Cape Royd

The wonderful thing about being a janitor in Antarctica is that you are very appreciated. Last week I was lucky enough to get invited out on a boondoggle with some of the Crary Lab staff to Cape Royd. Cape Royd is the home of a 2,000 Adelie penguin colony also known to MacTowners as the "boondoggle to end all boondoggles," other than a trip to the Pole or if you have an amazing job that takes you off base regularly. A "Boondoggle" is any trip that takes you out of town whether it's to a certain destination or just a helo ride. I say helo ride like it's no big deal...I would give my big red for a helo ride over the Trans-Antarctics.

We left after work at 6:30 with two Pisten Bullies, one towing a "tomatoe."



The week before, one of the science groups went out to Cape Royds and spent 18 hours melting a hole in the ice in order to dive and recover a current meter that was placed in the ocean the summer before. Usually the dive holes are drilled but because Cape Royd is a two hour Pisten Bully ride they decided to melt the hole instead of dragging the drill out to do the job. The reason for last week's trip was to place the current meter back under the ice. A "tomatoe" serves as a mobile dive shack that you can pull over any dive hole. Think of it as an Airstream on skis, or for Mo, Chloe and I, a home on skis.

After stopping at the Barne Glacier, we arrived at Cape Royd around 9pm (I have pics of Barne posted from an earlier trip). Cape Royd is also the site of Ernest Shackleton's hut, errected in February of 1908 during his attempt to claim the Pole. Here's a picture of Shackleton's Hut with Mt. Erebus in the background.




Cape Royd penguin colony...






And here's some shots looking out over the sea ice. I thought that when we visited Cape Royd that we would actually be able to see the ocean but the sea ice hasn't gone out yet.






As fun as this blogging stuff is, it is also very time consuming...so that's all for now. Enjoy the photos. Cheers.