Antarctica 2000, Report #1 Oct 5. 1900hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: -15 deg C, Wind: 5 knts clear sky

Hello everyone...... again!

It seems that at the end of each trip down here to the ice, I claim that it will probably be my last. And yet, here I am once again.

Just so that you know some of the details of what we are doing down here in McMurdo this year.... We are finishing up the production of a documentary film project for PBS Nature (that should air in the fall of 2001) on life under the Antarctic Ice. The project is being directed by Norbert Wu, a well known and astounding underwater photographer. The group this year also includes Christian McDonald as an assistant diver and cameraman. Christian (a.k.a. 'Hoss') is very experienced on the ice, with several seasons at McMurdo and he works primarily as a marine technician on the National Science Foundations' icebreakers in polar seas. His nickname stems from his burly size (all the better to lug heavy equipment in and out of our dive holes) and happy demeanor. This season Doug Quin, a sound engineer, has joined us to make professional recordings of assorted sounds to go along with the film. This is his second trip to McMurdo. We haven't come up with an nickname for him yet, but I am sure we will soon enough. I am back to resume my role as diver, back-up cameraman and 'scientific liaison' for the project. I will also be able to make sediment (sponge spiculite) collections, for sharing with a group of Canadian geologists, during my dives. This is my 4th trip to McMurdo and 6th to the polar regions. Unfortunately, our good friend Peter Brueggeman will not be joining us this year.

The Trip Down.

We started this years journey in ominous fashion. Our flights were canceled at LAX due to mechanical problems and we were forced to spend the night. Perhaps it was foreshadowing the usual weather delays in the flights from New Zealand to Antarctica, or maybe it was just practice. Nevertheless, we spent a night in a hotel all of 200 miles from San Diego and flew on to Auckland the next day (with the usual tedious 14 hour flight). I have learned my lesson from previous trips, so I had up-graded to the cushy comfort of Business Class, so I managed to get some rest and the flight progressed quickly. Unfortunately all the connecting flights were also messed up, so we had to race through the Auckland airport with over 20 large crates of equipment to catch a connection to Wellington and then on to Christchurch, where we arrived in the middle of the night.

We arrived on the weekend and couldn't make it to the Antarctic programs' Clothing Distribution Center (CDC)for our polar survival clothing outfitting until Monday morning (with the flight scheduled for the following Tues. morning), so we spent a relaxed day travelling around the countryside and eating far too much food. Christchurch is a marvelous city. Compact and very clean. Happy. Everyone walks outside, wanders the town square and downtown shops. There is a busy arts complex in the downtown area next to an enormous botanical garden, and outdoor murals and other artworks that nobody spraypaints or vandalizes. It sends out a really hopeful signal -- cities don't have to spiral into messy squalor. They can stay tidy, friendly and safe. I spent some time in Smiths Bookshop. An old 3 story used bookstore and magnet for bibliophiles. Inside there are enormous floor to ceiling bookshelves and teetering old ladders to negotiate them, stacks, nay, mounds of books heaped on tables, piles of maps and old prints and papers, cabinets with books overflowing out of drawers and great faded pictures of the queen on the wall. Great stuff!

The next day, our clothing distribution went without a hitch and we quickly organized our crates of equipment for shipping. That left time for a little more sightseeing and another fine meal before leaving early the next morning.

We woke at 4am the next morning, piled into a shuttle bus and drove bleary eyed to the CDC for our departure. You have to wear all your extreme weather survival gear on the plane, just in case there is a crash (although the odds would be that you would land in the ocean, where a heavy down parka isn't going to do much good anyway). So, you change into a pile of heavy clothes (and start to immediately sweat to death) and march into the 'lounge' area where you are weighed and sit to wait to board the plane.

Despite the earlier bad flight karma from LAX, there were no problems with either the plane or the weather reports so we quickly had a flight briefing and got underway. This year we flew down on an Air Force C-141 jet transport which was much faster (about 5 hours) than our previous C-130 flights. Alas, although it was a much faster trip, it still wasn't a comfortable one. There was over 100 of us crammed into the cargo bay like nylon-wrapped sheep. There are no real seats. You sit wedged side by side in 4 long rows on nylon net webbing. The people opposite to you are so close you have to alternate the placement of your knees and legs and take turns stretching. 6 people at a time were allowed to stand up and stretch in the little area at the rear of the aircraft between a large cargo pallet and the little curtain around the 'pee barrel'. Yippee! But, it was only 5 hours......

