Hello again from Antarctica:
Thanks you for all the messages we received the last several weeks. It has been wonderful to log onto the computer in the morning and hear from friends and family from around the world. This has done much to bridge the large distances.
The last couple of weeks have been eventful for us. After attending two New Year's parties (one at the New Zealand base and one at McMurdo, we rang in the year 2000 on top of the observation hill overlooking McMurdo. We climbed this hill with about twenty-five other people and plenty of champagne -- 700 bottles had just been brought in on a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker.
Our clocks are on the same time zone as New Zealand, which meant we were among the first places in the world to see the new year. The television station here showed new year's broadcasts from around the world. We were asleep for the Hong Kong New Year, but managed to watch the celebrations in Moscow, Paris and London over a long brunch the next morning. During dinner, we watched the celebration in New York. Between lunch and dinner, we attended, Icestock, the McMurdo equivalent of Woodstock, complete with six hours of rock bands, many of whom had also performed at the parties the previous evening. There's a lot of talent in this little place. For example, one of our fellow visitors to the penguin rookery the previous week was the lead singer in one of the rock bands. Another of our tour group was on the team that won the chili cookoff at Icestock (with chili so hot, you didn't notice the outside temperature).
After such a weekend of festivities, we went back to our regular 6-day workweek and quite a few new scientists arrived on the station. Bert was back to his job as an electronics technician, fixing VCRs, calibrating a sled to weigh penguins and completing a sled to weigh seals, among other things. The last week has been tumultuous for Jean, with the sudden and unexpected death of a person here in McMurdo.
Today we took a short hike on a path that goes to a rock formation overlooking all of this part of the island. We're trying to get in shape to cycle for three weeks in New Zealand when we get off the ice.
Bert and his brother Mike have been working on our website (http://www.jeanbert.com). We encourage you to look at this. It contains this email message, the other email messages we've written from Antarctica, and our wedding photos. For many of you, the website may be a more convenient way to see our photos. The photos can be seen in two different sizes on the website. Please let us know if you have any problems with this new format. If no one has any problems, we'll stop sending photos attached to our emails.
Included in our website is a listing of the email addresses of the friends and relatives to whom we've been sending our messages. You might find this useful if you are trying to find the email address for any common friends or relatives. Please let us know if there are other people who we should include or any corrections we should make. We are also trying to include links to websites of the friends and relatives who have them. If you have a website and it is not on the list, please let us know and we'll add it.
All the best for 2000, Bert and Jean
P.S. The emails following this one show some of the air transportation
that is used to get from place to place in Antarctica. It also shows
one of the Twin Otters that had an accident.
This message and the one following this one show some of the types of aircraft that are used to get to and from Antarctica and around from place to place.
c141view.jpg shows the military jet transport that is used at the
beginning and the end of the season to transport people from Christchurch,
New Zealand to McMurdo. These planes can hold about 100 people. This picture
was taken in Christchurch as we were getting ready to board.
c141ins1.jpg shows how they fit 100+ people and cargo into the inside of
one of these C141 transports. Space and weight are saved by having four
long rows of strap (no padding) seats. There is one row on each side of the
plane and two rows with their backs to each other in the middle of the plane.
This gives everyone an aisle seat, but it is almost impossible to move down
the aisles. There are no window seats, but there was one little window in
the cargo area in the back. I was lucky enough to be sitting close to cargo
and able to scramble to the back to move around a bit during the 5+ hour
flight. Otherwise, I'm not sure my behind would have made it.
hercfrnt.jpg and jercjn01.jpg show the LC-130 Hercules transports that are
used to go from McMurdo to the South Pole and other parts of Antarctica. These
planes are also used during the middle of the season for flights between
McMurdo and Christchurch when the sea ice gets too thin to land the larger
C-141s. LC-130's have four turboprops and can land on either skis or on
wheels. Their primary limitation is that they need a fairly large runway to
land.
Here are some more pictures aircraft used to get from place to place in Antarctica:
otterkwi.jpg shows a Twin Otter. These are twin turboprop aircraft that
are used to fly to remote places in Antarctica. These planes have skis
permanently mounted and have the ability to take off and land on extremely
short (several hundred foot) runways. If a landing field needs to be made
somewhere on the ice cap, a twin otter flies to the site and drops off two
people with a snowmobile, who then groom the field for the larger LC-130
(Hercules with skis). In the background of this picture, you can see two
C-130 aircraft that belong to the New Zealand airforce. These are just
like the LC-130, but don't have the skis. The U.S. does not sell the
technology for having skis on this aircraft to other countries.
otterda3.jpg shows the same airplane as otterkwi.jpg several weeks later.
Shortly after I took otterkwi.jpg, this plane had an accident on takeoff
when the front ski caught some ice. Because these planes are not made any
more, this one was hauled out in pieces inside of an LC-130.
valastar.jpg shows the Astar helicopters that are used in and around McMurdo
to go from place to place. These will ferry people up to the top of Mount
Erebus, our local 12,000 foot peak and to other areas like the penguin
rookery that I showed in the previous email.
kiwihel2.jpg shows a helicopter slightly larger than an Astar getting
loaded inside of a C-130 Hercules. This is how large cargo such as
helicopters are moved quickly from place to place or back to Christchurch
or the US.
This page was last updated on 12/20/00.