Antarctica

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antarctica001 From Port Hueneme, California, I began my journey to Antarctica on October 8, 1993. I, along with several of my shipmates, were headed to McMurdo Station, Antarctica to begin our 1 year Winter-Over tour of duty. Before getting to Antarctica, though, we first had to stop over in Christchurch, New Zealand for a couple days to pick up our gear. Several of us picked up our Extra Cold Weather (ECW) gear on October 11, 1993 (the photo has the 10th because I forgot to change the date on it since we crossed the International Dateline). This is me in most of the gear in our hotel room.

antarctica002lyttelton Earlier in the day on October 11, 1993, Brian Howell (the other Winter-Over weather observer), LT Smith, and I took a gondola ride to the top of Mt. Cavendish - the rim of an extinct volcano south-southeast from Christchurch, New Zealand on Banks Peninsula. From the top of Mt. Cavendish we could see the town of Lyttelton, New Zealand to the south (seen here in the photo).

antarctica002lyttelton

antarctica003 To the south-southwest, the view was of Quail Island in the middle of Lyttelton Harbour.

antarctica004 Christchurch, New Zealand was visible to the north-northwest (center of picture). The lines of the gondola are on the right side of the photo.

antarctica005 Brian Howell (right) and I pose for a photo with Quail Island and Lyttelton Harbour in the distance. From here, the three of us finally picked up the mountain bikes that we were expecting and rode down to the sea from Mt. Cavendish.

antarctica006 Several of us finally left Christchurch, New Zealand on October 12, 1993 and arrived on The Ice on a C-141 Starlifter. The flight took 5 hours and had 130 people crammed in like sardines. We landed on the Ice Runway - basically the frozen over part of McMurdo Sound that later in the summer will be open water! I finally set my date right on my camera once I arrived. Two days after arriving, I was on top of our Operations Building taking an observation when I snapped a photo of the helicopter landing pad. The UH-1 Huey helicopters in the photo belonged to the now decommissioned VXE-6 Ice Pirates.

antarctica007 The next day, was my first day out at the Ice Runway taking weather observations. In between some observations a couple of us went outside to throw a little nerf football around. One thing lead to another, and some tackle football insued. Of course we were out without jackets on. Here I am posing in my Seabee green uniform in the control tower after we got back inside from catching some football.

antarctica008 On the 16th of October, I was out at the Ice Runway again. This time I got to take some photos of the LC-130's taking off and landing. These were Navy aircraft from the now decommissioned VXE-6 Puckered Penguins (the VXE-6 Ice Pirates were the helicopter part of this squardon). Here XD-01 takes off on a windy poor conditioned day.

antarctica009 XD-01 flying by after take off. Notice the skies on the wheels.

antarctica010 The view , roughly to the north, from the top of the control tower toward a hidden Mt. Erebus volcano on Ross Island (the base of McMurdo is also on Ross Island). The smaller black exposed rock just to the right of center is Castle Rock. The radar dome for flight operations is on the left side of the photo.

antarctica011 On October 17, 1993, I was in Mac Town (the affectionate name for the base of McMurdo) for the day. It was not a bad day, so while I was at the Balloon Shack, preparing a weather balloon to be launched, I took a photo of Hut Point - the larger hill on the left side of the photo. It is so named after the Hut that British explorer Robert Scott erected on the site (visible in the photo just left of center and at the base of the hill). The ice skating rink looking sturcture on the right side of the photo is actually the early stages of the Ice Pier where offloading of materials occur later in the summer when the ships begin to arrive.

antarctica012 This is a 300 gram weather balloon ready to be...

antarctica013 ...launched. This was taken after it was a little further away, but...

antarctica014 ...I got a closer shot on the 18th of October. As you can see the weather was much better this day with some blue skies. If you look close enough, a little below and to the right of the balloon is the white radiosonde instrument package that is attached to the ballon with twine.

antarctica015 Here, a helicopter of the VXE-6 Ice Pirates takes off for one of the camps in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

antarctica016 As the helo heads out over the frozen McMurdo Sound, Mt. Discovery is seen in the distance. Mt. Discovery is a dormant (maybe extinct) volcano across McMurdo Sound from Mt. Erebus. Note the groomed ice area in the lower left quarter of the photo. This is where the Ice Road leads out to the Ice Runway from McMurdo.

antarctica017 Later after work on October 19, 1993, Dan Ireland and I went to climb up Observation Hill (also known as Ob Hill). This photo was taken from near the top of Observation Hill next to McMurdo. Mt. Erebus, the active volcano on Ross Island, is seen in the distance. I like this photo, because Mt. Erebus looks so menacing to the town.

antarctica018 The first of a couple photos of McMurdo as we climbed up Ob Hill.

antarctica019 This one shows a little of the slope of Ob Hill on the left looking to the northwest over town and frozen McMurdo Sound.

antarctica020 A zoomed in shot of the scientific building - the Crary Labs - in the center of the photo.

antarctica021 A zoomed out shot of upper McMurdo and Mt. Erebus.

antarctica022 In the center of this photo are a couple of lime green buildings (the junction of the steep slope of Ob Hill to the right and the slope of the distant hill to the left). This is Scott Base - the New Zealand Antarctic base near McMurdo.

antarctica023 As we reached the summit of Ob Hill, we came upon a descriptive sign (in 4 languages) about the cross that was located at the summit. Part of the description says that

antarctica024 The Ice Runway from the summit of Ob Hill looking south. This is the runway that aircraft land on when they come down to McMurdo from October to late November. Yes that's right, it's the ice on top of McMurdo Sound, and they land on it! White Island (left) and Minna Bluff (right) are in the background.

antarctica025 This photo of McMurdo was taken from the top of Observation Hill.

antarctica026 Dan Ireland (left), me, and some other guy who happened to be taking photos before we got there at the summit of Ob Hill with Mt. Erebus in the distance.

antarctica027iceberg While out at the runways during the 1993-1994 season one could look to the eastern end of the runways and see a nice big iceberg that was trapped in the frozen ice of McMurdo Sound. Even when the Sound became open water the iceberg could not break free from the ice that had a grip on it.

antarctica027iceberg

antarctica028 Fatamorgana is a cool weather effect that occurs in the Arctic and Antarctic. You can vaguely see this occurrence at the horizon of the photo. Temperature inversions near the ground cause an almost opposing mirror image of the actual land surface above the inversion. It also can distort objects in many ways. The best one I saw while I was down there in McMurdo was while heading out to the Ice Runway. The LC-130 fuselages had actually disappeared because of the inversion. The only thing on the planes that was visible was the upper part of the tails. Also, the radar dome that the air traffic controllers use is usually round, but on this day it was an egg shape.

antarctica029 XD-01 on the Ice Runway with some fatamorgana in the distance at the horizon.

antarctica030 Mt. Erebus taken from the Ice Runway on October 20, 1993 with a couple of LC-130's from the now decommissioned VXE-6 squadron.

antarctica031 Another LC-130 getting ready to take off while Crash 1 (right) stands at the ready just in case of an emergency.

antarctica032 Parting shot of this day at the Ice Runway with the radar dome, LC-130, and Ross Island in the distance.

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