January 5-7, 2011... Swimming with Dolphins at Akaroa and coming back to US

January 5, 2011 was totally packed for me. While Hyomin and Joseph preferred to stay back on this rainy day, I booked a tour to go to Akaroa, a harbor about 75 km away from Christchurch. On my way there, I saw some of the most beautiful, scenic landscapes and loads of sheep.

On my way, I met an enthusiastic German couple. They had been backpacking around the South Island of New Zealand for a week and were looking forward to the highlight of their trip: Swimming with Dolphins. So, as I learnt that, they provide you with a comfortable wet suit etc., I decided to change my Harbor Wildlife Cruise to a Swim with Dolphins experience. In the end, I think the money was worth it. We got to swim with the world's smallest, rarest and friendliest dolphins: Hector dolphins. You are supposed to entertain them, and not touch them or challenge them in their territories. So, while we were swimming in the cold water, we were supposed to make some nice sounds with our snorkeling mask, hands etc. They were swift and shy with us. In our half an hour in water, we had about 5-6 dolphins swimming about 8-10 ft away from us.. But, I heard some nice stories from the German couple. The lady was on the boat and was trying to sing to the dolphins. They did listen to her songs and came close to those swimmers once or twice.

This was a brilliant day, but extremely tiring.. On our way back I bought some cherries. These were the best, sweetest cherries I had so far.. I got together with Hyomin and Joseph for dinner. We had the best kiwi fruits (of course!) Joseph bought us.

The next day early morning, we were at the airport to catch our flight to Auckland and then from there to US. The flights till US were uneventful, except I could not sleep much in the long flight. I did not have a chance to look at the night sky while I was in southern hemisphere. In Antarctica it was 24 hour sunlight. So I could only see the sun and sometimes the moon. In Christchurch, we just had one clear night and that was the night we arrived when I was extremely tired because of the travel and had to sleep early.. :( So, my only chance was on this flight from Auckland to LA. As I didn't have a window seat, I tried to gaze through the 20 sq cm window of the emergency doors. I saw Pegasus, Scorpio, the Southern cross and loads of stars which I could not identify..

On January 6 morning, braving the immigration line, customs and the full body scan-security, I reached the gate and waited there for my flight only to know that my flight was cancelled because of some mechanical problems. Joseph had an earlier flight to Atlanta and it was full. So, here I was stuck at LA airport, desperately wanting to get back to Blacksburg. Mandar finally decided that I needed some rest before I break down of the travel stress and a red eye flight with 10 hours halt was definitely not what I want. January 6 was probably the longest day of my life.. (46 hours as I crossed the date line too.. :o ) So, he negotiated a stay in LA and a next day early morning flight for me. After this eventful journey, I finally reached home on January 7, 2011 just to see a gloomy night with a white blanket all over! In any case, I was glad to be back.. Back home. :)

January 3-4, 2011... South Pole to Christchurch

The day we were planned to leave South Pole, January 3rd, 2011 was the worst day I had seen so far in terms of weather. It was overcast and really you could not make out the difference between the land (snow) and the sky.. Horizon was totally missing.. I was kind of skeptical if we would even get out. Anyway, after the ARO visit, a hasty lunch and loads of quick bye-byes, I came to my room to wrap up the bedding and keep it outside for cleaning. Every person needs to clean the room and make it ready for the next one. I had done my job nicely the previous night in spite of all the packed schedule.

Right after lunch, we got a call to be ready at the runway for the flight. We took our bags and set out. The flight was on time. LC130 was waiting for us.

I was so drained out that I instantly fell asleep right after we took off, even though it was crazy noisy inside.

We reached McMurdo. The thought of eating peacefully going to our rooms and dozing off happily kept us going through all that waiting at the Pegasus "terminal" and that slow and long "Terra" bus ride from the Pegasus runway to the McMurdo station.

It was 6.00 pm by the time we reached McMurdo. We had to rush for dinner. Just when were were leisurely walking back to the store to do some final shopping, one of us found out that we had to take our bags "bag drag" right then (it was 7.00 pm already and we just had another hour) for a flight that early morning. We were moved a day earlier to fly out to Christchurch. Sure enough our emails said so. Then there was no time to relax, we had to pack our left over things at McMurdo, get everything ready at the check in bag drop place, all we were left with were our carry on luggage. A bigger bummer was that we had to be at that place again at 2.00 am, provided the flight leaves on time from Christchurch. Which means, we had to keep checking the status online till 11.30 pm and then, if things look right, come back prepared, all layered up at 2.00 am. We did fly off at 5.30 am. I don't want to recall our bus travel from McMurdo to the runway and then the wait time.. It was pretty bad considering, we were all so terribly drained out. The flight was smooth and I again slept like a baby.. C17 soon (5 hrs) brought us to Christchurch and we were back on the Earth!

