Professor Stephen Ackley (http://www.utsa.edu/lrsg/Staff/Steve/SAckley.htm)is the principal investigator (PI) for the Sea Ice research conducted during the Oden cruise 2006/2007 to Antarctica by Dr. Hongjie Xie and Burcu Cicek from UTSA. He participated in outreach efforts of POLARTREC and helped to answer numerous questions related to Antarctic research in the public forums and live conference calls during the Oden cruise. Ute Kaden...
After visiting Scott’s Hut at McMurdo, sailing on the icebreaker Oden through the famous Ross Sea and following the heroic age footsteps of Captain Shakelton’s voyage, I had some thoughts I would like to share with you.
Effective icebreaker and excellent platform for research and science
Oden finished breaking the ship channel successfully on Saturday morning. They are working on the turning basin in McMurdo and maintaining the ice channel at the moment.
The helicopter came back on time to take us to McMurdo. The Oden will continue to break the rest of the ship channel to McMurdo. Our flight back on the C17 was scheduled for the afternoon and went off without a hitch.
Oden is parked stable against the ice. Since the early morning radio communication with McMurdo indicated that NSF will send the helicopter to pick up our luggage. The pilot checked the ice thickness by drilling and our bags got loaded. We used the time to go for a walk on the ice. The ship looks magnificent from a distance. What fun to hold the big ship up at the bow, dancing on the ice and posing in front of our Oden. The scientists are relieved that all equipment is boxed up loaded, last data backup and lots of hugs between the crew of the Oden and very happy participants.
