iceblog!

Sea Ice Training

Training, training, training. It seems that lately we've been doing nothing but training. yesterday morning, I went through the waste lecture. In the afternoon, we had our survival school refresher. I fell asleep during the video on helicopter safety, which won't surprise most of you, but I got caught, which may surprise some of you. It surprised me. When I woke up, with a start, everyone in the classroom was turned to look at me, including the instructor in the front of the room who had directed everyone's attention with a smile. "Have a nice nap?" he asked. The truth was, it was too short, but I just smiled sheepishly and mumbled something. Probably, "Mmmmm."

The same instructor taught the sea ice course today. We learned how to assess cracks in the sea ice in terms of whether they could be crossed in whatever vehicle we were travelling in. The general rule is, the crack should be no more than 1/3 the wheel or track length, for ice at least 30 inches thick.

[Augering a hole through the sea ice, to measure its thickness.]

After drilling a profile across a large crack system, we set out for views of other sea ice danger zones, Erebus, and seals.

We were instructed to keep an eye out for seals while on the sea ice, as seals indicated thin ice. We were also instructed to keep an eye out for signs of seals, such as urine, feces, and blood. As it turns out, seals bleed while chewing their way up through the ice. It sounds like a hard life in those terms, but the seal we saw didn't look like it was having to hard a go of it.

[Castle Rock, a favorite hiking destination from McMurdo Station.]

[Our group with Erebus in the background.]

[Seal with the TransAntarctic mountains in the background.]