Andrill is an ongoing project here in Antarctica. They use an oil drilling rig to get soil core samples to analyze what the earth was like here millions of years ago. There are a number of educators here working with the project and there is a web site you can go to to find information about “Project Iceberg”. The web page includes blogs, photos, postcards and more from educators on the Andrill team. The web site is at www.andrill.org/iceburg. Check it out.

A couple of fun notes: One of the new events this year is a juggling class taught every other Monday. I missed the first one because I was at the Ross Island Yacht Club of Antarctica (RIYCA) meeting. I’m looking forward to improving my juggling skills (if that’s possible) and even brought my own balls (don’t go there).

Last night several of us met at the coffee house for a glass of port and three games of cribbage. I haven’t played cribbage much since I used to play with my grandpa when I was a kid. We had a great time.

Every Sunday afternoon here the good folks at the Crary Lab offer a behind the scenes tour. The Crary Lab is where most of the science is done. Most scientists have officies in the building and each Wednesday night a science lecture is offered on some of the research taking place in Antarctica. Our tour guide showed us many of the artifacts displayed at the Lab.

We were treated to a tour of the Andril lab. Andril scientists are drilling core samples using an drilling rig to reach back as much as 20 million years into the past. They hope to go even further back to look at samples from when the continent wasn’t covered in ice. At the end of the season the core samples are taken to Florida State University where they are archived and available to use by other scientists.

We were shown videos of eruptions in the lava lake in Mt. Erebus and listened to the recorded sounds of many eruptions compressed into a short time frame. It sounded a little like whales talking to each other.

We spent some time in the aquarium. One of the scientists described many of the fish and aquatic life on display there. Many of the fish who live in these below freezing waters here actually have an antifreeze enzyme in their blood that keeps their blood from freezing. Water above freezing is actually too warm for these fish and anything above 5C will kill them.

We ran into a couple of grantees who are here working on remote undersea vehicles (ROV). The showed us how they work and what kind of research they are doing. All in all a Sunday afternoon well spent.

“Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody”. Well that’s not true and you know it but I am out of contact with Deni as she is at Callaway Gardens this weekend playing golf with friends. There are some down sides to being here.

Saturday night was fun though as a huge group of us got together to watch seven entries in this years Banff Film Festival. Deni went to Banff once on a team building week. It’s in Alberta, Canada in the Canadian Rockies. She brought back a few pictures and the scenery was spectacular so I was looking forward to the films.

The first film involved skiing from mountain tops. I know there’s a name for it but the only means of transportation is via helicopter. The scenery is breathtaking and the almost vertical descents by the skiers were even more so. One of the skiers made a record breaking 245 foot leap over a cliff to the powder below. He was buried beneath the snow for a minute before the rescue team was able to dig him out. He had a bloody nose but got up and skied away. I sat there with my mouth open for the entire ten minute film punctuated by numerous oohs and aahs.

There was also a movie about “no borders”. These are snow boarders who have removed the bindings and use the snow board like a surf board. These guys were doing the same thing from helicopters on virgin snow. The bobbing and weaving they did to avoid trees and rock out croppings was nothing short of miraculous.

Another movie documented a couple who rode over 8000 kilometers through Mongolia, China, Tibet and India. St. Patrick’s kids can you convert that to miles?

One of the films was put together by a 12 year old boy. It was cartoon like and he used legos for people and things. We had a terrific time watching “Jo” the lego man as he went on various adventures including skiing and fishing.

The last movie I’ll tell you about involved people “base jumping”. They jumped from everything and anything including city sky scrapers and sheer cliffs. The cliffs were the most amazing not only because of the scenery but also because of the way they cheated death time and again by missing rock ledges and trees on their free fall. At times the camera work made them look like they actually leveled off at the bottom of the jump, before they pulled the rip cord, and actually flew parallel to the ground. You can bet there were some serious OOHS and AAHS going on here also.

What an fun night at the movies.

The happy camper pictures are in the gallery now. Click on the gallery to the right then click on each thumb nail picture if you want to enlarge it.
Top Row from left to right:
Happy Camper classmates starting class
Hiking from Counselors Hut to snow village site
Snow block quarry
Scott Tents
Second Row l-r
On Delta vehicle headed for Happy Camper Site
Me in center still smiling little did I know
Happy camper instructors Danny 2nd from left and Gayln right
Standing on and building quinsy
Third row l-r
Bucket heads
Course information
Program is called "F Stop" for Field Safety Training Program

I got out of the cave at 6:30 and began packing up my bedding and bags. Then it was time to start taking the snow village apart. The Scott tents came down first, then the mountain tents finally the caves and graves were filled in. All the equipment had to be carried back to the storage shed. We heated up some water for coffee and hot chocolate. At 7:30 I checked in on the radio and told the instructors we were ready for pick-up at 8:00 as scheduled. (I’m guessing no one is ever late for this pick-up)

Right on schedule the instructors arrived with the snow mobiles and sleds. We loaded everything up and then walked back to the instructors hut. I thought things were almost over but, tired as we were, we still had a full day ahead of us.

First and foremost we were in a warm building. There was warm water to drink and sandwiches to eat. While we were warming up we went around the room and shared how we felt and what we learned from our experience. I was glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who was cold and didn’t sleep. I was surprised to hear that some of the folks slept warmly and fitfully through the night.

We then had a class on risk assessment. You can only imagine how difficult it was to stay awake during that presentation.

Two classes on the use of radios and setting up HF antennas followed risk assessment. Then we put on our cloths and headed outside to set up an antenna and establish contact with Mac Ops, the people who keep track of everyone at field camps on the continent.

A class is dealing with finding someone lost in extreme bad weather in which we put 5 gallon buckets on our heads with faces painted on them to simulate not being able to see in a raging storm. We had to put our heads together to come up with and execute a plan to locate our instructor who had gone to the outhouse and failed to return. Using a long rope and bamboo poles we devised a method to sweep the entire area between the instructors hut and the outhouse. We successfully located him and retrieved him.

The last outdoor adventure was a simulated event in which we were told our vehicle caught on fire and we were only able to retrieve an emergency bag some bamboo poles and our radio kit. We were also told that a “Herbie” would be upon us in less than an hour so we had to set up our tent, boil water, set up the radio antenna and establish contact with Mac Ops and build an ice wall win a maximum time of 40 minutes. Imbedded in the incident was one of our team members who simulated hypothermia. We had to detect and treat him. I’m happy to say we accomplished everything in 25 minutes.

We headed back into the counselors hut and were given a cleaning list and put to work getting the hut ready for the next class. Then it was back outside for the mile walk back to the pick-up point for transport back to McMurdo.

After a 30 minute ride we arrived back at our starting point and viewed two videos one on operations in environmentally protected areas and one on helicopter safety. This was about 2:30 in the afternoon and I think half the class slept through the movies. We then lugged all our bags back to the dorm. I went to dinner hit the bed at 8:30 and slept as good as I’ve slept in a long time until the next morning.

Happy Camper was an experience I will never forget and hopefully never repeat. It was mentally and physically taxing but as with most experiences like this I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment.