GANOVEX VI

THE OFFICIAL VERSION
FUN AND GAMES AT TERRA NOVA BAY


Un-named nunataks frame Mt. Craddock,
Sentinal Range, Antarctica. Photo: T. F. Redfield

THE OFFICIAL VERSION...

During 1990-1991 I got to go on the sixth German Antarctic North Victorialand EXpedition (GANOVEX VI) as a United States Geological Survey (USGS) employee, and a United States Antarctic Research Project (USARP) representative. VERY important I was! My scientific objectives were to obtain gravity data from the Transantarctic Mountains of North Victoria Land, continuing the studies which I began during GANOVEX V. To this end I was provided with a salary from the National Science Foundation (NSF) via the USGS, a LaCoste Romberg gravimeter, and a berth aboard my old sea-going nemesis, the MV Polar Queen. This report, in brief, details the fates that befell us in the rampaging Antarctic wilderness.

I will preface my ramblings with a short re-cap of the GANOVEX concept, based on my earlier experience during the 1988-1989 season. In my humble opinion, even now, the basic principles and philosophy underlying the GANOVEX expeditions are really quite sound. Under ideal conditions, the expedition is small enough to be scientifically flexible: programs can be easily modified to meet existing circumstances. The expedition is mobile; between the Gondwana station, a comfortable fixed reference point, and the research vessel (usualy the Polar Queen), just about any point in North Victoria Land can be readilly accessed. Geological parties can work out of remote field camps, or on daily helicopter excursions from the ship. Private helicopter companies provide a generally safe, reliable, and highly efficient link between the ship or station, and the field parties. The participants tend to be focused upon their individual agendas, but not to the point of exclusion; the intimacy of shipboard transit to Antarctica, and the one-week survival training in New Zealand, seem to produce a group interested and willing to share thoughts and resources towards a commen goal. If all things go well (and on GANOVEX V, they did), the expedition can be truely successful.

The GANOVEX VI expedition began on a very good note. Survival training was conducted at The Hermitage, in Mt. Cook National Park, and we became a close-knit, well-survived group. An Antarctic Geoscience symposium in Christchurch was attended by the expedition en mass, just before sailing, and together with the Italian, United States, and New Zealand participants we had a genial sharing of ideas, fantasies, hopes, and goals. We embarked on what turned out to be a gentle, swift passage, culminating in quite reasonable ice conditions through which our captain sped. The stars were in our favor. Yet only one short week after our arrival at Terra Nova Bay the situation had undergone a radical change. Our morale had been transmogrified, from a general warm feeling reflecting rosy and innocent optimism to one characterized by quiet but sincere desperation. The expedition was in shambles. And, though of course we could not know this at the time, things would only get worse. The long arm of Mephistopheles extended in greeting. Through the Darkness we trod, paths serpentine, never straight and narrow. We marched not triumphant upon golden shores, but cowered for shelter in the frozen chasms of Pain, Suffering, and Undignified Defeat. United we stood, and in unison we fell. Here, for the first time in print, is the the sad, sad story of how our demise came to pass.

We sailed from Lyttleton, New Zealand, one day late in November; after six days of seasickness we hit the stomach-stabilizing influence of the pack ice, and the next morning steamed into Terra Nova Bay. Perhaps I should note that we sampled Scott Island on the way in, and also that Scott Island, like the Big Island of Hawaii, does not seem to like being thus abused. During GANOVEX II native soil was also removed from the Island by the ill-fated good ship Gotland, and today rests in peace beneath fathoms and fathoms of Antarctic waters. But whatever the cause, on December 11th one helicopter crashed, at Mericle Rock on the Campbell Glacier. And on December 12th, in a slightly more user-friendly sort of way, a second machine fried it's gearbox. From four helicopters to two, in less than twenty-four hours, would be enough to send lesser expeditions home. Flags flying, GANOVEX steamed ahead.

Ai Caramba! What to do next? Let me first explain what our overall plan was reputed to be, during those first halcyon days of our arrival. Soon after embarkation the expedition, like water and oil, had settled into two distinct, self-contained and immiscible groups. One half were to be landed at the Gondwana Station, with two helicopters and a veritable mountain of supplies, to journey deep inland in search of untrammeled outcrop, and with scimitar thrusts push back the fronteirs of science. For one month they would do this, alone in the wastelands, while the others sailed uncharted seas on the MV Polar Queen. At Cape Williams this expedition half would drop anchor, and while hordes of geologists in two helicopters would fly hither and thither, in search of their mythical Perfect Exposure, a small but dedicated group of Distinguished Geophysicists planned to establish a beachead. With two Dornier fixed-wing aircraft they would criss-cross the skies, making brightly-colored maps depicting subtle shifts in the magnetic characteristics of the ancient basement rocks. Onwards, through the fog! Under this pincer attack North Victoria Land would surely give up her secrets. And then, one month later, both groups would re-unite at the Gondwana Station, for a final and glorious frontal assault upon the Fortresses of Ignorance. In March we would sail for home, happy and content, secure in the knowledge of a job well done.