The rest of the day we just relaxed in our hotel rooms, ate Thai food for lunch and a pizza (classic pepperoni flavored for Joseph and Tandoori Chicken flavored for me) for dinner. :)

January 3, 2011... Heading back after two mesmerizing weeks.

I was trying to get the most of the last few hours at the South Pole, especially since we did not have much free time to see the other science done at this end of the world. There is a lot of astronomy done around here; there is a 10 meter radio telescope, the South Pole Telescope to study the cosmic microwave background, the world's largest neutrino observatory, Icecube etc. The extreme engineering used in many of these instruments are simply mind boggling. In fact,

the new South Pole station is itself an engineering marvel. More details can be seen at

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/livingsouthpole/intro.jsp.

I got an opportunity to visit the Icecube which is a net of 86 -- 2.5 km deep cores drilled in the ice and having 60/well photomultiplier tubes a 1 km below the surface in an area of 1 cubic km (hence the name) to detect neutrinos.. phew.. that's a mouthful, isn't it? They had a very graphical display of the neutrinos being detected almost in real time (half an hour delay because of filtering etc. processes) at the main control building. I also could peep into one of the open wells. The drilling in the ice is done by gushing highly pressurized boiling hot water into a small cylindrical area. It was just thrilling to digest the fact that I was standing on the world's largest detector in ice.

The Icecube visit was right after midnight (remember it is a 24 hour day down there?!).. Early morning, I got up and got ready to visit the Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO). Surprisingly, it was overcast and there was no difference to be seen between the sky and the snow. The horizon was just not visible. I hiked to the ARO building (just 5-10 minutes from the station). Looked at the different instruments and their research on the Antarctic air. It was nice to finally learn why does the ozone hole exist over this continent especially since there are no human colonies to produce the Chloroflurocarbon (CFC) from the refrigerants. As we know, CFC acts as a catalyst to disintegrate ozone. Well, it is a year round process that creates this ozone hole over Antarctica. CFC from around the world is channeled to the South polar cap with the complicated air flows over the winter. Over the summer, there is enough heat due to the sun to initiate the disintegration of ozone gas with the trapped CFC playing the major role. I learnt that there has to be someone year round to take daily measurements from different instruments, calibrate them, take field measurements of carbon dioxide from the clean air sector. This brings me to the final exciting thing. There is a conical area emerging from the South Pole which is called as the "Clean Air Sector", where for hundreds of miles, no pollution is allowed: no vehicle, plane allowed, no combustion thus no power plants are allowed, not even a soul person is allowed to venture out in that area. Furthermore, it is towards the north side which is plateau side and is towards a higher altitude that South Pole, thus, the air/wind always blows from that region down to the station. In short, the air is not contaminated by anything in that designated area that makes it the area with cleanest air on the Earth. So, I got to fill up my own bottle of the cleanest air sample and seal it to receive probably one of the best souvenirs from the South Pole.

January 2, 2011... South Pole: The day before leaving the Pole

After the new year celebration, the station was lazying out on Sunday. We had a late brunch, grabbed our "Race around the world" T-shirts (although we really didn't participate in the race, we did go around the world at the Pole. So, it was fair enough for everyone at the Station anyway). It was time to finish up our remaining work. That was probably the chilliest day so far (Check out the galley temperature scroll) and we also were all drained out with continuous physical exertion.

Well, we did finish our job for the day, came back to the station to pack things up, see as many things around the station as possible (as that was the only chance we would probably get in this trip), and bid a farewell to everybody around..

