A Visit to the Dry Valleys

A few months ago, I was allowed to tag along on a special helicopter flight into the Dry Valleys. The Dry Valleys are a place that is protected from much of Antarctic elements and has soil and mountain ranges and seal colonies. It looks like a place in Montana.....similar to Glacier National Park, dramatic peaks and valleys. I went along on a survey flight that involved landing on different peaks and taking GPS coordinates. These were mountain peaks that no human had ever walked on, and I am so honored to have been one of the few people that could enter this protected area of Antarctica.

(Once again, I was completely useless on this trip since all I did was take pictures and videos). Below are some of the videos of this amazing flight/trip.

Presenting ATO! (Antarctic Terminal Operations)

Thanks to one of our fabulous lead cargo handlers, Luke, we now have a complete overview of how our entire department, ATO, operated this season.

Luke perched a GoPro on different vehicles and on different spots around our building. He use the the time-lapse feature to film hours and hours of all the cargo handling, loading, and off-loading that happens daily with our cargo in the cargo bay and with the planes at the airfield. He did a fantastic job editing this into a 5-minute video.

Enjoy this turnkey overview of my department at McMurdo Station. 

Presenting ATO! (Antarctic Terminal Operations)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAFxiTeuMcU&feature=youtu.be

Valentines Day: Wine for One.

Forgot to post this little gem. This is how I spent my Valentines Day at McMurdo....sitting alone....singing and crying about leaving my paradise home. 

(Much like an old, forgotten, broke-socialite Grandma sitting on a park bench in Central Park....thinking back upon her golden years).

Happy Leap Day!

Dating back to 5th-century Ireland, Leap Day is the only traditionally appropriate day for the girl to propose marriage to the boy. 

Since today is February 29th, and since I look sooooo good in possum fur, I am now popping the question to one of the most powerful men on earth.....Vladimir Putin.

Vladdy-Poo, this flirtatious cat-and-mouse game has gone on long enough between us. It's time to put a ring on my finger. I promise never to interfere with your politics if you promise to build me a castle.

Love,
Tsarina Kelly Belly

(These are photos from our photo shoot out at Williams Ice Runway at 2am.....Putin happened to be walking by as we were shooting and he insisted on photo-bombing every shot).

Camping on Ice

McMurdo Station has a fun survival trip training called Happy Camper. People go out on the ice shelf and build their own shelters by sawing into the ice and building up a wall of blocks to stop the wind. Then you sleep in the trench you just made from cutting out the ice blocks.

Using a light-weight serrated edged saw

It's pretty easy to cut blocks out since this particular ice layer was porous and light.

Dig the blocks out with the shovel

Start building a wall with the ice blocks

Team Kelly decided to ignore the survival manual and build an ice fort instead....complete with a wine cellar. We would not have survived in a real storm. And we didn't even have any wine with us. Haha, needless to say we lost the "competition."

The other team built their shelter perfectly. One large thick wall of ice blocks facing the wind with a trench behind the wall to sleep in.

We still like our fort better

 

Some mysterious Polar Monsters about to attack our shelters!

 

Time for some Shadow Puppet Theater!

 

Of course I somehow ended up on a team of no-talent ass-clowns.....the McMurdo cooks. A bunch of hilarious slackers/stoners whose only interest was trash-talking the other team and not listening to our guide's instructions. Good thing this survival trip was only "pretend," because we never would have made it against the elements.

The irony of this trip is that after many enthusiastic hours of building forts, walls, trenches, wine cellars, and drinking tons of hot chocolate, we saw an ominous storm coming and decided to head home. I was freezing. They were slackers. Our shelters have yet to be tested against the elements. Go Team Kelly!

 

Kelly and Ships and Sealing Wax

I love ice breakers....and I am not referring stupid conversation topics. I am referring to ships that break through layers of thick polar ice with the intensity of a bat out of hell. During the month of January we received three visits from three ships: The U.S. Coast Guard's ice breaker, our supply vessel, and our fuel tanker.....And I snooped around all of those ships.