Oh, the best-laid plans! I aligned with the first group, because the Cape Williams geophysicists already had a gravimeter, complete with a gravity man, and we collectively didn't think that one would get very much air time, let alone two. And anyway, by putting the second meter down south, in the Mt. Joyce Quadrangle, GANOVEX VI could get two sets of data for the price of one. All were optimistic. I would obtain critical position with my very own Global Positioning satellite System (GPS) unit, coupling my remote data with the Italian base station data for an almost unheard-of precision. My own LaCoste Romberg instrument was on its way, to be delivered by USGS scientist-at-large Carol Finn. Out on the blue ice fields, potential meteorite traps one and all, geophysicist Geog DeLisle would be using radar echo-sounding techniques to map the sub-glacial topographies. I would be able to make my terrain and ice corrections with an ease and accuracy previously unheard of in Antarctic Gravity Science. And to top it all off, Georg's projected schedule of measurements would take our little field camp across the Transantarctic Mountains, just south of the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Over the season I should obtain detailed gravity maps of four large blue ice fields, and with a few days of helicopter support I could connect the dots, swooping down out of the air like a geophysical guerilla, to pepper the ground below with ice thickness and gravity measurements. The skies were the limit. Devoutly, we gathered on deck and sang an appropriate hymn:

Doom, Doom. Intervening was the apocryphal hand of fate. Perhaps our misfortunes stemmed from the Scott Island extravaganza; perhaps from our collective failure to visit the Chistchurch Museum prior to sailing, to each rub Roald Amundsen's shiny brass nose for good luck. At any rate, December 13th found the Northern Party steaming towards Cape Adare, with two working helicopters stowed away below decks and the third awaiting it's gearbox from some as yet unidentified Pacific Rim country. We, the poor cousins, had not the clout of the Distinguished Geophysicists of the Aeromagnetics Group (in whom significant sums had already been invested, and upon whom great expectations were reverently placed). They must have the helicopter support, we were told; and anyway, for safety reasons, two working machines must always remain with the ship. We were left with Eva and Fat Rosie, two middle-aged snowmobiles. Our high hopes torpedoed, our dreams transmutated from cornucopia to ashes, we settled down to await a new gearbox for our helicopter. This was promised, with solemn oaths augmented by frankincense, myrrh, and a supply of good ale, to be just after Christmas. As the ship steamed away (with the third, transmissionless, Flying Machine on board), we settled into a dreamy routine: eat, sleep, and be merry. Station construction was even at a standstill, for want of the helicopter as a lifting device. All was quiet on the Terra Nova Bay front.

Now: you would think that a bunch of high-powered German geologists would be, at the very least, just a little bit pissed off to be stuck on the ground at the Gondwana Station while their comrades-at-arms in the north zipped about investigating everything in sight, going boldly where no man or woman has ever gone before. But actually, nothing could be further fom the truth. You see, at Gondwana we sat in the sun and watched the skuas, seals, and penguins; we went for long walks in the Northern Foothills, or sometimes skidoo rides across the fast ice to the Stazione di Bahia Terra Nova, to drink cappucino and flirt with the Italian women. We ate, and got fat. And sometimes we would do meaningless little research projects on problems of hardly even local significance, that in reality turned out to be great fun. We had good attitudes, and great group dynamics. And we listened on the radio whilst the Polar Queen got stuck just past Cape Adare (a long long ways from Cape Williams). It took quite some time to do the final bashings and smashings. We heard first-hand about the missing fuel drums cached two years ago at the ice runway depot, and then about their ultimate discovery ~ by a Distinguished Geophysicist with a magnetometer, under four meters of snow. 599 barrels of high quality aviation gas occupy a lot of space. I calculated that there were over 1200 cubic meters of overburden needing removal, mainly by shovel (the snowblower, apparently a small underpowered Honda machine intended for clearing driveways in Colorado on Sunday mornings before church, broke down in a permenent manner on its first day of operation). Yes indeed, everybody at Cape Williams was furiously working ~ but not doing earth science. So we were not too upset by our inability to do serious research; we judged ourselves to be quite a bit luckier than our distant relatives up north. Even Franz Tessensohn shoveled snow for an hour; the radio officer was the only one who was able to get away with a flat out refusal. A bottle of whiskey was apparently to be awarded to whomever convinced him to read through the safety manual and become a shoveler First Class. (More about the whiskey bottle later).

