Monday was a great example of how quickly plans can change down here and why we always need to be ready to try something else if plan A falls through. Our team had planned on going on a long fishing outing in the Pisten Bully (PB). We got all of our ECW loaded up, packed the back with food, coolers to bring fish back and of course…the Jiffy Drill! Well, we didn’t even make it out of town when Brad’s door wouldn’t stay shut. We drove it back to the heavy machine shop in town and they said that the hinges were warped and they needed to take the door off to fix them. Well, there went our plans! So instead, we helped Cecil Shin, the dive master for B-043, load up some more cargo for their field camp. Marissa, Isaac and I are sitting on top of a crate that we packed up for Cecil. It was like a huge game of Tetris.
After that, we all piled into a pick-up and went to unload all of our gear from our PB since another team was going to lend us their PB.
After loading all of our gear into the pick-up, Isaac, Marissa and I walked back while Brad and Sandwich drove at a whopping 5 mph (the speed limit in town) back to the science building. Then we started moving gear from the pick-up to our loaner PB.
You can see some of our gear in this picture. We have several coolers that we fill with sea ice and bubble air into so the fish we catch can stay cold. At the bottom of the picture, you can see one "flight" for the Jiffy Drill. The Jiffy Drill is what we use to make 10 inch diameter holes in the ice. A flight is basically like a drill bit that can connect to other bits on either end of it. We have to continue adding flights as we drill deeper until we drill all the way through the ice. Sometimes it takes four to five flights to be long enough!
Sandwich and Isaac assembling the Jiffy Drill in -30 degree Fahrenheit windchill.
Isaac and I running the Jiffy Drill. We needed three flights to get through about three feet of snow and then about five feet of ice.
After drilling, we all dropped our lines in the water and started fishing! It was really windy and quite cold out, but we were excited to give our Jiffy Drill a test run. Here is Isaac fishing.
Sandwich, you look cold!
Sandwich again. Still cold, still loving life!
Isaac fishing next to the Pisten Bully.
Isaac got a few bites and caught 2 individuals of the same species. They are quite rare and of the 200-300 fish they caught last year, they did not catch a single one of these. Their scientific name is Gymnodraco acuticeps. We just call them dragonfish. Here he is reeling one in and landing it! It was really exciting! Sandwich was so excited and knew what it was from 20 feet away! I was quite impressed.
Here are the two dragonfish Isaac caught during our trip.
Warming up in a fish hut. We won't be able to do this when we start flying in helicopters on Wednesday.
Here I am fishing. Do I look cold? I was! But I was having a great time too. Especially since I was using the light up Anakin Skywalker children's fishing pole. Isaac caught the dragonfish with the light up Barbie pole.
After dinner, Isaac, Marissa and I helped Cecil Shin and Henry Kaiser load up the last bit of their gear for the diving field site at New Harbor.
Well, a day of ice fishing in -30 degrees, riding in the beds of pick-ups and wearing Carhartts...the only reason I know that I'm not in North Dakota is because of all of the mountains. Seriously, they even served Tater-Tot Hot Dish here last week! And if you don't know what Tater Tot Hot Dish is, you are most certainly not from the Midwest :)
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