notesfromantarctica

Paul's Notes from Antarctica

Food Notes

The galley provides four meals a day. The usual three, plus a midnight snack.

On Sunday, breakfast and lunch are combined into a brunch. Sunday brunch is our favorite meal at the galley. I have been working hard and have developed a large appetite. One brunch I ate: a plate filling waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, a ham, cheese, and green Chile omelet,and two slabs of ham. I followed it all up with brunch desert of two apple turnovers. Then washed it down with three glasses of pineapple juice.
Noel followed dinner one night with a bowl of fruit loops for desert: He smiled as he said "They have fruit loops on tap here." He was right, a huge tank of fruit loops can be used to fill your bowl any time you want. Who could ask for anything more?

Fruit Loops on Tap!
For Sunday Brunch this sign appeared at the waffle stand in the galley.

Due to the fact that it is a harsh continent we are out of strawberries, management regrets any inconvenience.
After eating the do-it-yourself lunch tacos our friend John commented,"it's amazing what they do with prison grade beef here."
Mary reports that she went to "A party with no name, in hut 10" where biologist Art DeVries cooked Antarctic Cod. Mary says that the fish reminded her of Chilean sea bass and was the best meal she has had in Antarctica. At another party she had Antarctic Cod Sashimi and proclaimed it excellent.

Optical Phenomena

I am a light scattering physicist so I am tuned in to the local light displays.

Outside the window of our office in Crary lab we look across McMurdo sound to Mount Discovery. One calm morning it looked like someone had lifted up the entire mountain and that the bottom had stretched upward like taffy. There seemed to be a new set of cliffs ringing the bottom of the mountain. It was a Fata Morgana, an inferior mirage, light from the mountain bent as it passed through different temperature layers of air above the ice. Fata Morgana is named after Morgan le Fay, sister to King Arthur who was supposed to be able to change her shape.
At Lower Erebus hut the plume of Erebus passed between me and the sun. The sun was immediately surrounded by three reddish rings of corona about 12 degrees in total diameter. The appearance of the corona tells me that the cloud is made of supercooled water droplets not ice crystals. It was fun to see the sun as the bulls eye in a three ring target.
The smoke plumes from Erebus were bluish in color. As they moved over us their shadows on the snow were yellow and yellowish-brown. The blue light was scattered away allowing the yellow light to strike the snow.
I descended into one of the ice towers made by fumaroles on Mt. Erebus. Light filtering down through the ice was blue. As we moved deeper under the ice the blue deepened in color. At the very deepest levels the light became a stunning violet.

The Smells of Antarctica

Before I left the Exploratorium Melissa asked me to take note of the smells I encountered in Antarctica. Here is what I observed:

We entered the Crary science lab on the way to our office passing through the Antarctic fish biology area. It smelled like my local fish market to me. Except these fish are not for sale.
The MEC shop smelled of old airplane hangar, with its special blend of hydrocarbons from gasoline and oil blended with the smell of hot metals.
On our way out onto the ice for "Happy Camper School" we dropped in to the galley to pick up our lunches. Just then, they removed the hot chocolate chip cookies from the oven, Ah! the smell of hot butter, chocolate, and sugar.
On the rim of Erebus we entered the volcanic plume and smelled the classic smell of burning sulfur. The acidic gasses tickled my throat and lungs while the -20 C air froze the mucous inside my nose.

Weirdness

In one briefing about personal hygiene in the Dry Valleys we learned about propane powered toilets used to dry out human waste. The video noted that one of these propane toilets was named " The rocket toilet," after a legendary malfunction.
We travel as passengers in boxes lifted high above the snow and ice by huge tires or tracks. A ladder is lowered down the back of the vehicle to allow us to exit. The first person to descend the ladder during Sea Ice school jumped off the bottom of the ladder and shouted "That's one small step for a man."
Karen Joyce describes the local large camp robbing birds, the Skuas, as looking like "seagulls who have had an industrial accident."
On the television weather channel they list "Astronomical data: Next Sunset: February 20, 2002."
The weather proudly proclaims: "Tonight's weather: Sunny" When it's sunny at night you know you're not in the tropics!
A paper sign beneath a metal plaque proclaims this safety warning:

So what would yu do if you saw this sign?