By 1pm we were back down in McMurdo and there were many familiar faces to great us. Some had wintered over from last season, and I must admit, after spending 12 months continuously on the ice down here, were starting to look a little wild-eyed (they will be leaving over the next few days). Others had arrived about 6 weeks previous, during Winfly and were already settled in to their working routine. Most of the science staff were arriving with us (the first flight of the season) or will be arriving over the coming month.

My time since arriving has been occupied with preparations for our work on the sea ice. So far we have spent the last 2 days with a science party briefing, training sessions for snowmobile, Spryte tractor and truck use - A session on waste management (how to store and handle your garbage for end-of-the-season recycling) - Meetings with the radio communications group - A dive safety briefing - A meeting at the field food supply storage area. Sorting through our field gear and other unpacking. And last, but not least, helicopter safety training and field survival school. Because members of our group are all fairly experienced on the ice, we didn't have to take part in the 2 day survival school ("Happy Camper School") and instead we had a day-long 'push' course to reorient ourselves with the equipment that we took with a group of helicopter pilots. The highlight was listening to the head of Petroleum Helicopters Inc.(the contract group who runs the helicopters on the ice), who was down to check on his team at the start of the season. He was a rather melodramatic fellow and he stood up, cleared his throat and said, "the tips of the main and tail rotor turn at over 400 mph. Ya get too close, and they'll kill ya. That will just ruin your whole day.." The pilots all rolled their eyes and we all looked at each other thinking, "who the heck is this guy?"

Antarctica 2000, Report #2 Oct 8. 1830hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: -15 deg , Wind: 5 knts cloudy sky

Our weather has been particularly strange today. It started clear, blustery and very cold. Then it warmed slightly, clouded over and we had poor visibility with blowing snow. Then the gusty winds died and the snow stopped falling, and it really felt like the next day should be Christmas. Perhaps this was because I just came from Southern California.

The day before yesterday we finished the last of our preparations and we made our first dive. In part, it was an orientation dive to once again get used to all the bulky gear and clothing as well as operations around the dive hole. However, for me it was a very important event. It was my first dive back under the ice since last seasons' accident. After what seemed like a never ending series of medical tests back in San Diego, being poked and prodded by umpteen doctors and far too many hours spent sitting in clinic waiting rooms, I was deemed fit to dive again. I resumed diving back at Scripps in March, but working under the albeit chilly waters of California is not quite the same as diving under 2 meters of ice here.

I wish I could say that my return was a profound, enlightening experience, and full of psychological reflection, but it wasn't. Instead I felt a great sense of relief-- relief to be finally back in the sea and out from under the careful, yet prying thumbs of the diving medical community. And relief from the almost claustrophobic, heavy, and constricting dive gear at the surface. It takes a few dives to get used to the bulky suits with tight seals and double layered hoods that make it impossible to move your neck. The heavy gloves that make your fingers seem useless, heavy weightbelts, harnesses and tanks. It is awkward having to depend on others to help suit you up when you are used to being self-sufficient. However, when you finally get into the water and sink down through the shaft-like entrance hole and you drop out into the open water, everything changes. Your gear feels as light as a feather and less constricting, and in the crystal clear water you seem to fly, rather than swim, across the seascape.

I had forgotten how shockingly cold the water is. 28 deg. F or -2 deg C. The only part of your body exposed to the water is a little strip around your lips and it burns like fire when you get in the water and then goes completely numb. Our suits do a good job keeping us warm, but the cold is always there. You can feel it when the air shifts around in your suit and the water pressure starts to crush the insulation onto different part of your anatomy. After half an hour your hands and feet start to ache if you don't have something to occupy your mind. We were just testing our gear by swimming around over a mostly featureless bottom near the seawater intake jetty for the base, so all I could think about was how bloody cold it was, what are we having for dinner tonight, and wouldn't a big steaming cup of hot chocolate go down nicely right about now. After 35 minutes we deemed the test a success and beat a hasty retreat to the surface.

