Antarctica Blog

…is very, cold. The average temperature has been around -30C with a dip to -45C one day. Celsius and Fahrenheit meet at -40 so the temperatures are about the same down here.

The Bassler flight was interesting. We sucked oxygen through nasal canulas because it flew at 20,000 feet and the cabin is not compressed. It has some serious power and can take off with almost as little runway as a Twin Otter but with around twice the payload. Kind of weird with the dingly little wheel in the back and skis in the front, but it works. We had to stop at Siple Dome for fuel on the way out to WAIS so we got a final look at our old home before putting-in at our new camp.

There was a lot of snow when we first got here. There were three small boxy buildings on skis waiting for us; the kitchen, the bathhouse and the mechanic shop. The big arches where the ice-core drill will go was still intact as well but nearly the entire two stories were buried in a snow drift. We didn’t have to start from scratch like they did last year but at times if certainly felt like it. The penetrating cold really takes the energy out of the body. We spend days shoveling snow but with the added bonus that we have a track-loader here to help move it around.

Since I am responsible for fuels I spent a bit of time setting up the system. This year, the company that manufactures the fuel filters we use decided that the ones that we use are not good enough anymore and have recalled all their old ones. The replacement stands a good ten feet off the ground and weights clearly over two-hundred pounds. On top of its unmanageable size, it doesn’t seem to work. The 5 foot long filters that go in the chamber don’t seat correctly and we don’t register any differential pressure on the pressure gauge. The company’s engineers assure us that that shouldn’t make any difference. What could we do? Air Operations were breathing down our neck to get our fueling system up and running so they could start sending us flights. So we spent a day building this rocket-looking thing and getting it properly supported and contained but we ran into a plumbing problem.

Everything suffers at temperatures around -40. Almost all of our heavy machinery has suffered some sort of cold-related malfunction. Our primary fuel pump was not immune. Despite thorough heating with our aerospace heaters we still managed to blow the main pump seal, spraying fuel everywhere. In the morning we had to hunt down the backup pump and get it ready to use. Once we found it buried in the Arches with the bulk of the camp equipment, we dragged it over to the fuel pit with the new filter. To put the new rocket-filter on-line we needed some fittings from the old filter. The valve we needed was threaded so tightly that everything we tried would not free it. We tried a blow torch to heat up the metal but propane doesn’t even evaporate at that temperature. We finally freed the fitting but realized that an elbow that was useless to us was still attached to the piece we needed. We were getting cold, it was getting late and we had been working since dawn (ha, ha. There hasn’t really been dawn since August.).

We had been told by Air Ops that the Kenn Borek Twin Otter bound for the Italian base at Terra Nova Bay was going to be leaving the British base Rothera on the Palmer Peninsula that same day but we were told that they would be taking fuel at Siple dome because our system was down. We were sitting in one of the heated buildings after dinner playing Bao (my favorite board-game from Africa) when some of our crew decided it was time to go to bed. As soon as they walked out the door, the generator started making a funny noise. Kind of a high-pitched buzzing. Then Elizabeth, who had just stepped out the door on her way to her tent walked back in and said, “you’re not going to believe this but there is a Twin Otter outside headed for the fuel pits”.

Now, Twin Otters always carry their own little Honda Fuel pumps so they are pretty self-sufficient. Ben, the camp manager, went out to show them which fuel bladder to pump from and lend assistance if necessary. Apparently the weather at Siple Dome went down so they turned around and headed toward our camp. When they are ferrying the planes from Canada to Antarctica, the Kenn Borek pilots are allowed much longer flight hours. When they landed at WAIS, they were many hours into a very long day. Luci brought them coffee at their request. When she returned a half-hour later she told of a scene of mass confusion. The little Honda pumps don’t do well and any temperature below -20C and it was currently -45. The pumps won’t keep a prime and when it will take a prime, the fuel leaks from all the hoses. Luci said she saw one of the pilots get splashed in the face with a drop of fuel and get instantly frostbitten in the spot where it hit.

For the next half hour, those of us gathered around the stove debated whether or not to go offer some help. Then we got a call from Ben on the radio asking if it would be possible to start our pump. Trevor, they guy who came out with us from McMurdo to help set up the new filter and I got suited up. In order to get the pump working we would have to put the piece of the old filter back together, attach it to the pump and prime the system. On top of it all we hadn’t even tried starting the backup pump. Oh, and did I mention that it was -45C and blowing 10 knots?

When I got to the fuel pit the heater was on the pump and Trevor had put together the old filter. Now we just needed to prime the line and wait until the pump body warmed before we tried starting the pump. We kept our fingers crossed because if this pump blew a seal we would be in serious trouble. The pump started fine. Beautifully, in fact. Surprising, considering how long it had sat in storage. The pump motor started but the pump wasn’t pumping so we stopped the motor and re-primed the line fuel lines with the last of the jet fuel we had in jerry cans. On the second try the pump still wasn’t pressurizing the fuel hose. So we turned up the revs on the motor and waited. Just as I was about the shut the motor off again for fear of burning up the pump, a jet of fuel shot up from the top of the filter housing. I hadn’t told Trevor I had opened the vent to drain the old filter in preparation for its disposal. So, obviously, he hadn’t closed it. But, in fact, this was good news because it meant that the pump was doing its job. The bad news was that Ben had accidentally grabbed Luci’s red parka and it was now covered in a shower of AN8 jet fuel.

So the Twin Otter got fueled and back on course to McMurdo before taking a couple of days off and continuing on to the Italian base. We have since had about five C-130 missions come through to bring cargo and fuel to our little (at present) camp. One of the flights brought out eight carpenters from McMurdo to begin re-building the camp. As I alluded to before, at the end of last season the camp was, for the most part, torn down and stored in the drill Arch. All except for the three buildings. But, these needed to be moved from their winter storage spot on the other side of camp to the spots where they would be secured for summer use. With the exception of the mechanic shop, all the permanent structures have a long RAC tent attached to them to increase their capacity. The Carps have been occupying themselves with constructing these large ten kits while we move the permanent buildings from the old camp to the summer one by dragging them on their skis with the loader.

Since we haven’t had a flight to fuel since the caps came in, I have been zooming around the camp on an Alpine I snowmobile doing little odd jobs to get the buildings up and running. I have fixed four furnaces in the past three days, for example. Luci has been busy getting the kitchen running smoothly and making the newly attached RAC tent into a dining room. Joel got stuck at McMurdo for almost a week after Luci and I left awaiting warmer temperatures at the South Pole Station. The planes won’t land at pole unless it is above -50F. After they finally managed to land, bringing an end to a very long winter for the people who had been keeping the station open over the past ten months, two of his kitchen crew began to suffer from symptoms of pulmonary edema caused by the high altitude of the polar plateau. They were sent immediately back to McMurdo for treatment and the kitchen supervisors went looking for someone to take their place. Because there is only one cook at McMurdo fit to take the place of two cooks, no other than my other brother Jesse was called to the rescue. He was told he would be going to Pole at the end of his shift Monday and was in the cockpit of a Herc on a cargo-only flight at five on Tuesday morning. As it turns out, the navigator is our good friend Keith. Apparently Keith showed Jesse all the tricks to navigating an LC-130 Hercules.

We are back to using our old Iridium satellite phone data connection. OOOOHHH SOOOO SlOOOOW. But, from what I understand, when we get the camp fully functional we will be using the same satellite that South Pole uses for their internet connection. I am looking forward to it because ANYTHING is better than the Iridium. I’ll do my best to keep my posts updated.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.