Just before Christmas, we received a present. Via the radio we were told that the gearbox for our helicopter was on it's way. We were exhuberent. Our joy knew no bounds. Two days later we heard that the gearbox had been shipped to Singapore, by accident, and that there was only one flight per week from there to New Zealand. The air of camp optimism was a bit watered down. Next, the gearbox went missing, and a new one had to be ordered from France, via Germany. This was too much. We went over to Little Italy for a Christmas party, which turned out to be a typically Italian song-and-dance sort of thing where everbody was expected to perform. To the tune of "Silent Night", we sang:


That was on Christmas Eve. A few days later, the first gearbox was miraculously located, and by late December it was due in Christchurch. We were happy as clams. Well, not quite; some boredom did start to set in. To alleviate it's evil, insidious effects Joachim Seivers, Georg DeLisle, and I continued our radar echo-sounding project on the Browning Glacier. Georg studies the physics of blue ice fields by mapping their basement surfaces, and the Browning Glacier, by no means a classic blue ice field, was about as close to one he could get by skidoo. The idea was mostly to find something useful (or at least interesting!) to do. He and Achim were the Principle Investigators on this one; I tagged along mainly to learn something about ice radar methods. I also had plans to do a few gravity measurements on the Browning, when the USGS meter arrived from McMurdo. We did not expect fame or fortune, but could at least justify our collective existance. And, in its early days, the project had some pretty good potential.

So each day we valiently set forth on our journey. The route was circuitous, and varied with the season. At first we could drive Fat Rosie all the way over the saddle to Browning Pass, with no troubles at all beyond overturning at high speed in sastrugi. But then came the sunshine. One morning I awoke from my customary post-breakfast post-departure nap on the deck of the Nansen sledge to find Achim and Georg staring miserably at an Impenetrable Rock Band that had seemingly grown overnight. There was nothing to do but attack the offending obstruction with ice pick and shovel. In Antarctica, of all places, we did not have enough snow! After several days of this kind of excercise, daily melting exposed the rock band to a width that we could not comfortably deal with in two hours time. It was time to find a new route. About the failing sea ice we sped, past a hither-to unexplored headland and up precipitous slopes behind. For several more days our Northwest Passage served us well. But like all good things, the adventure at last had to come to an end. One fine day I drove Fat Rosie into a tidal crack. (Oh, embarassment! Do you remember the day you first dinged up Daddy's new car?). She did not come anywhere near sinking, but the lesson was clear. The surface snow was simply to soft for her to jump many more fissures. With our axes and shovels we dug her out of the ditch, and consigned her, sadly, to the Gondwana Station parking lot. Browning Pass was cut off.

This was on December 29th. On December 30th we looked at the data. (Actually, like all real, non-ersatz geophysicists, Georg had been doing so all the while). The general conclusion was that there wasn't enough worthwhile material to produce even an abstract. Radar suffers total attenuation at a snow-water interface; the Browning Glacier (which, surprisingly, might not be a moving glacier at all, but rather a permanent icefield) was exceptionally wet. There was a chain of meltwater lakes on it's surface. They were fed and connected by a Class 2 whitewater river. Sometimes when we walked on the glacier we sank up to our hips in it's slush. We didn't worry about falling into crevasses; instead we worried about drowning. The radar signals couldn't penetrate. The oscilloscope showed a nightmare of multiples. What good reflection returns we did obtain seemed to show a shallow, flat bedrock topography, which implies the Browning Glacier doesn't drain very well (we knew that already!) and that it probably doesn't flow quickly either, if even at all. (This part is actually interesting, as it suggests the Boomerang Glacier, a major tributary, is suffering almost one hundred percent ablation before it joins the Browning Glacier. Global Warming and all that. But we couldn't prove it.). So all of that commuting was in vain ~ though I certainly enjoyed it.

