Transition II

I have been on the Ice near a month now.  More and more I feel better adjusted to my new surroundings.  Still, this past week I find that there are lots of 'normal' things that must be adapted to live and work in the cold.  One thing is that hands and ears are subject to freezing no matter how tough you are.  I am a wimp so I mind my ears from getting cold.  My hands, are a different story, they are subjected to the harsh environment like its a cold Colorado aftenoon.  Tempatures in the -40, yes that is both F and C, with windchill temps below -70 are not an everyday occurance in the Denver metro area.  Three minutes into a call, thoughts of how I really ought to have warm gloves on race though my mind as sensation quickly vacates my metacarpels.  Another point of adaptation.  Water freezes.  Noble thought as I am holding a hoseline rapped in a loop so that the weight of the hoseline pushes down on it self so all one has to do is sit on it to keep it from spraying violently to and fro.  Textbook right?  Oh, yes this works well on the surface of, say; a parking lot, or any common terrain that one would expect to find on a sunny day in July.  On the common surface of a land capped with ice: not so textbook.  As one angles the hoseline up the less surface are of the hose to be in contact with the surface the more it trys to sneek under a firefighter sitting on it.  The less angled hose a)the less distance covered by the stream, b) the more direct nozzle reaction under the sitting firefighter (for all the force pushing the water out of the hose, the same pushing the nozzle away from the water coming out).  Why is this not a problem? I must have an answer deep down inside as I put large quanities of the liquid form of the surface down which transforms fast enough to stand on with in minutes it being poured, much less from a crystal circlet around the nozzle of my firehose.  At least I had my glasses (which fogged over every 5 minutes) which made me look cool.

Icefighter

Last shift we took the fire engine out to practice pumping operations.  We deployed to hose lines and sprayed a ton of water out on to the Transition (what we call the beach under all the snow and ice).   Knowing full well that we were going to get a little wet and the weather out side was "nice" (10mph winds and a high of -9F if I recall correctly), we bundled up under our bunker gear and tried to avoid getting drenched.    Taking the supply hose that connects to the fire hydrants up a snowy embankment provided a new and interesting environmental challenge.  Today I am going to go find some ‘Yak-tracks’ to add to my ensemble.  Going up and down the hill just to hook up to the hydrant required as many slips and spills as a Chaplin clip.   Now how would that look on a real fire scene?   None the less I got some cool pics of throwing water on ice which I will share later.  

The other night there were some nacreous clouds out.  They look like this or individual ovals with the same bands of color.

Icescape

I have been slacking a little on my blogging so I am staying up tonight to put some text down to explain myself.  I figure the best way to do so is with pictures.  Here are a few snapshots of my life in the past week.  I went on a little excursion to hut point which is NW of the station.  Currently there are efforts underway to get an ice dock prepared for the ships arriving in the summer.  This dock is a huge structure of ice that is several hundred feet long and is in the end amounting to 14-16 feet of thickness.  This man-made structure is essential for off loading the cargo ship.     The weather is relatively warm especially just before a storm blows in.  As long as I can find some way to shield myself from the unimpeded winds from the South Pole, which often have speeds of 20 mph and drops the wind-chill factor to minus 30F; a fleece jacket is usually sufficient to walk about the station.  Clear nights often are the most intensely fridge, but they also offer a spectacular view of a rare set of constellations that I have never seen in my journeys in the northern hemisphere.  Such
nights are preceded with spectacular sunsets.  One of the coolest things of coming down early before the winter here is the extended dusk and dawn. I have yet to see the Aurora Australis.  I hope that I don’t have to wait much longer as daylight continues to supersede the night.  The beauty of the landscape and the austerity of the climate continues to fire the adventure of being here.

Back to work

It is great to be back in the swing of being on shift and assigned to a truck.  I flew into McMurdo on Saturday and went straight to work on Sunday.  I am working two days in a row, affectionately known as a 48 and have the subsequent two days off.  There is a minor caveat that I have to respond to the fire station at any point in time during my stay.  I will have the opportunity to go out and take some walks around Ross Island but I need to make sure that the station officers know that I will be away for a little while.  There is a lot of rethinking how I will do my job because the environment and local rules change the priorities of what we save first in an emergency.  Usually in a urban fire call the priorities are life-safety first and foremost, property conservation and then environmental impact.  Life-safety is still our chief priority but because of the pristine environment and minimal human presence on the continent environmental impact is a huge consideration in all our operations.  For the entire base recycling and minimizing our footprint on the land, water, ice, and even our interaction with animals is a constant part of our daily life.  Right now the temperatures range less then 10 degrees F which is far below freezing.  Any operations that involve water is done with the mindset that any unheated water will freeze in less than 5 minutes.  Energy conservation and minimizing waste production from every day activities is constantly in everybody's mind because we have to sort everything that we throw away so that the things that can be recycled is recycled and the rest of the trash is packed away so it can be shipped away to a landfill elsewhere.   The focus of keeping the science station in the most self-sustaining mode of operations makes it seem like to me like I am a space traveler on a completely different planet where survival is less than guaranteed.  So, maybe you can tell I am reading a sci-fi novel for entertainment right now.. but still it seems an uncanny parallel. 

Ross Island, where McMurdo Station is located is an actual active volcanic island.  I haven’t seen the Volcano, Mt Erebus.   Right now all the snow and ice conceal the volcanic landscape.  On our base familiarization tour today, I got to get a better look at the local landscape.  The clear weather revealed vast expanses of white, which is the Ross Ice Shelf.  On the horizon the immense mountains of the Antarctic Continent piece the snowy plains.  The days are bright for a little bit, but the sun is still concealed by the   mountains as it traces its shallow arc above the horizon to the north.