I have an interesting little fun to share with you all. I met loads of interesting people at the station. May it be because of my outgoing nature or may it be because I was one of the very few Indians, probably the only girl, the ladies at the station have seen, they had been requesting me to show and possibly draw some henna tatoos. During my endeavors in the Arts and Crafts room for the New Year poster and while fixing my damaged gloves, to my pleasant surprise, I came across a henna tatoo set in the stuff there. Those ladies were lucky.. :) We managed to get together that night, and had a henna party with some nice Bollywood music. :D

January 1, 2011... Beginning of the new year at an amazing place

This is the first day of the year 2011. We at the South Pole, were probably one of the first people to get the new year’s sunlight. Well, we had the sun all the time up in the sky. The way we celebrated the New Year was to go to the pole at midnight. Well, of course it was bright and sunny. Before we bundled up and left, I made a quick poster in the arts and crafts room to wish everyone “Happy New Year from the South Pole”. I had also drawn a map of Antarctica with South Pole marked on it. It was basically made for my folks back home, but it turned out to be a poster representing the whole South Pole wishing the world a happy New Year. The plan was made between 6 of us to go to the pole and have a toast at the midnight. We got a nice surprise when almost 50-60 people came out in their red parkas to the Pole at around 11.50 am. At the new location of the South Pole, there was a temporary marker as the ceremony of “Moving the Geographic South Pole” was supposed to take place at 10 am on Jan 1, 2011. We all stood up near the new marker. Our leader in this endeavor and the NSF representative at the Pole Vladimir Papitashvili had a GPS. He did a countdown and we all cheered “Happy New Year” at 12.00 am. Then there was a big photo session. The crowd was all bubbly and we all had a great time. My poster was extensively flashed everywhere.. ;) I am glad I had an idea of doing something like this. It was quiet windy and cold (-39 deg C with wind chill). As the cold started overpowering the enthusiasm, we decided to continue the celebration inside the galley, our dining place. Before I left the pole, I managed to get a picture at the pole with my sign and the Indian flag. I also went around the world in the shorted circle i.e. around the South Pole... :D We came inside to continue our celebration. At 1.15 am at night, in Antarctica, I had two helpings of strawberry and pecan ice cream. It was just an awesome feeling to see an enormous white landscape from the window and eat ice cream with a chill running down your spine just with the excitement. I think this was by far the best New Year celebration I had.

Early morning, I got a wakeup call from home wishing me a Happy New Year. Yes.. we all have individual rooms here with a personal phone. So, when the satellite is up, anyone could call us at this US number. It was pretty convenient. :) Charged up with the warmth of talking to my people, I got up and got ready again to brave the cold. Put on just 3 layers instead of 5 or 6 and went out to the pole at 10.00 am. It was the time for Pole moving ceremony. An experience of life time and a high honor because, everyone present there at the ceremony actively participated in the transfer. Every year, there is a new pole with a new marker. This year, the marker is shaped like a sextant used by early Antarctic explorers. We made a human chain in a shape of ‘U’ from the old pole position to the new position. The new South Pole traveled from each and every hand in the chain to its new location. I felt greatly honored when I handed over my pole to the next person.. This was indeed an experience of life time.

We brunched and set off to finish our work. It had been pretty windy today. Wind speed ~ 10 knots, temperature with wind chill -40 deg C. But, for us, the main attraction was to finish up the work as soon as possible on the New Year and get ready to come back home on 3rd Jan. :) Although, I love this place, I can't wait to be back to civilization.

December 31, 2010... The last day of the year 2010.

Our field team was lucky to get back on December 30. I learnt later that they were very depressed when the weather went pretty nasty the previous day and the plane had to return back midway without getting them on board. If the weather were bad the next day, our field team, would have been held up there at least till Jan 3, 2011 because of the yearend holidays at the South Pole station.

Bob and I worked on our Iridium antenna. We experimented with it by designing a ground plane for the same and installing it with a slight tilt away from the GPS antenna to avoid interference.

We had a nice dinner and then was a time for a movie. We watched Star Wars 6, Return of Jedi. This movie reminded me of the fact that we at Antarctica, are staying at a colony which resembles a space colony, except the gravity part. This station is designed in a very modern way with parts which can be detachable under fire or any other disastrous extreme conditions. The whole construction even the names of the doors (Destination Alpha, destination Zulu) etc give it an appearance of a space colony.

There is another interesting fact I would like to mention. Antarctica is an amazing place. It’s dry, windy, and chilly. At the South Pole, it is even higher. And the amazing thing is this is such a harsh continent that on the plateau and the Pole, there is no living thing other than humans colonized here. I realized there is not one insect in either McMurdo or South Pole station.

Later in the evening, just before the New Years, I had an idea to create a poster wishing everyone a happy new year.