Yesterday, after a long morning of preparations (food and equipment for our dive hut) and fiddling with cameras, we made the 40 minute Spryte journey (our faithful snow tractor) to Turtle Rock. The dive itself was nothing special. This season, the spectacular pressure ridges and ice tunnels around the shallows are not present. Instead, when the ice set in around the island, it froze into a near continuous wall right to the shoreline. As a consequence of this, there are not too many cracks and openings for the Weddell seals to use as breathing holes. Last season there were dozens of seals around Turtle Rock. This year we counted only 2.

The water was incredibly clear and blue. In contrast to yesterdays dive which was very dark due to a thick layer of snow lying on the ice, at Turtle Rock, the ice had been swept clear of snow by high winds and beneath the water was a brilliant azure blue. There was very little plankton at all in the water, and it was very hard to judge distances. You could see jellyfish off in the distance, but only when swimming towards them did you realize just how far away they were. The most spectacular sights were some extremely long (over 8 m long) brine tubes that reached from the sea ice ceiling right to the dark volcanic pebble bottom. The supercooled brine had even poured out the bottoms of the brine tubes (that look like stalactites) and formed frozen rivers along the bottom beneath them. There were two seals along with us and we played hide and seek with them amongst the brine tubes and some shallow ice-crystal rimmed tunnels. Great fun! A 55 minute dive was over quickly.

I had forgotten the tedium of Spryte travel as well. These machines are noisy, lumbering beasts. They belch exhaust, have almost no suspension and the windows quickly get packed with snow when you travel, obliterating any outside view. The ice 'roads' are still fresh and rough with sastrugi (hard wind-packed ridges of snow) so you have to hang on tight and keep all of the gear from bouncing around the cabin. How on earth did we manage to nap in these things last year? Oh well, at least our Spryte hasn't burst into flame yet, or thrown its tracks, but we know it is only a matter of time.

Today was a repeat of yesterday. Back to Turtle Rock for another dive. The island gets its name because from a distance it looks like the back of an enormous black turtle protruding from the ice. I brought a close-up camera rig with me today because I was hoping to take some photographs of the jellyfish and the tiny parasitic amphipods that dot the outside of their bells. Of course, where yesterday I saw dozens, today I only saw one lone jellyfish (which always seems to be the case when you have a camera in hand). I could see the remains of the others, they had crashed into the island slope and were being consumed by anemones and starfish and others were caught up in the platelet ice below the ice ceiling. It's a tough life being a jellyfish at the mercy of the currents.

Now it's time for a quick dinner and my turn at doing a load of laundry.

Antarctica 2000, Report #3 Oct 10. 1900hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: - 15 deg C, Wind: 10 knts sky partly cloudy

I used to think that helping another photographer was potentially the most boring thing possible -- Now I know that that isn't the case. It is much more tedious helping a sound engineer (sorry Doug). This afternoon, Doug Quin and I flew by helicopter out to the ice edge to try and make sound recordings of penguins and whatever else we could find at the edge of the ice sheet. The edge of the sea ice is about 15 km closer this season, but still about a 30 minute flight away from McMurdo. And, when we arrived, there was no 'hard' ice edge at the moment. There was several km of soft ice and slush (far too unstable to walk on, much less land a helicopter on) between the sea ice shelf and the open water.

We skimmed along the ice 'edge' for a while, looking for penguins with no luck. Turning back we landed next to a small open pool of water at the edge of the soft ice because I thought we could at least make some background sound recordings of the open sea and any seals and whales with our hydrophones. We weren't on the ground 5 minutes when 20 Emperors jumped out of the little pool and waddled over to check us out. I have mentioned previously how the penguins seem to worship helicopters. It really is funny. They all gather around, look us up and down, then walk all around the aircraft, look at the tail rotor for a while, make squaking noises, check out the cockpit, more standing around, check out the storage cage... This is great, but the boring part is that Doug has to do his sound recordings of all this, and we are not allowed to move since the crunching sounds of snow and ice and rustling clothes are all easily transmitted to the microphones. So, we had to try to sit on the ice motionless for 20 minutes at a time, in the cold and a howling wind, then while he was swapping batteries and resetting his phones, we could jump around and try to warm up a bit. The penguins were great, but I was really happy when he was finished.

