BOONDOGLE!

Boondogle: Translation, an Antarctica word, probably made up, that means you go do something that has nothing to do with your job for a day. And OH DANG ARE THEY FUN!!! I have ZERO training in the world of diving but low and behold, I found myself sitting in the back of a funky vehicle called a pistonbully, rumbling along toward a dive shack.... With my camera in tote and my fellow diving attendent, Ross alongside, we headed out of McMurdo about 30 minutes with Diver Rob and Grantee Henry Kaiser (guess where you've heard that last name before....yep.) Ross became an instant friend as we embarked on this adventure together. The dive shack looked like a tiny house in the middle of the icy tundra. Inside, it was warm and fully stocked with juice boxes and snacks. In the middle, a hole that lead down 12ft to the 28degree ocean water. We were approx. 52 ft. from the ocean bottom in this location. Rob and Henry were on a mission to collect some samples for a study and Ross and I were there to help them with all of their gear. In order to get out of the dive hole, someone has to drag their gear out of the water from the floor level (our job) and get their gloves attached to their space-age wet suits. It was awesome! The icing on top of a wonderful day was a visit from a BEAUTIFUL Weddell Seal..... It was an epic moment for me.

Sunbathing Weddell Seal - not dead.

This one was watching me.... I'd like to think she was smiling for me and that her mouth isn't just shaped that way...

My epic moment. Praise God for zoom! Weddell Seals are my new favorite animal in the whole world. They are truly fascinating animals. Their favorite foods are cod and silverfish. They live harmoniously with this extremely harsh continent. Weddell Seals can hold their breath for 45 minutes and dive 2,000ft beneath the surface. When they need oxygen, they can open their mouth so wide that their bottom jaw becomes parallel with the top of their mouth and they use their teeth to saw through the ice....sometimes feet of ice. They punch through the ice and jump out to soak up the sun, wind, snow, or whatever the weather is. Their layers of fat keep them warm and their unique combination of fuzz and smooth skin repels water off of their rounded bodies. September and October is pup season for Weddell seals and I've seen a few of the little ones from a distance. They are remarkable animals.

It's a marvelous night for a moondance!

I'm enjoying a glorious day off today and soaking in every moment of being a hermit. While I've been hiding in our hobbit hole room reading and e-mailing the ouside world, Aaron is in the midst of admiring the glacier in his front yard. For the next two weeks, my Fuelie guy is calling Marble Point home as he tests fuel and checks line for any malfunctions. Marble Point is a remote refueling station for helicopter pilots and also boasts the best dinners on the continent. Aaron called last night after eating three helpings of scallop and shrimp stuffed ravioli..... I enjoyed every bit of my pear that was the last of our fruit stash until the next C-17 can make it to the station with fresh fruit and veggies.... we might all get scurvy here:) Aaron's having a great time getting to know the three other folks that live and work at Marble Point. I'm grateful that he has this opportunity to recharge and have some quiet time. Back here in McMurdo town, we're all ramping up for the huge Halloween Costume party tonight. I will be doing my best to recreate Janis Joplin's funk since my fellow hussle dancing maniac is eating ravioli at Marble Point. Happy Harvest and Halloween to everyone back home! Enjoy all things pumpkin for me!

Aaron working the fuelie life

Observation hill in the background

The glow of the Antartic snow - photo from Fuelie Ed

The Bazzler! These planes take people to the South Pole! The cabin isn't pressurizing so it's either suck oxygen through a tube or try to breathe at 22,000ft! This photo was taken for Cassidy and Miles Goering!

A continuation of Cape Evans

A Sundog! Not sure yet why and how this ring appears around the sun but it's very unique to extreme polar environments

One of the many transformers I drive on the Ice!

Practicing for our Christmas Card picture....

