18 November 2009 My First Bona Fide Camping Trip

If you don't mind, I'm going to split these next few journal entries up into categories, so be patient with me-so much to share and a time crunch to boot as I also get ready for our next webinar to be held on Dec. 8th at 2 pm EST. Be sure to sign up and join us live!!! (David and Bob will be joining us this time, so I'm pretty excited about that!)Yesterday we returned from our 10 day all-inclusive, weight loss spa "vacation" in the field. If you were able to check out my audio entries then you know that we were inserted via helo on Becker Point, Antarctica on Wednesday, November 18th and then proceeded to work out on the McMurdo Ice Shelf near the Koattletz GlacierA mass of ice that persists for many years and notably deforms and flows under the influence of gravity....."near" in Antarctic terms anyways. I must admit that I love being helo'd to "work", so I can certainly see why "The Donald" does it!!

I didn't realize that Becker Point--since renamed "Beaker Point"--was part of the dry valleys-not the protected part, but dry nonetheless. It felt like being on yet another moonscape of sorts, and the 50-55 knot winds that were ripping added to the feeling that we'd entered yet another dimension even though at first I didn't realize that we were actually standing on the continent. (First View)

Because the winds were not letting up, it became obvious that the helo would not be able to deliver the rest of our supplies. Help Ops was pretty confident that they would be able to get one more load to us, but it meant that we would be without our Coleman stove, personal tents and a sleep kit. (Guess whose sleep kit that was? LOL!)

As you can see from the picture above, the tri-wall container did not fair very well on the flight over, but no supplies fell out in transit. Looking back, that should've been a message about snafus to come. But, what do you expect? It's Antarctica and ANYTHING can happen!

After our one and only, one-stop tent was up, we settled in to see what we had in the way of food for dinner as the winds continued to howl away. (We eventually broke into the survival bags to commandeer an MSR Whisperlite stove so we could at least have hot water and cook a warm meal as it became apparent that it would be a bit-two days--before the helos would fly again. McMurdo was being battered by Condition 1 weather...which I missed...now how will I complete my weather series??)

As you just read above, a sleep kit did not arrive. If you guessed that it was MY sleep kit, you'd be correct. But, Bob graciously allowed me the use of his while we all sacrificed our fleece liners to him so he didn't freeze to death. He looked like a multi colored burrito tucked away inside four fleece liners-a Boburrito! Koru found warmth up high.

After getting our sleep kits out and situated, we slept like sardines packed in down for the next two nights-cozily packed at that. But, the high, sustained winds continued to roar away throughout this night and the next night, and there were times when I thought the tent would be shredded. Although, I was assured that this particular tent could sustain and survive much higher winds.

We stayed put during the morning of the second day as the winds were still quite bad-above 40 mph sustained. Some of us even snagged a bit more sleep.

After the winds died down a bit during the afternoon, we packed up and headed off to find our first dive sight. I only made it as far as the "moat" between the peninsula and the first pressure ridge because that's where I broke through the ice and went in up to my knees, my boots filling with water....flippin' COLD water. All in all, four of us broke through by the end of field camp. Believe me, I was much more careful from that time on! Stay tuned for more Antarctic antics!!