Antarctica 2000, Report #3 Oct 11 . 1750hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: - 10deg C, Wind: 0 knts sky clear

Just like anywhere else, you can have good days and you can have bad days. The whole day wasn't bad, just the afternoon dive. Christian, Rob Robbins (the diving officer here) and I went for a quick dive at the intake jetty in front of the base. Rob and I were going to take pictures of the many invertebrates found on the jetty boulders and Christian was along for a little sight-seeing.

The dive was ominous from the start. The hut we were using for shelter was also being used by Dr. Art DeVries' group for setting traps and fishing from (they study ice-resistant glycoproteins in fishes) and smelled incredibly bad from a combination of rotten bait and fish guts all stewing in an enclosed space with the heater running full blast. Whew! So, we had to leave the door open to make the air breathable, which cooled the hut down again. They had also been testing an enormous 10kW submersible heater to help prevent the holes from freezing closed. It seemed to have worked well -- the normally 1.5 m diameter hole had doubled in size along one side and the top half of the hole had ballooned open like a huge crater. Looking down through the hole in the hut floor it was like looking into a swimming pool. I think if they had run it for much longer the hut would have been floating. Ooops.

While suiting up I realized that I had left my 'glove tubes' back at the dive locker. Although they are not critical, they let you equalize the pressure between your drysuit body and the separate dry gloves. I decided to go on without them. About 2 minutes into the dive, right after I had found the perfect jellyfish subject, my camera flashes conked out. I fiddled with the settings and switches to no avail and had to return my camera rig to the tenders in the hut. I found out later that a strobe cord connector failed (perhaps because a tiny bit of freshwater remained in an O-ring groove after rinsing that then froze in contact with the seawater) and flooded one strobe and shorted out the cable, creating what will be a very expensive, useless paperweight for the rest of my trip. I returned to my buddies on the bottom and now that I was deeper, the hydrostatic pressure crushed my gloves vise-like around my hands. There was no way I could equalize the pressure. It was painful, at first, but I could hardly flex my fingers and most of the insulation in the glove liners was lost. As a consequence, my hands got very cold very quickly. It turned out that all of us were getting chilled on this dive for one reason or another, and we cut it short at 30 minutes. At the surface my hands felt like they were on fire as they heated up, and all of us huddled around the fish-stinky stove to try to warm up.

During the dive I did manage to observe a wonderful Antarctic chaetognath in mid water. This was a voracious zooplankton predator, about 3 cm (about an inch) long, almost completely transparent and long and thin like a sliver of glass (a common name is 'Arrow Worm' -- although they are not worms at all). They have delicate fins along their body and the head end terminates in a spike-filled jaw. It was almost invisible unless you head your head at just the right angle. I am curious to know what it is feeding upon, since there is almost no plankton in the water at the moment -- perhaps it is fasting until the plankton bloom later in the summer.

Antarctica 2000, Report #3 Oct 11 . 1935hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: -10 deg C, Wind: 5 knts sky clear

This morning it was incredibly cold, and unfortunately we had to spend most of it outside trying to break a dive hut free from the ice in front of the base and ready it for towing to a site at Little Razorback Island. Not only was it about -25 deg, it was also very windy, with strong gusts and blowing snow; just the type of morning you would rather be lying in bed.

We also experienced some of the thickest "ice fog" that I have ever seen down here. This is created when slightly warmer, moist air is rapidly cooled over the ice sheets and, much like fog in temperate climates, the moisture condenses. However, here the water droplets form microscopic ice crystals. It cut the visibility to just few hundred meters but in the sky we were treated to some spectacular "icebows" around the sun. Like a water rainbow there were two complete bows at about 22 deg and 44 deg (if I remember the physics correctly) out from the sun that are associated with refraction off of the two primary ice crystal orientations. Nifty.

After getting the hut free we hitched it to the back of a large Cat tractor and drill rig, which then followed our trusty Spryte for the 1.5 hour trek towards Little Razorback.

