Windmills, Bikes and Skuas

Now that the weather is warming up I've been enjoying more than just skiing. The Castle Rock loop is a beatuiful 7-mile walk, hike or ski that makes you feel like you are heading out to Mt. Erebus. Of course you are nowhere near it but the illusion is nice. A couple of us went out there on a wonderfully calm night and climbed to the top. They have fixed ropes to help you out. Once you get to the top the panaroma is beautiful. You look over the sea ice, the ice shelf, the TransAntarctic Mountains and Mt. Erebus. Whew!

The steam on Erebus can really crank out a plume.

There are little "apple" huts on the way to Castle Rock. They are nicely spaced structures to warm up and have a snack in if a storm comes.

Here is Castle Rock. We went up the ridge on the right. It's nice to get away from the station and out of its view for a while. We looked on the horizon and could see blue. That's the ocean finally in view! We've not seen that before. But the sea ice is melting and soon the icebreaker will be coming through in February with supplies.

Mt. Erebus with its plume from atop Castle Rock. Maybe someday I'll come back and climb it. The early explorers reportedly did.

People have been warning us since we got here that there is a hearty bird called a skua that comes out to scavenge our food in the summer. If you carry food outside you should have it in saran wrap or risk losing it to a skua. I had my first skua experience yesterday. I was walking outside with a plate of saran-wrapped food when a skua came at me from behind. It nearly took off my ear as it went for my food. Then it circled around again for attack #2. Turns out pointing your finger and scolding a skua stops it in mid-flight.

Here is a photo of our Medical team. Left to right back row is the nurse manager, X-ray tech, lead physician, flight surgeon, physician's assistant, flight nurse and the outgoing dentist. Left to right front row is the second MD, me, the incoming dentist, nurse, flight tech and lab tech.

It only feels like Christmas here because that is what the calendar says. I never thought I'd miss the marketing of Christmas but I do. We hung decorations and have another big feast coming up. Santa has a long way to go to get to us but somehow I believe we will get a visit.

The grounds are drying off enough in town to see the roads that were covered in snow. There are new bikes for us to use if we want to ride to and from Scott Base (the New Zealand base) or just tool around for a while. We might even have a race or two.

The SCINI project team is here finishing up their work using an underwater robot to explore greater depths of marine life under the ice. They had an open house where we were able to see where and how they do their work. The controller sits in a hut over a hole in the ice and operates the robot (which looks like a thin, skinny tube). There are cameras in this robot and some of the underwater sights are amazing! This is what it looks like above the ice.

Here is the hut out of which these scientists work. Some of their footage was shared at a recent lecture and I would never have thought I'd see so much diversity in a polar region.

These happy seals were sunning right outside the hut. I think this one is smiling.

The seals come up out of a hole in the ice which is often difficult to find. Not that we try to find them. We stay away from them except that this one was right there.

The New Zealanders have put up windmills to harness energy. This is a new project this year. It has been really fun to see these go up piece by piece. With the leftover energy the Americans are hoping to get 2/3 of their energy to operate McMurdo station. The hill between the stations gets a lot of wind so is an ideal location for sharing this power.

I had some videos from earlier parts of my stay here. The first is our encounter with the Emperor penguins. Right before I started videotaping the penguin on the left had made a loud call indicating it was time to leave. Then the rest of them fell in and followed behind. The voices aren't mine, just excited people I was with.



This is a bit of a shoddy video but shows the terrain as I was out on a skate ski. The road is taking us out to the ice caves and Cape Evans but we had to cut it short as the sea ice edge is closer this year than in past years.



And, finally, this is a 180 degree view of the South Pole. I head back to the Pole in 10 days so I'm looking forward to it being slightly warmer there this time and perhaps I'll get a little more time outside.