Captain Kelly aboard her floating kingdom

Ah yes....the Polar Star. Crashing through the ice like a mighty sloth

The Polar Star docked up at our ice pier.

Taking a crack at navigation in the bridge

Keeping a watchful eye out for pirates

"I do believe there is a smallish iceberg ahead."

I would make an awesome "Coastie"

Unloading the containers from that massive vessel took over a week. Thank goodness I was wearing my muscle leggings.

Navigating with an old fashioned sextant

Crushed it!

Another vintage navigational device...A Constellation Globe

Stop complaining, Boys. Navigating a vessel is easy!

The world's smallest ship helm.....Not kidding....This is how they steer that huge tanker

It still takes intense muscle to turn that tiny helm

This little guy is about to single-handedly hijack the ship.

This is our oil tanker. It unloaded several millions of gallons of fuel for the upcoming winter season.

I did nothing to contribute to the unloading of fuel. (I just pose for pictures). All the fuel runs through those pipes and into our fuel lines that snake around McMurdo Station.

...And we bid a fond farewell to our empty fuel tanker....riding oh so high in the water

'Merica!

Where Science Ends and Theology Begins

"So why are we all here??"

Every Sunday evening McMurdo hosts a science lecture. These lectures are open to anyone on station. They are usually led by scientists doing cutting-edge research in Antarctica that particular week.

These lectures cover a variety of topics such as the birth cycle of female Weddell seals, 3-D photography of icebergs, long-duration weather balloons, LIDAR, the effects of global warming or global cooling on ice. Bla bla bla.

 Some lectures are fascinating and phrased in layman's term for unscientific morons like myself. Others are detailed, esoteric lectures geared toward Einstein-esque colleagues....complete snooze fests.

But I attend EVERY lecture.

One Sunday evening at the end of a particularly boring science lecture about phytoplankton (Antarctic algae), a meek young woman raises her hand and asks a question. (I promise it wasn't me).

"So what you are saying is there is nothing we can do to prevent phytoplankton from disappearing in Antarctica???"

She continues hesitantly, "After the phytoplankton disappears, the Antarctic Krill will die off, and all Antarctic ocean life will disappear? And after all Antarctic ocean life disappears the migratory patterns of all other ocean life will be affected? Then the Antarctic ice shelf will no longer be insulated by microorganisms, and ice-melting will increase exponentially?"

"Yes." replies the scientist dryly and dispassionately. "No amount of human intervention can stop this."

"Then why are you here, and what is the point of this study if it is not reversible?" The young woman asks with concern.

"Why are any of us here?" The scientist retorts, "if not to objectively observe nature without interfering with it? This chain reaction is already happening, and there is nothing we can do about it."

At this point I woke up....What the...? Did this famous scientist just admit that the earth is going to crap whether or not humanity changes its ways? Sounds like someone isn't going to get funding from NSF next year to continue his research in Antarctica.

Unfortunately this was one of those science lectures I was day-dreaming of sandy beaches and puppies so I didn't catch the details of his convoluted graphs and thesis. But I was shocked by his candidness. Most members of the scientific community claim that the human race is progressively getting better, and we can control the destiny of our own earth if we behave ourselves.

I left the lecture feeling slightly amused by the dead-pan despair of this scientist. But I was also filled with sadness over the future of our earth. (This is an ongoing ambivalent reaction of mine after every McMurdo science lecture).

But that evening after cracking open my Bible, I serendipitously read Romans 8:21-22:

"...creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

I was reminded that the "winding down" of our natural world is all part of God's master plan. Not only does He have a plan of redemption for His children, but He has a redemption plan for nature.

The ice groans when it shifts and melts from excessive global warming. The phytoplankton is decaying. The sea life is in bondage. Antarctica is in pain.

But the Lord LOVES this earth and all the penguins and icebergs and phytoplankton in it!

He will rescue and restore this earth to its former glory when He returns.
_____________________________________________________________________

Living in Antarctica made me realize that scientists and theologians are actually more aligned than we think.

(One puts a period at the end of this statement):

"The earth is going to crap."

(The other puts an ellipsis after this statement):

"The earth is going to crap....but Someone will come save it."