Fortunately the ice fog lifted once we passed the Erebus Ice Tongue (an extension of a large ice cap glacier on Mt Erebus that protrudes far out into the sea ice) and we were able to find the Island without too much trouble. Then came all the preparations associated with setting up a new dive hut. The drill rig made a primary dive hole and a secondary safety hole (in case the primary hole is blocked, i.e. by a seal, or if say, the hut is on fire -- it has happened), the hut is towed over the primary hole, snow piled around its sides to protect it from the wind, and the ice is plowed free of snow to allow more light to penetrate into the water. Inside the hut the fuel to the heater is reconnected, the heater lit, the floor panels over the dive hole removed, and a table and cooking stove is set up. Tah, dah -- ready to go. All this took several hours. Then we started the laborious task of flagging our route back to the main ice road so that we are able to find our way back when the weather turns sour. We drilled a zillion holes in the ice about 50 m apart and popped a bamboo pole with a flag on top into them to mark the way. It took a long time, and we were cold and tired, but the end result was rather festive looking -- a line of bright green flags marching across the snow and ice. We made it back just in time to catch dinner at the galley.

Antarctica 2000, Report #4 Oct 12. 2100hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: - 24 deg C, Wind: 12 knts clear

I suppose there is a reason all Sprytes are equiped with a fire extinguisher. Our trusty Spryte #242 was doing so well. We had even just turned in Spryte #243 to the heavy shop to have its oil system checked, but 242 was running like a dream. Alas, it burst into flame this morning.

Doug and I were driving up to the BFC (Berg field center) to pick up a load of supplies from our storage cage when we noticed an unusual smell. It wasn't the usual odor of burning electrical insulation, it had an almost pleasant, woody smell. We stopped the Spryte to investigate. When we got out and looked under the tracks we could see orange flames enveloping what appeared to be the transmission and the braking system and it was alarmingly close to the large fuel tank. Doug doused it with the fire extinguisher and I dashed into "F -Stop", the field survival training building, to use the telephone to call the mechanics. It was actually rather humorous, flaming Sprytes are apparently common enough to not elicit any big reactions. The head of the SAR team looked up as I came in and said,

"Hey Dale, what's up?".

"Our Spryte's on fire."

"Oh, Ok, the phone is over there...."

The polar program is now looking for replacement vehicles and it will be interesting to see what they come up with. In the meantime, we were given Spryte #093 to use. A real gem. It is 10 years older, is even slower and has a box-like cabin with tiny slot windows. It looks like an orange brick on caterpillar tracks. We call it a "Spryte Classic" model and its official nickname is "Percy."

Antarctica 2000, Report #4 Oct 17. 1820hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: - 30 deg C, Wind: 2 knts clear sky

A fair amount has been happening since my last notes. Doug and I had another attempt at collecting footage and sound recordings of penguins at the ice edge a few days ago. We flew out to check things out but I ended up aborting the landing. Strong winds from the north has kept a layer of thin pancake ice and small floes packed up against the hard ice shelf so there was no open water we could work around. If we had landed the helicopter on thick ice we would have been at least 1-2 km from the open water and a few hundred meters from a wide open moat that paralleled the ice edge but would have been unsafe to approach due to the thin ice. So, rather than risk falling in, we returned to McMurdo.

The odd northerly winds have made for interesting weather here. The conditions have been quite wonderful actually. The sky has been crystal clear, and the wind speeds have been low. It has been quite cold (-30), but not unbearably so. In fact, we are hoping for a small storm to come along to clear the thin ice away from the ice edge and for Norb to get some footage of seals and penguins coping with stormy conditions for his documentary.

The cold temperatures and crystal clear air has also meant that we have seen some great Fata Morgana mirages while driving out to our dive sites. These illusions are formed when light rays from distant surface features are refracted in the air by a temperature inversion close to the ice. To your eye it looks like pillars and columns of ice rising from the snow, or distant ice cliffs and icebergs.

We have been spending a lot of our time diving at Little Razorback Island, which has to be one of my favorite sites on this side of McMurdo Sound. The island is the steep-sided remnants of an ancient volcanic crater that looks like a jet black fin of rock sticking up from the sea ice. On each end of the island there are huge pressure ridge systems where the ice has been forced up against the island and look almost like breaking waves. The pressure ridges have left behind many smaller cracks and openings that dozens of Weddell Seals use for breathing holes and for hauling out into the air. It is almost pupping season and we could see a half dozen or so pregnant females lounging about on the ice.

Underwater, the sides of the island quickly fall away into hundreds of meters of water with steep slopes and rocky outcropings and ledges. Below about 20 meters, these outcrops are covered with an incredibly diverse marine invertebrate community. Soft corals, anemones, starfish, sponges, worms and gorgonians all in a rainbow of pastel hues. If the water wasn't -2 degrees C you would think it was a coral reef.

