Hut Point
Today, Alfonso, Bekah and I worked hard. First thing this morning, we "pulled" food for 129 person days. Pulling food consists of going to the food room with the list of items you want, and "pulling" them from the shelves and putting them on the table. When the table fills up, you line them up on the floor.
Then Peggy scans all the items, and you put them in boxes. Each box needs to be weighed and labeled with you science team code (G-441-M for us), it's destination (Lake Joyce), it's weight (the total was >350 lbs), and whether it can freeze (CF) or not (DNF = do not freeze). The label goes on both the top and the side so it's easier for the helo cargo techies to identify what food goes on which flight. This is important. The first food pull I did was with Ian and Dale for their first week in the field. That food is now missing; we suspect it went with some of our other cargo rather than being held to fly with them. I'm sure it will turn up at some point, but at 4:45 today, Dale and I went to go re-pull it. They are scheduled to leave tomorrow at 9 am, and they have to have food!
The 129 person days comes from assuming 5 people in the field for 25 days and 6 people in the field for 22 days. To calculate person days of food, you multiply the number of people by the number of days and add it all up. I got 257 person days. (Who is going to check my math to make sure we don't starve? This is a really important word problem; our stomachs depend on it.) However, we only need to get half of our food now, which is 257/2 (rounded up). We'll have more sent out via helicopter once we've consumed some of it. This is a really good thing because what if no one wants to eat the peanut butter and we have 6 jars of it? Or what if everyone is craving it, and we eat all six jars in the first two weeks? We did also get 50 meals of freeze dried emergency rations in case the helo can't land for 10 days when we are also almost out of food. (1 package/person/day * 5 people * 10 days = 50 packages) And then we still have to get the frozen foods. That's scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30 pm.
When we got back from packing our hundreds of pounds of food, I had a message that we needed to repack some of our helo cargo. When we brought it down to helo, it was in a bunch of small and not so small boxes. They wanted it packed into large white cargo boxes so they could sling it in nets below the helicopter rather than having to pack each box into the main body. We agreed to this, of course. We want our cargo easy to move and well cared for. We headed down to the helo pad and packed three big white boxes.
After lunch, Alfonso, Bekah and I felt like we could use some time off, so we walked out to Hut Point, which is about 1.5 miles from McMurdo.
In 1902, the explorer Scott and his team built this hut and stored a lot of supplies in it. They returned in 1910. At first the hut was filled with snow and ice that had drifted in, but it eventually melted, letting them access their supplies. There are still original biscuits and other things in the hut.
We could see in one window, but the door was locked to keep the historic artifacts from "walking away." Alfonso knows a lot of the history of Scott's teams and was an excellent tour guide even though it was his first time there.
As we were admiring the cross erected in memory of one of Scott's team members who died, and talking to the great people who bake our scones and wash our dishes, a helicopter flew by with two white cargo boxes slung in a net.
The view of McMurdo was very nice:
As was the view of the first dive hut we visited:
On our way out to Hut Point, we saw a C-17 finish its landing out on the sea ice runway. It taxied around and then unloaded cargo and some people.
This was the first plane of the year to land on the sea ice runway rather than the runway on the ice shelf, which is where we landed. When it took off, it blew a huge plume of snow into the air. The load was lighter; the population of McMurdo has increased.
Then Peggy scans all the items, and you put them in boxes. Each box needs to be weighed and labeled with you science team code (G-441-M for us), it's destination (Lake Joyce), it's weight (the total was >350 lbs), and whether it can freeze (CF) or not (DNF = do not freeze). The label goes on both the top and the side so it's easier for the helo cargo techies to identify what food goes on which flight. This is important. The first food pull I did was with Ian and Dale for their first week in the field. That food is now missing; we suspect it went with some of our other cargo rather than being held to fly with them. I'm sure it will turn up at some point, but at 4:45 today, Dale and I went to go re-pull it. They are scheduled to leave tomorrow at 9 am, and they have to have food!
The 129 person days comes from assuming 5 people in the field for 25 days and 6 people in the field for 22 days. To calculate person days of food, you multiply the number of people by the number of days and add it all up. I got 257 person days. (Who is going to check my math to make sure we don't starve? This is a really important word problem; our stomachs depend on it.) However, we only need to get half of our food now, which is 257/2 (rounded up). We'll have more sent out via helicopter once we've consumed some of it. This is a really good thing because what if no one wants to eat the peanut butter and we have 6 jars of it? Or what if everyone is craving it, and we eat all six jars in the first two weeks? We did also get 50 meals of freeze dried emergency rations in case the helo can't land for 10 days when we are also almost out of food. (1 package/person/day * 5 people * 10 days = 50 packages) And then we still have to get the frozen foods. That's scheduled for tomorrow at 1:30 pm.
When we got back from packing our hundreds of pounds of food, I had a message that we needed to repack some of our helo cargo. When we brought it down to helo, it was in a bunch of small and not so small boxes. They wanted it packed into large white cargo boxes so they could sling it in nets below the helicopter rather than having to pack each box into the main body. We agreed to this, of course. We want our cargo easy to move and well cared for. We headed down to the helo pad and packed three big white boxes.
Our cargo is in the black trailer and the one with blue trim, before we put it into white boxes. There was more in one of the blue cupboards visible on the right.
The helo pilots have to know how much each box weighs, so we added up all the weights for the individual boxes as we put them in the white boxes. Sometimes, we had to put things in and then take them out again, keeping track of it all. By the time we were done, there were 205 lbs of cargo in one box, 299 lbs in one, and 370 lbs in the last one. (The last one has one small box filled with mega tent stakes that weighed 100 lbs on its own! We've moved that box four times now!) If you add up all the weight we moved before lunch, it was well over 1,000 lbs! And that's not even counting moving the same thing multiple times trying to fit it all in.
After lunch, Alfonso, Bekah and I felt like we could use some time off, so we walked out to Hut Point, which is about 1.5 miles from McMurdo.
Alfonso and Scott's Hut
In 1902, the explorer Scott and his team built this hut and stored a lot of supplies in it. They returned in 1910. At first the hut was filled with snow and ice that had drifted in, but it eventually melted, letting them access their supplies. There are still original biscuits and other things in the hut.
The south porch
What was left on the south porch
We could see in one window, but the door was locked to keep the historic artifacts from "walking away." Alfonso knows a lot of the history of Scott's teams and was an excellent tour guide even though it was his first time there.
As we were admiring the cross erected in memory of one of Scott's team members who died, and talking to the great people who bake our scones and wash our dishes, a helicopter flew by with two white cargo boxes slung in a net.
Not our cargo...
The view of McMurdo was very nice:
My dorm is the big brown building, second from right
As was the view of the first dive hut we visited:
The dive hut is on the ice right under the sun. Note all the huge sea ice cracks. The shiny areas are where sea water flowed out of them and refroze.
On our way out to Hut Point, we saw a C-17 finish its landing out on the sea ice runway. It taxied around and then unloaded cargo and some people.
This was the first plane of the year to land on the sea ice runway rather than the runway on the ice shelf, which is where we landed. When it took off, it blew a huge plume of snow into the air. The load was lighter; the population of McMurdo has increased.
