...and a Short Radio Interview & Questions
Bekah and I were interviewed for the Capital Public Radio show Insight this morning. You can listen here.
I got up early, only an hour and a half after sunrise to call in to make sure the calling card worked, etc. It was beautiful with low light from the southeast illuminating the mountains across the bay. Usually I see them illuminated from the north.
My niece Valery asked me some questions via e-mail. Here they are, with my answers (slightly edited):
Seals are in Antarctica all year long. There aren't as many here now as there are in the summer when open water is nearby. However, there are fish that live around the ice, and the seals like to eat the fish, so they are around all year.
Matt, who taught us about ice cracks, said that Weddell seals can use their jaws like a drill to make a hole in ice from below. They open their jaws part way, look up from under the ice, push their jaws against the ice, and twist back and forth. I think he said they know this from cameras that scientists put on the backs of seals. There is a talk on Wednesday by one of these scientists, and I'm planning to go see it.
Here's a nice web page about Weddell seals: http://www.
I got up early, only an hour and a half after sunrise to call in to make sure the calling card worked, etc. It was beautiful with low light from the southeast illuminating the mountains across the bay. Usually I see them illuminated from the north.
My niece Valery asked me some questions via e-mail. Here they are, with my answers (slightly edited):
Questions from Virginia:
1. Do you use chemical warmers for your your hands and feet?
We have lots of chemical warmers (more than 500 for 6 people!). I haven't used any yet because I have good gloves and mittens, and my hands and feet tend to stay warm. However, Bekah, who is on our trip, used them when we went out on the sea ice to study cracks. Her mittens were much thinner, but the chemical warmers kept her fingers warm. They are most effective when they are placed on the backs of your hands in your mittens because there are more blood vessels close to your skin there. The divers also put them in their diving gloves if they are going to be in the water for a long time.
At breakfast this morning, a woman named Vickie told us a story about chemical warmers. Everyone who is going to be out overnight away from McMurdo has to go to an overnight Snow School, more commonly called "Happy Camper". (Dale and Ian left today for their school; the rest of us go on Friday.) When she went out last year or the year before, it was very cold. One of the guys was saying how warm it was that night. Then he opened his sleeping bag and tons of chemical warmers fell out.
At breakfast this morning, a woman named Vickie told us a story about chemical warmers. Everyone who is going to be out overnight away from McMurdo has to go to an overnight Snow School, more commonly called "Happy Camper". (Dale and Ian left today for their school; the rest of us go on Friday.) When she went out last year or the year before, it was very cold. One of the guys was saying how warm it was that night. Then he opened his sleeping bag and tons of chemical warmers fell out.
2. How many people are at the McMurdo base?
It varies and is changing every week right now as new people fly in. Over the winter, there are only a couple of hundred people. They spend a lot of time fixing things like camping gear, scientific equipment, vehicles, etc. In early September, the first flights of the year comes in to start preparing for everyone else. These flights are called "Winfly", I think for Winter Fly-in but I'm not sure. Several hundred more people arrived at McMurdo then, and some people left. I heard that the total number of people after Winfly was close to 500, which is larger than normal. Since then, a number of planes have brought more people in and flown a few out. The peak population this year will be about 1,000 people at McMurdo, with several hundred also at the South Pole and in field camps like ours. The population is continually changing.
3. Could the dive hole freeze over when there are people in the water?
Dive holes often get a layer of ice in them over night. However, when someone is diving, there is ALWAYS at least one person, usually two or more, waiting by the dive hole to help in case of an emergency. I'll be one of those people. If the dive hole did start to freeze, the person on top would keep breaking the ice to keep the hole open. Also, the dives in such cold water tend to be very short, usually less than 25 minutes long. Any ice layer that did form would be quite thin, and the divers could come up through it. However, safety is always a top priority, and the person on top doesn't have much to do, so making sure there is no ice blocking the hole is a good thing to do.
4. How long do the seals stay in Antarctica?
Matt, who taught us about ice cracks, said that Weddell seals can use their jaws like a drill to make a hole in ice from below. They open their jaws part way, look up from under the ice, push their jaws against the ice, and twist back and forth. I think he said they know this from cameras that scientists put on the backs of seals. There is a talk on Wednesday by one of these scientists, and I'm planning to go see it.
Here's a nice web page about Weddell seals: http://www.