At one end of the island there is a shallow shelf with about 1 meter of water between the bottom and the ceiling of the sea ice. By squeezing through this slot along the bottom we could come into a series of long, thin rooms that coincide with the pressure ridges above. Some of the tunnels are about 10 meters across and 4 meters tall and lit by the sun from above through thin sections of ice in the upthrust ridges, or through the holes the seals have chewed open to breathe. One tunnel in particular seems to glow a vivid blue. Blue ice, blue from light filtering in through snow above, blue-tinted anchor ice on the bottom and purple starfish scattered all about. It is quite hard to describe -- sort of like swimming around in a fussy person's toilet bowel. All the while we share the tunnels with the seals and are haunted by their trilling calls. They're impressively big, 400 kg or more, yet they dance down the tunnels and can swim without barely moving a muscle. Often they will just sit down on the bottom, and stare at you for a while.

We spent some time going in and out of some cracks at the end of the island away from the warmth of our hut. It was interesting, but not really worth the extra effort and exposure to the elements. By the time we returned to the warmth of the hut, our suits and equipment were caked with snow and ice. I was actually afraid to bend the regulator hoses and parts of my suit since it looked like they might crack open in the cold.

On our last dive at the island I made a long swim with Christian all the way through one of the main tunnels to where it opened up on the far side of the island. It was pitch black, and the tunnel here dipped to the bottom about 20 meters deep. Exiting this, we turned to the side and swam into a vast cathedral-like room. Our lights could pick out the dark bottom below, and above the ceiling was a huge dome tinged blue and white. On this trip, this will probably be one of my most vivid memories.

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure,
From the fountain and the caves,
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

Antarctica 2000, Report #4 Oct 18. 2040hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: - 38 deg C, Wind: 10 knts partly cloudy

Christian and I left early this morning on snowmobiles to secure our hut at Turtle Rock and ready it for towing to the ice wall at Cape Evans. The drill rig and tractor would meet us along the way so we could help with the tow hook ups and check the ice around the new dive site. It was incredibly cold with a strong biting wind. We hoped that by travelling by the snowmobiles that we would get it all over with quickly rather than enduring another 3 hours of Spryte travel over rough terrain. So, we bundled up as best we could (I had 5 layers of clothes on) and set off.

Alas, bad mechanical karma followed us. One snowmobile gave us trouble with a faulty electrical connection on the way out (requiring some bare-handed work with a wrench set and Swiss Army knife to correct whenever it had to be started) and on the way back, the one I was driving suddenly quit. Perhaps because of the low temperatures, the fan belt pulled apart and flew into the engine, seizing it solid. After not too long, Christian noticed that I was no longer behind him and he turned back for me. Then we rode double back to McMurdo. Unfortunately, our job was only half done and now, without our snowmobiles we had to pile into a Spryte anyway, and make the long drive to Cape Evans.

We spent the rest of the afternoon drilling holes, checking cracks and setting up the hut at the base of a glacier wall that plunges into the Sound. It is a stunning location, flanked by volcanic rock on one side and electric blue, stripped ice on the other. But it was also extra chilly as it is tucked up against the cliffs and remains in the shade almost all day long. By the end of the work our eyelashes, hoods, beards and collars were all rimmed with ice. It should be worth it because this was the site of some of last year's most impressive albeit spooky diving. Tomorrow we will be back to check it out.

Antarctica 2000, Report #5 Oct. 23. 2015 hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: -34 deg , Wind: 15 knts

These last few days it has remained bitterly cold with temperatures in the evening 35 below zero on the ice and a wind chill around -80 deg.. It has been the sort of cold where your first breaths when you step outside cause your nostrils to stick together and your lungs to hurt. But then, it is a harsh continent after all (or so the saying goes around here). The steam from buildings and vehicles seems to hang in the air and the ice and snow squeaks and snaps underfoot. We did have a brief period of high winds and blowing snow, but fortunately that quickly died mid-afternoon. Now it is quite still with just occasional gusts.

