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” These words are inspiring to me. I will try to not cease my own efforts to understand future climate change. To do this, I am in pursuit of knowledge of the past climate on the continent of Antarctica.

This place is so stunningly beautiful. Everywhere I look away from McMurdo Station I see various shapes of dark grey rocky peaks covered with white snow and ice. That or the smooth, flat ice of the Ross Ice Shelf and the lumpy sea ice floating on the surface of the Ross Sea in McMurdo Sound. It’s easy to get lost in the sheer expanse and isolation of this wilderness. But focusing on the details of the shapes, the way snow blows over a mountaintop, or how the sun moves around the sky in a circle gives perspective on singular aspects of the beauty of Antarctica. I can’t wait to get out into the field, to be away from “civilization” in town, to see new views of this other world.

Looking northeast across the summit of Ob Hill to Mt. Erebus.

There are constant reminders here of past exploration. Looking to the north from the summit of Ob Hill I could see Hut Point at the end of Hut Point Peninsula. The peninsula sticks out 15 miles to the southwest like a little finger off of the side of Mt. Erebus. There, a cross memorializing another fallen explorer and Scott’s Discovery Hut.

Looking north to Hut Point and Scott’s Discovery Hut.

As I descended Ob Hill to get back into the warmth of my room, I snapped one more photo of the wind-swept Mt. Erebus. The smoke and vapor coming out of the top of the volcano, and the snow and ice crystals being blown across the landscape show me how dynamic this environment is.

A windswept Mt. Erebus.

The glorious day turned into an amazing night. Seeing the sun dip behind the Royal Society Range around 11pm was a rare picturesque treat. Our last sunset here will be on October 21st. After that we’ll just watch the sun circle around the sky, neither rising nor setting. It will just roll around the heavens all day.

Sun setting across the Royal Society Range.

Tonight’s vivid scenery was accentuated by thin wispy clouds illuminated by the setting sun behind Mt. Discovery. I had to go outside and take some photographs. I could get used to this place!

Sunset behind Mt. Discovery.

MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA– After an early start for breakfast in Christchurch, New Zealand, I went to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) before most of the Team to turn in my excess baggage: the camera equipment provided by the Exploratorium for Ice Stories. This gave me quite a bit of time to repack my personal belongings in the orange bags the U.S. Antarctic Program provided.

My ‘Big Red’.

I didn’t have to rush and was able to take it easy. I had the opportunity to explore around the International Antarctic Centre. It was a lot of fun to walk around this museum of Antarctic exploration and see how things have changed over time. On display were old style sleds that the explorers used to transport their gear and supplies. What was really interesting was to see the clothing Polar explorers of the past used to wear and then compare it to what was provided to me and everyone going down to the Ice.

The International Antarctic Centre.

There’s even an indoor replica of an Antarctic scene to give people the sense of what life on the Ice is like. There’s real snow and it’s kept really cold, but the children looked like they were having fun. I think some were even having a snow ball fight!

Kids playing in ‘Antarctica’.

Finally it was time to check in and weigh our bags because we were getting close to when we were supposed to board the plane and take off. This is handled by New Zealand military. We all had to weigh our checked luggage and our “boomerang bags,” the bags that would be returned to us if we couldn’t land at McMurdo Station and had to come back to New Zealand. We all had to step on the scales ourselves while holding our carry-on bags. Every pound on the plane gets accounted for to make sure it’s not too heavy.

Lining up to check and weigh luggage.

Shakira Brown and Andrea Balbas checking in.

We all had to watch a video before we boarded the plane that covered various safety issues and protecting the fragile environment while down in Antarctica. Afterward, we all got on buses that took us to the C-17….our chariot awaits!

Our chariot awaits: the C-17.

I was really happy to get on the plane. It was such an exciting moment because I knew (hoping we didn’t get boomeranged) that I would be stepping out onto the continent of Antarctica the next time the plane door opened!

Me boarding.

The inside of the plane was nothing like I’ve ever seen. It certainly didn’t look like the commercial flights I’ve been on before. All of the parts of the plane were exposed and the seating was quite different than I’m used to, with only the front and the rear of the plane having actual airplane seats. Most of the seats were along the sides facing into the middle. The rest were in the middle facing out.

Inside the plane.

Here’s a picture of Marv Speece (middle), the geophysicist who is charge of the generating the imagery of the sediments below the sea floor. On either side are his students David (left) and Brian (right).

Marv Speece (center), and his students David (left) and Brian
(right) strapped in.

I even had the chance to get up into the cockpit for a few minutes to talk with the flight crew and to see what it was like up there!

Sitting in the cockpit.

When we boarded the plane I asked one of the lieutenants if it would be okay to use my handheld GPS to track the flight path of the plane from Christchurch to Pegasus landing field at McMurdo Station. He asked the ranking officer and it was agreed that it was okay.

On-board GPS flight information.

Pegasus is an ice runway about a 45-minute drive from McMurdo Station. As you can see from the GPS, we were flying pretty high, and at the time of the photo (NZ time), were already pretty far south after being in the air for only about 1 ½ hours. The GPS also showed me that we were traveling at a little over 500 miles per hour!

There were only a few windows in the plane, but once we had made it below about 70 degrees south latitude, everybody got really excited and word spread that there was something other than water or clouds to see. The line grew longer and longer, but I finally made it to the front and had a peak out the window….my first view of Antarctica!

My first view of Antarctica.

The flight crew instructed everyone to get all of our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear on and to buckle into our seats. We began our descent to the white continent. Words can’t really explain how I felt at the time. I knew we weren’t getting boomeranged. I knew that I would breathe in the icy, dry air in just a short while. I was bubbling over with excitement, and Shakira was too! We were finally arriving in Antarctica.

Shakira Brown and me geared up and ready to land.

I’ll never forget my first steps onto the Ice. Mt. Erebus was in plain view, sending its smoke and vapor into the air a distance off. The moon was high above (don’t forget that it was about 9:30 at night!), and I felt like I was meeting a long-lost friend, a friend that I’ve known for a very long time.

My first steps on the continent – Mt. Erebus with the moon – 9:30pm.

It was with that comfortable feeling and exhilaration that I boarded “Ivan” the Terra Bus for the most scenic drive in the world, the drive on the ice over McMurdo Sound.

‘Ivan’ the Terra Bus.