A season of celebrating life

This is a season of celebrating life. With new fallen snow over the past two days, the arriving Weddell Seals are magnified against the blank canvas of the frozen bay. My family and I are mourning the loss of my grandfather, Kenneth L. Snively, who passed away on Oct. 16 in Billings Montana. My grandpa lived an incredible life full of rodeoing, ranching, volunteer work, as a judge, and taught two generations how to love their family and to love God. With the sadness of saying goodbye to my grandpa, the entire family is eager to meet the newest member of the group, Natalie Goble. My brother Brandon and sister-in-law Jessie are ready for their little girl to arrive any day now. It's a truely joyous time as we all celebrate the life of my grandpa and the beginning of life for Natalie. Although the landscape reminds me that I'm not there for any of these events, Aaron and I have found some ways to feel close to our family without being there in body. On our recent trip to Cape Evans, we found a peaceful spot on a hill top that overlooks the frozen bay and surrounding glaciers. We built a cairon (a trail marker made of stacked rocks) at the top of the hill in honor of my grandpa Snively. A lasting monument to a life well lived in communion with the earth beneath his feet and the big sky of Montana. Grandpa would like this view from the bottom of the earth.

Cape Evan's and the Robert Falcon Scott Expedition

This photo is from my friend Ricky who is now at the South Pole. When we arrived in Antarctica, the weather was Condition 2, which means that there was barely any visibility... it looked like we had arrived in a cloud...

Very EXCITED to be in Antarctica and see Aaron!

Last week, the Shuttles crew took a special trip out to Cape Evans; the Location of Robert Falcon Scott's British Expedition Hut during the the winter of 1911. 25 men of the Terra Nova party lived in the hut. From here Scott and his men set out on the ultimately fatal trek to the South Pole. The expedition to the Pole was set to be the very first to reach the Geographical South Pole. Although Scott didn't know it, a Norwegian expedition had set out from a different side of the continent and beat Scott to his goal. Beaten and far worse for wear, Scott and his party members turned back to travel back to Cape Evans (on the Coast of Antarctica near McMurdo) to rejoin their expedition members who had stayed in order to take care of their camp. Scott wrote, "Well we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition with sore feelings and must face 800 miles of solid dragging--and goodbye to the daydreams!" 

When Scott and his South Pole expedition did not return, several of the men that had stayed at the hut ventured out on a search party. Scott and two other party members were found in their tent, eight months after their last journal entries had been made.

The hut was reused from 1915-1917 by several of Ernest Shackleton's Ross Sea Party. The hut became the permanent living quarters for ten marooned men from that expedition, and thanks to the supplies left by Scott's expedition, they were able to sustain life in comparative comfort, supplementing these stores from Shackleton's Hut at Cape Royds (another hut near McMurdo). In January 1917, after Shackleton had rescued the survivors, he had the hut put in order and locked up.
Although abandoned in 1917, the hut and its contents are remarkably well preserved today due to the consistently sub-freezing conditions. There are test tubes, beakers, boots, shoes, blankets, and even canned food still in perfect order at the Cape Evans hut. It was kind of unsettling to walk into the dark hut and see everything perfectly still as it was then. Things do not easily decay here and that was very evident inside the hut. There was even a frozen penguin on a side table. A historical society based out of the Kiwi Research Base (Scott Base) that's only a few miles from McMurdo maintains the artifacts in the different huts around the Ross Sea area. I was a a huge treat to get to see this historical treasure.

Outside of the hut

My co-worker Kristy and I riding in the Delta on the way to Cape Evans

An ENORMOUS iceberg that we stopped at on the way to the hut. The Iceberg was trapped and froze into the bay over the winter. It was beautiful and glowed in the descending sunlight. I licked it and it was surprisingly really salty! An incredible place to ice climb but beautiful unto itself.

Fellow shuttle drivers walking around to the back of the iceberg

The broken shapes of ice were very geometric and creaked with the moving water 12 ft below the frozen ice sheet. Icebergs reveal only 10% of their mass above the water with the remaining 90% hidden beneath the water

The setting sun behind Black Island

My Coworker Michael Lucous

Formations near the Iceberg. The mounds or Pumice rock reveal the concentration of volcanic activity that has shaped this landscape

scientific studies that were done by Scott and Shackleton's expeditions

Supplies left behind by Scott's Party

Outside the hut with Mt. Eribus in the background. A majority of the formations and features of this continent are named after ships and explorers. Eribus was a ship

Pumice among us!

A cross was put up for Scott's fatal expedition. There are many crosses that dot the landscape here; in memorial of the many explorers who lost their lives trying to understand this landscape. They're be shocked by "Big Red" parkas and the luxuries we have in McMurdo.

A lanturn left behind