The day before yesterday we had to cancel an initial attempt at filming around the summit of Mt. Erebus (the local active volcano). It was about -40 deg, without including the wind-chill (it was -119 last night with the wind- chill), and not the sort of weather in which you want to be flying around in a helicopter with the doors off for filming. Norbert did manage to make the flight yesterday while the rest of us were off diving. He managed to get some spectacular footage of the summit caldera but returned with some frostbite on his cheeks from being exposed to the winds.

The record low temperatures (for this time of year) have also delayed the first flights to the South Pole station. They can't land the planes when it is below -50 deg (they have problems restarting the engines) so the scientists and support staff have been stuck in McMurdo waiting to leave on the next leg of their journey. The National Science Foundation has over 300 flights planned for south pole station and other field camps this season and they are off to a slow start due to the weather.

The cold temperatures didn't stop us from doing our dives at the glacier icewall. We made the long, bouncing Spryte trip 3 times to our little hut nestled in the shade of the Cape Evans glacier. Fortunately the heater worked well in the hut, since it seemed to be twice as cold out whenever you were not in the sun. One day after the first dive, we had to go back outside to unload more equipment from our vehicle. I was still wearing my drysuit which was wet from the dive but with only the legs in place (the arms and neck hanging from my waist). In the intense cold, my suit froze almost completely solid. I could hardly bend my legs, and the torso and arms were frozen stiff, with the arms outstretched like a scarecrow. Before I could get it on again, I had to thaw it over the stove.

The dives have been worth it. Almost other-worldly. Here we could swim far above a bright white-ice bottom, over to the side of the glacier where it plunged away into the deep. Swimming alongside it was almost disorienting because there was no easy way to tell where the water stopped and the surface of the ice began. The glacier wall was so smooth and clear you sometimes couldn't tell where it was until you bumped into it. Off in the other direction from the hut, we could dive along a shear wall of black volcanic rock. It was peppered in places with huge anemones, sponges and zillions of starfish and sea spiders. One table-shaped rock in particular was spectacularly covered in a small forest of light-pink coloured soft-coral 'trees' that stood over a meter tall and looked like they had been teleported there from a tropical reef in the IndoPacific.

Alas, our Spryte troubles have not ended. Returning into McMurdo, at the end of a long day, the left track fell off. Well, tore in half actually. Quite impressive. Fortunately, the repairs to our trusty Spryte #242 have been completed and it has returned Phoenix-like from its previous fire.

Today we returned to Little Razorback Island to make another dive and check on the seals. Some of the females have started to pup and we were curious to see if their behaviour underwater had changed. We didn't see any mothers and pups, but there was one lone, very large, male that had some real 'attitude'. While we were not using the dive hut, it decided to stake out our dive hole as its personal breathing hole and territory. When we put our safety line, lights and extra tank in the water, it swam over and bit off one of the flags we have marking the line and continued to yank on the rope. Underwater, it cruised by us a few times, but when we swam back to the hole, it started dive-bombing us, blowing bubbles, barking and mouth-gaping. Fortunately it is was all 'huff and puff' and we could exit the hole without getting more than our fins nipped. But, having a 1000 lb seal zoom up to you, mouth agape, is a little disconcerting.

It was also a fairly short dive, 30-min, dive for me. I rather spastically forgot to pack my ice hood, a special neoprene face hood that we wear under our regular dive hoods to protect our faces. They leave only a little slot around your mouth exposed to the water. Without it, the cold water was pretty intense on my face and head, particularly when I first jumped in. After that, well, nothing hurts when you are numb.... But, after half an hour it felt like someone was jabbing a pick through the back of my skull and I surfaced with the most amazing "ice-cream headache" you can imagine. Tomorrow we will go back , and I will definitely remember all my gear.

Antarctica 2000, Report #6 Oct. 26. 1800 hrs. McMurdo Base Temp: 0 deg C, Wind: 35 knts

This is the night of our "Bag Drag," marking the end of this trip. After a day of vigorous packing, we will schlep our mountain of gear up to a storage building where everything, ourselves included, will be carefully weighed for the flight back to Christchurch. In theory, we will fly out tomorrow, but right now it doesn't look like the chances of leaving will be good. We had been hoping for some stormy weather weeks ago to do a little filming, instead, after weeks of clear skies and cold weather, we are now getting hammered by a blizzard. If it clears up by midnight, they might be able to clear the airstrip in time for a plane to land. But, the current weather reports are not very optimistic. Oh well.

