Sea Ice and Seals

Yello.
Well, it has been a fun filled couple of days. On Tuesday, we had our Sea Ice Training. No, not Happy Camper. Thankfully, I don't have to camp out in the freezing cold again. Sea Ice training is a class that teaches you all about what to look for when you're out driving around on the sea ice in the different vehicles on station. We learned how to spot cracks, and how to determine whether it is safe to drive over a crack. The rule on station is: 1/3 of your track length and 30" thick ice. So for a wheeled vehicle with 12" of tire in contact with the ground, the crack can't be bigger than 4". The 30" ice thickness is a standard rule of thumb for most of the vehicles on station.

To determine how thick the ice is, you have to drill to the bottom.
Here, Stephanie is drilling down through the ice near a crack we found. We drilled 30", with no problem. But we wanted to see how thick the ice was, so we kept on drilling until the drill popped out of the other end. Then we dropped a weighted measuring tape down the hole to determine how thick the ice was. 175 cm. Not too shabby. Almost 6 feet thick.
Here is a close up of our ice crack and our drill:
The image is at a weird angle, but you can see our crack and where we drilled. We dug a hole near the crack that went down to the sea ice (it was covered in snow), and inside the crack was a slushy water. Ooh. Frightening. :-)
This picture is one of me. Drilling away. Our snazzy vehicle we took out onto the sea ice is behind me. It is called a Hagglund. You can go for rides on them in Christchurch at the Antarctic Center for the low low price of around $20. Or, you can go all the way to Antarctica and get to cruise around on them for free. Your choice. I have some nice, artistic Hagglund shots, but you'll just have to wait for Calendar '10.

Now that we were all sea ice trained, we could go out to the seal group's camp. They are doing a study on the feeding habits of Weddell Seals (remember him from last year?). They catch a seal, gear him up, and release him to collect data. I couldn't take any pics of the seal release we got to see, but it was really cool. They are incredible animals. However, it was so beautiful on the ice, I thought I'd share some of the pics I did take:

That's Ross Island. McMurdo is in the front, near the shore. That Monstrous behemoth behind station is Mount Erebus. Oh volcanoes. You are so intimidating. Here's another, closer shot of McMurdo with Erebus in the background. If you click on the thumbnail of this one, you'll be able to see the station a little better.
Well, I hope you enjoyed some sights around McMurdo. In a couple of days, the summer flights will start coming in regularly, and we'll get some fresh food. We haven't had a flight since the end of August.