Monday started off with breakfast and some basic work-related activities prior to our 9:30 meeting with Steve Alexander, Crary Lab Supervisor. Steve runs the entire show at the Crary Lab, which as previously mentioned is the relatively new 46,500 sq. foot state-of-the-art laboratory and aquarium facility here on station. The Crary Lab was built at a cost of $23 million and holds over $4 million in capital equipment including hi-tech instruments such as a mass spectrometer, ultra-centrifuges, spectrophotometers, and liquid scintillation counters. Multiple services ranging from analytical chemistry, electronics, and information technology to diving support are provided to the more than 500 scientists who pass through McMurdo each season.

We had met with Steve and his staff this past summer in Denver, but we wanted to touch base with him to see if any new issues had arisen since he got to the Ice. After chatting about POLAR ICE and life as a grantee, Steve gave us a tour of the laboratory stock rooms. Inventory is a large portion of our application so it was really interesting to see all of this equipment in person. Next Steve had Sally, one of the lab staff, explain to us how grantees check out lab equipment. We had discussed the possibility of a barcode inventory management system with Steve, and after seeing the manual checkout process it was evident that something needs to be done to streamline this process.

I elected to skip lunch in favor of calling Sara and doing some work on the diving portion in POLAR ICE before our next meeting. At 1300 we met with Karla, the Berg Field Center (BFC) manager. This is the REI of McMurdo, with every imaginable piece of outdoor gear available for groups going into the field. Along with the lab section, the field support section is very inventory-centric, so it was a real eye-opener to see the massive amount of gear available for checkout.

After getting a tour of the BFC we went next door to the Food Room. When a group goes into the field for 3 months they need to eat. Thus, we have a Food Room, or essentially, a grocery store for grantees. They come in and pull items off the shelves, put them in boxes, and take them into the field. In doing this, they use a barcode scanner application that Josh developed over the summer. In the past every item had to be manually marked down on a piece of paper. Imagine buying 3 months worth of groceries, and writing down each item as you pull it off the shelf. The new barcode system has been a big hit, and Peggy, another Courage Classic rider and Food Room Manager, gave us a demo of how she uses the system. After the demo we headed back over to the BFC.

A science group was in the BFC setting up an Endurance Tent. This looks a lot like a half dome when it’s set up, but it has the stability and several of the same design characteristics as a Scott tent. We watched this process for a while and then retrieved our coats to head to our third and final workcenter meeting of the day.

At 1500 (I'm getting good with this military lingo, huh?) we met with Rob Robbins, the “Dive Boy” on station. He manages all SCUBA and underwater diving operations here. There are quite a few groups that collect samples underwater, and Rob facilitates all of this. In fact, if you saw the PBS documentary, “Under Antarctic Ice,” Rob was shown many times with the documentary team. I worked closely with Rob over the summer to help come up with a process for streamlining all of the permit and diver information forms that must be completed for each science group, and diver, looking to take the plunge in Antarctica. We demoed the new functionality we came up with and Rob was very pleased. The dive coordinator for the NSF was also there, and he also seemed thoroughly impressed with what we presented. In the past there was a manual paper-based system that involved each grantee filling out information, sending it to Rob, who entered more info, who then sent it to Mike at the NSF. Papers and faxes were going all over the place and it was a fairly inefficient process. A late addition to version 1 of POLAR ICE was to pre-populate these forms with data already entered into the system, but the faxing of paper documents was still required. In version 2 of POLAR ICE everything will be done online, thereby eliminating the need for a single sheet of paper or fax transmission.

After the demo we chatted with Rob for a short while and he invited us along to go diving with him later this week. While I won’t get to dive, it should be fun to watch. Not just anyone can dive in the Antarctic; you must have at least 50 dives under your belt, and at least 15 of those must have been dry suit dives. Additionally, you have to have a certain depth certification and have received the recommendation/approval of Rob, your institution’s Dive Safety Officer (DSO), Mike at the NSF, and the DSO at the Smithsonian Institute. They basically acknowledge that you’re a competent-enough diver to be able to deal with diving under a ceiling (the ice), and can deal with the cold 28-degree water.

I can’t wait for this trip, as it will involve trekking across the ice in a Pisten Bully, which is a small transport vehicle that has tracks similar to a tank, and is designed specifically for driving across sea ice. It’s also a very common occurrence for seals to emerge from dive holes, and where we’re going isn’t too far from the ice edge, which means there’s even a chance to see some penguins.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. If you’ve been following the POLAR ICE local mirroring story, we received a call late in the day from Tech Ops that they have a server ready for us, so tomorrow we’ll start getting that ready to roll. After dinner I headed back to the office to finish up a bit more work on the diving stuff, then retired to my room to watch Sea Biscuit and hit the sack a little early.

Another general observation I’ve had thus far is that this place is essentially organized chaos. It’s impressive to see the level to which each workcenter goes out of their way to provide the best possible support to science groups coming to the Ice. In Denver this sometimes just seems like an ordinary job, but down here everyone is 100% devoted to the pursuit of science, whatever it takes. It makes me proud to be part of the program, and has absolutely reaffirmed my faith in what it is I’m doing here, and in my career choice in general. I believe my friend Kevin left a comment on one of my earlier blog posts that said traveling would expand my mind and open me up to other cultures and beliefs. Now that I’ve been gone for almost three weeks I couldn’t agree more. The people in New Zealand were wonderful, but being at McMurdo is a sociology experiment if nothing else. You never know exactly whom it is you might be talking to next. There are PhDs here that are dishwashers. They love the program so much they’ll do anything to come back and support it year after year. The woman who gave the presentation on the AWE Expedition, one of the four women to successfully trek from the Weddell Sea to the South Pole, is a trash hauler here. She just loves Antarctica. The other day I saw Harry Mahar, the NSF’s Safety Officer (a very high ranking person in the program) washing dishes. You can volunteer to help out in the kitchen and he was leading the way. Like I said, being here has absolutely reaffirmed my belief in the program, and it’s so much more than just being a “web developer.” I’m one small piece of this bigger picture that is supporting the science which provides a better understanding of Antarctica and the world in which we live. It’s very impressive and eye opening to say the least.

Now for the history lesson: Yesterday I mentioned that we had hiked down to Discovery Hut. Here’s the background on this structure, straight from the handout we received at the Firehouse:

This hut was built in February 1902 during the National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition of 1901-1904, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott who later found it a valuable advance staging point for journeys on the “Barrier” during his 1910-1913 expedition. It was also used by Sir Ernest Shackleton during the 1907-1909 British Antarctic Expedition and later by his stranded Ross Sea Party during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. This building was prefabricated in Australia to an ‘outback’ design with verandahs on three sides.

The Hut Point site is one of the principal sites of early human activity in Antarctica. It is an important symbol of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration and, as such, has considerable historical and cultural significance. Some of the earliest advances in the study of earth sciences, meteorology, flora and fauna in Antarctica are associated with Discovery Expedition based at this site. The history of these activities and the contribution they have made to the understanding and awareness of Antarctica give this Area significant scientific, technical, aesthetic, and social values.