Yesterday we managed to get back to Little Razorback Island for a last series of dives. We wrapped up the filming with closeups and scenes of a swarm of blood-red amphipods consuming the remains of a fish carcass. Then the four of us (Norbert, Christian, Rob and myself) made a last long swim down the ice tunnels to the far end of the 'Blue Room'. It was once again spectacular, and a fitting way to end the season. Because the sea ice environment is a very dynamic one there were subtle differences in the surroundings since our last dive there. We dove at a higher tide so there was a bit more clearance above our heads in the narrow slot around the island that separated the deep slope from the tunnels of the pressure ridges. And, in the far Blue Room itself, a long thin pool of air was present that shimmered like quicksilver in our lights. Using this air pocket were 4 Weddell seals that hung below the domed roof like blimps, taking slow, casual sips of air and staring down at us swimming around below them. At the very bottom of a pressure ridge that formed one of the room's walls, a small crack had opened up in a manner very similar to what I had seen in the Granite Harbor ice ridges several years ago. I managed to squeeze up vertically through this crack and emerged within the interior of the pressure ridge. It can only be described as swimming into the inside of a white crystal geode. The room was oblong, about 10 meters long and perhaps 4 meters wide at most and every single inch was covered in delicate ice crystals. There was no algae living in the ice yet, so the entire room was a brilliant white and seemed blindingly bright compared to the dark tunnels below. By shining my light around I could make the walls all sparkle from the reflections off the millions of crystals. It was absolutely stunning, but, a little claustrophobic because there was only one narrow entrance to this chamber. I joined my friends and we slowly made our way back to our dive hole and the warmth of the hut.

Apparently you haven't truly experienced the Antarctic sea until you have met it in all your nakedness. One on one, so to speak. Also known as the Polar Plunge. The idea is to strip to your birthday suit and then to jump quickly down into the dive hole before you change your mind. It is the sort of thing you do that seems to make sense at the end of a season, yet to a warm and sane observer elsewhere, must be completely ludicrous. There is no sauna or hot tub involved, just a brief unbalanced struggle out of many layers of clothes, a quick tiptoe across the cold and wet hut floor and then bare flesh versus -2 deg water. Sort of a quick naked leap into a giant slurpee. I could remember the pain of diving without the added protection of my ice hood on my face, but I tried to push all that to the back of my mind. Then, operating only from the 'lizard part' of my brain I jumped in. When I first hit the water and submerged it didn't seem like too big a deal. Then, a microsecond later, there seemed to be an almost searing flash of pain over my entire body. A wonderful, pure adrenaline, "fight or flight" response then took over and I quickly thrashed my way back up to the surface and scrabbled up the side of the ice hole into the hut. My skin was entirely numb so I didn't notice the dozens of cuts on my arms, feet and hands from the ice crystals. Back in the hut, it was then a race to see how quickly I could get all my clothes back on while huddled close against the stove and without setting them on fire in the process. Despite its lunacy, it was actually quite satisfying once it was all over. I certainly won't be forgetting the experience any time soon.

It seems that whenever I end one of these journal series, I am very thankful for the experience and seem fairly confident that I won't be back. I believed that back in 1995 after my first journey here, and here I am finishing a 4th trip. There is no more filming planned for next season, so, for the next little while at least, this will be my last trip to McMurdo. I do hope to return and head my own oceanographic project in the future, but I cannot say when. Our documentary efforts these last 2 seasons should be shown on a PBS Nature Special, "Under Antarctic Ice" in the fall of 2001. Norb has done a spectacular job so far and I am certain the final film will be stunning.

What's next for me? I don't have any research cruises scheduled for the next little so I will be spending most of my time in San Diego working on a series of data sets collected during our recent experiments. I hope to be back up in the high Arctic with the "NASA boys" for a short period next summer. Who knows, maybe I will land another science trip in the near future -- I just hope it will be somewhere in the tropics for a change.

Text ©M Dale Stokes.


Click to see the Diving Under Antarctic Ice web site resulting from this trip. DUAI presents a photo gallery, scuba diving information, a Field Guide, and personal journals based on the work of Norbert Wu's underwater photography team in McMurdo Sound.

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