Saturday October 22, 2011

WOW! What an incredible day! I was up most of the night well past 4:00 am working on my experiment so I was pretty tired in the morning. However, there was no way that I was going to miss what we did on Saturday. Our team has a dedicated fish hut and we can choose where it will be placed. Also, we can have a hole drilled for us and then have the fish hut pulled over the hole. While this may sound a bit excessive, there are times when the ice can be over 20 feet thick. In these next pictures, you will see some of the equipment used to make some of our fishing holes. Here is our fish hut. We were really excited to get Hut 6 because it was the same hut used by Dr. Art DeVries. He was one of the first three biologists to come to Antarctica in 1961. He was the scientist who discovered that the fish down here make anti-freeze proteins to prevent their body tissues and blood from freezing. How incredible is that?

Here is what it looked like as "The Challenger" drove away towing a massive drill, our fish hut, and a massive drill bit! From left to right: Brad, Marissa and Sandwich, our Pisten Bully, "The Challenger", fish hut 6 and the drill bit

The operator of "The Challenger" also operated the drill. This is the same drill they use to make holes big enough to have two divers in it at once. Here are some shots of the hole being drilled.

After the drill punched through the ice, we had to dig a channel through the snow for the excess water to be able to flow. Here is Brad next to the hole. You can see the channel we dug on the right side of the hole. You can see McMurdo in the background. The highest point just to the left of Brad's right shoulder is Observation Hill which I have now hiked twice

No Sandwich! That hole is not for swimming!

Once all of the snow and slush was removed from around the hole, "The Challenger" pulled our fish hut over the hole and we were ready to fish!

Brad and me fishing, I think he was telling me to catch more fish :) In the background, you can see the incredible mural that someone has painted in honor of all the work that Dr. Art DeVries has done in Antarctica.

Here are some close up shots of the mural.

This next picture is really cool. Someone has also painted the molecular structure of the anti-freeze protein on the wall of this hut. I feel humbled and honored to say that I have fished in the same hut that one of the "Grandfathers" of Antarctic fish biology also fished in.

While we didn't catch any fish, we still had a great day. We had to head back early so that I could finish my experiment. But not before we flagged the route to our fish hut. We have been quite lucky so far this season with the weather. While it is cold and windy, the visibility has not been bad. Sometimes in white-out conditions, you can barely see your hand in front of your face. That is why all of the well traveled "roads" are flagged. That way, even if the weather is bad, if you can see to the next flag, you can get home safely. Here I am on top of our Pisten Bully after taking down our flags.

We needed to flag the route back to the next fish hut, which is a fish hut that a New Zealand team is using. If you look closely, you can see our flags and our fish hut in the distance after we flagged the route.

Here is the New Zealand fish hut.

After we got back and I finished my experiment, I took a little walk around the station. This shot is from McMurdo looking across the sea ice to the continent and the Royal Society Mountain Range. Near the bottom right of the picture you can see a cross. That point is called Hut Point and that is where the Discovery Hut is located. This is one of my favorite views from town.

And here is a panoramic view of Hut Point which is the far left part of land in this picture.

The last sunset in Antarctica.

Here are two links to some really amazing videos. The first is an edited video of the film that Darren Roberts took at Happy Campers Camp.

http://inmotion.typepad.com/weddell_seal_science/2011/10/field-team-members-deploying-to-antarctica-via-mcmurdo-through-the-us-antarctic-program-for-the-first-time-are-all-required.html

The second link is from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Click on the link and then click on the second video titled: The Making of the Fittest: The Birth and Death of Genes. It is a short, 13 minute video about some of the early work done on Antarctic fish. While we are not studying the Icefish, we will be studying the other Antarctic fish featured in the film. Dr. Art DeVries is in the film as well and he shown in the same aquarium that we are using to study our fish.

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/shortfilms/

I hope you enjoy these videos!