Sea Ice!

We've been without power and internet all day so I wasn't able to get this up before you all went to bed today. The last couple days have been busy but super fun! I was out on the sea ice and saw a seal... but let me start back on Sunday. Get ready, this is a long entry.

I told you about the morning in the last entry and then I had a fantastic 2 hour nap in the afternoon. It was Terry's turn to give the Sunday Science Lecture and we were his assistants. He had a great talk and some fun demonstrations that we helped with. The talk was about optical phenomenon and certain features that show up in Antarctica. Everyone really seemed to like the talk and we've had tons of compliments.

Monday wasn't too interesting, I was cranky all day and then was really crabby when I found out all the work I've done in the last couple days I did wrong. So we chilled out and watched a movie that night so I didn't have to talk to anyone.

Tuesday morning we launched another balloon early in the morning (Stacy Sonde I think). We did something wrong on the inflation and had a bit of a rough launch. The balloon didn't go up when we let it go like it was supposed to but floated horizontal for awhile. We didn't think it was going to go anyway but eventually it headed upwards. It was slow moving though and took forever to get to its ceiling. Then it was a floater and took its time doing it's thing. Stupid balloon.

Tuesday afternoon we had sea ice training. It was pretty cool. First we had a classroom type lecture and I learned a bunch about how the ice moves differently from lake ice. We also learned about the different types of cracks that form on the ice as it moves and how to find and profile a crack. Then we headed out to the ice to look at some real cracks in the sea ice. We rode in a Hagglund out there, which is a neat little machine. Slow moving but efficient.

We looked at some tidal cracks then found a crack near hut point we could play with. This is hut point where we were looking for cracks.
We practiced profiling the crack which is checking to see if you can drive over it safely. We just had a little crack about 5 inches wide, enough to stick your boot in. We shoveled out a little area and then drilled down to see how thick the ice was.

It turns out that the ice we were drilling was 175 cm thick, which is about 6 feet. That’s some thick ice. We drove to another area and drilled again.
The views were incredible and I got some really nice pictures. But I'm not putting them up here cuz I think they are that good and don't want anybody snagging them. I'll show you when I get home.

While we were stopped, one of the science groups (diving guys) stopped to invite us to their hut to look down their diving hole. So we cruised over there. More amazing scenery and hole drilled in the ice. This is the other side of hut point with a bunch of tidal cracks in the ice.

This is where they send down cameras and divers.

This instrument is called “Skinny” and it has a camera on it that looks at the bottom of the sea.

I believe it’s a robot and they can drive it around?? Or they have a robot that they sent out and drive around?? Not sure but we were able to see down the hole some 85 feet and look at the bottom. There were sponges, starfish and other fishes. It was so cool. I can’t even describe how cool it was to be looking at the bottom of the ocean from 80 feet up, through 6 feet of ice, in a little hut out on the sea ice of McMurdo Sound, in Antarctica. So cool.

Later, after we had gotten back and had dinner, the Crary lab (where I work) had a Bingo night in the bar on station. So Leslie and I headed over there to play and have some fun. I didn’t win but Leslie won twice. She got some nice prizes and it was a nice night. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of fun. I slept like a rock last night and really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. I didn’t even brush my hair, I was pretty proud that I had at least gotten dressed and put deodorant on.

So this morning, Wednesday, we had the opportunity to go back to the ice with the seal group and watch them release a seal. They are studying the hunting habits of seals by attaching instruments to them and measuring a bunch of stuff. They had outfitted one and were ready to release it and they let us watch. Unfortunately, due to permit laws, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the actual seal because it had instruments on it . Hopefully I’ll be able to get some from the group and can show you when I get home. But here is a picture of the huts they work in and the Jamesway where they keep the seals while instrumenting them. The little vehicle is called a Piston Bully.

This is Ian sawing out the seal hole. This was pretty neat, made me want to try my hand at chain sawing ice.

Boe is pulling the ice out of the hole with David.

After everything was ready, it was time to release the seal. What a beautiful animal. So sleek and big! It was huge! And so cute and sweet looking. She waddled to the ice hole and slipped into the water but checking to see if the coast was clear first of course. She came back up for air a couple times, so I was able to see it bobbing in the water. Super cute. Then poof, it was gone and that was that. Here are a couple pictures I found online of Weddell seals so you can at least see the type of seal I saw, since I wasn't able to take any.

And yes, she was that cute. She made me want to cuddle with her but she would have crushed me. She was about 400 kg or 900 pounds.

While we were out there, we saw some optical things. Mirages and sun dogs. I also was able to get some nice picture of Mt. Erebus. You can see the puff of smoke coming out the top if you look closely. Its the huge mountain behind the little hills.

It was an awesome couple of days. I’m preparing for another big adventure next week that I will tell you about later but I’m not going to tell you what I’m doing. I’m going to leave you in suspense. Enjoy the pictures!!