Stardate

It's been storming the past 72 hours, but the storm let up and the sun came out. This morning I volunteered to be a line handler. When the boats come in to the ice pier – a bunch of dirt piled on top of ice – then I may get called down to help secure the tow lines. It sounds interesting, though the safety briefing was presented rather stoically by two official Navy line handlers who provide help every January and February. That's when all the boats dock—science vessels, the ice breaker (pictured), the cargo vessel, the fuel tanker. I learned that if a line is under too much pressure it smokes; this is indication it's about to “part,” and that means you need to move away.

This afternoon I sat at a computer and a special treat was delivered to me. A woman in Crary named Panina – you guessed it, the feminine version of a sandwich, like Croque Madame – gave to the supply department a few Erebus crystals. Right now I know two facts about Erebus crystals:
1) This particular type of crystal has only been found around Mt. Erebus and Mt. Kenya.
2) They originate in the magma chambers of these two volcanoes. When the chamber bursts the crystals are projected.

You may reference other Antarctica blogs for, I'm sure, far more thorough descriptions of the Erebus crystal. There is another rock around here, much more abundant, called dunite. This rock constitutes part of the earth's crust and is composed mostly of olivine, a crystal named for its green color. Does it taste salty? You be the judge. Chunks of dunite often split off into magma chambers and are then launched out of lava vents. I collected a small token on Monday and most days I roll it about in the pocket of my parka.

I ate dinner while watching Star Trek, then I lay down and napped for twenty minutes—it is the details that make this real—and finally rose for a short hike out to Scott Hut (foreground), built in 1902 by Robert Scott, Kiwi explorer, and his men. The nights are gaining a cooler, softer, vesper light. The ice breaker is around town, breaking ice for the tanker and the vessel. A channel runs out seven miles to the ice edge. The wind blew terrible on the small hooking promontory where a cross is erected in memory of Scott and his men. Up above a short way is a statue of the Virgin Mary inside of a roll-cage, a statue erected in honor of a heavy machine operator who, with his D8 tractor, sank 350 fathoms below the sea ice in 1956, Operation Deep Freeze, the construction of McMurdo Station. He remains there, purportedly in perfect condition. (The water hovers around 28 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly below freezing due to salinity.) Walking down from roll-cage Mary, as she's called, there was a Skua chick with a parent, eating scrapfood from the cafeteria. Skuas are notoriously aggressive scavengers around town. They harass people carrying food between buildings, dive headlong into handheld plates and bowls. They are big and seem to resemble, only slightly, Golden Eagles. But I'm no ornithologist. The chick tweeted and hobbled around behind its parent, pecking at food, stumbling over rocks. The parents took turns watching the chick, alternately soaring overhead on the winds with utter precision and calm, hanging there like cut-outs, tipping wings, strafing, circling. I hiked down and the ice breaker, the Oden, a Swedish ship with Swedish crew scheduled to dock on Monday, had completed one run widening the last mile or so of the channel. It turned around and began a second circuit. Apparently, the Oden clears out most of the ice in front of McMurdo; the wind carries the ice out the channel to open water.

As I was turning to leave I looked across the ice and a group of Adelie penguins, eleven in all, appeared in the distance charging across the ice on their bellies, speeding like mad. (I've heard it pronounced “a deli.”) They arrived below the bluff on which I stood, huddled on the unstable pressure-ridged ice, circled about, made themselves comfortable, and settled in for the night. Some lay on bellies, others stood with necks curved and heads nestled into chests. A lone Adelie, more curious than the others, explored the surroundings a bit, walked south, returned to the group, walked east, returned, and finally, after flapping its wings, bent its head down and stilled. They are funny little guys. Three other people were out there and, through a borrowed pair of binoculars, I saw the Adelies' intense light-blue eyes, embedded like sapphire in jet, the ice breaker chugging silently in the distance, and even farther the massive dome of Mt. Discovery.