The gravity meter arrived on December 31st. My daily base station measurement routine began: one measurement per day, to keep the Doctorate of Philosophy on it's way. It was a lonely life: up before dawn (Greenwich Mean Time), constructing a better meter drift curve. Then lunch (local time). But all of a sudden, hope appeared on the horizon. Georg had a New Idea! With his heat flow sensor he would contrive to measure the water temperatures in a vertical profile off the side of the Campbell Glacier. Wheels started to turn. With a multimeter, some PVC tubing, and an alternating current source called a generator we began the design and construction a salinity meter. Overnight, we became Oceanographers. (Necessity is the mother of invention). The temperature measurement was conducted in three places, and showed a definite stratification of the water column. Cold water on top, warm water just below, and then not-quite-so-cold water characterized the waters of Gerlach Inlet. This was liquid gold of the purest sort. The research and development team at the Gondwana Instrument Factory (Antarctic Products, Inc.) felt the pressure. We worked overtime. Finally, the tests were completed and with great ceremony the salinity meter was lowered into the waters. The numbers spoke clearly. Fresh water lies on top of the sea water! With loving care we plotted our data and posted them in the station dining room for all to see ~ the first published results from GANOVEX VI! And then, bowing to the inevitable, we put the instruments back in their boxes as the warming sea ice became puddles of slush unsuited for non-marine transport. Once again Mother Nature had won. Oceanography was clearly not intended to be my chosen profession.

The errant helicopter gearbox finally arrived at McMurdo Station on the 4th of January. My birthday was on th 5th; clearly the Fates meant it to be the most marvelous present ever. But the 6th came and went, without delivery. So did the 7th, 8th, and 9th. The weather finally cleared up sufficiently to permit the aircraft a takeoff, but they didn't ~ up at Cape Williams there were absolutely no landing conditions whatsoever. Our daily routine was unaltered. We swept out the station floors. We scrubbed toilets. We made "period Antarctic" furniture out of packing crates and boxes. And we ate and grew fatter, while at the Cape Williams camp food began to run short. (At least in the goody box, that is). Over the radio my fellow gravity man confessed he had gone from cold and miserable to cold, hungry and miserable. On the evening of the 10th a relief flight by helicopter was launched from the ship, and down at McMurdo the first fixed-wing Dornier attempt to land with the gearbox begun. But a return to the standard white-out conditions in the north condemned the camp to the dregs at the bottom of the food box, and forced the Gearbox Express to return to the south. And as the boneheads passed overhead they told us they had not pre-sorted the mail and could not give us an airdrop! On VHF we chastised them, and they slunk home to sulk for a few hours before trying again. (Our impertinence proved to be a serious error, as the insulted pilots, in typical aviator fashion, refused to talk to us ever again!). Finally, in the early afternoon on January 12th, the Great Cape Williams Whiteout was temporarily suspended, and the gearbox successfully delivered. (And the helicopters managed to resupply the base camp, thus narrowly averting the formation of the first Antarctic chapter of the Alfred Packer Memorial Epicurian Society). Rays of brilliant sunshine pierced the opressive veil of Gondwana gloom. Hope, hitherto dormant, once again sprang (sprung? springed?) eternal. In humble thanks (and with only a little bit of scepticism) we joined hands and sang:

But! But! But! And once again, But! Almost as expected, the fogs and mists of an end-of-summer Antarctica descended upon the northland. The whiteout was apparently total. The northern Field Camp members, who had not yet been re-supplied, began asking for recipies for boiled leather. The 13th of January came and went, with no improvements. We suggested pepper with curry powder. The 14th was equally miserable. We dreaded the radio sched. Finally, early in the morning on the 15th, two weeks into the new year, the weather broke sufficiently to permit both a grocery flight, a fuel depot flight (successful this time), and, wonder of wonders, an actual aeromagnetic sortie by the Polar 2. (I forgot to mention earlier in the narrative that the Polar 4 never ever recovered from a completely inoperative magnetic instrumentation system. This was first discovered during operations at McMurdo, and the plane was used soley as transport for the duration of its expedition life. More on the duration of it's expedition life later). But still no trans-NVL gearbox flight was possible. The 15th disappeared into hazy oblivion. The 16th came and went. Lacking better forms of recreation, we declared war on Iraq. Not until January 17th did the weather at Cape Williams (always the limiting factor) clear up sufficiently to permit the first vestiges of an attempt. The helicopters made their way up the Lille Glacier, almost to its head ~ and there they were stopped, by growing cloud banks on the Polar Plateau. Unfortunately they did not look behind themselves, back down their flight path, often enough; growing cloud cover there too forced the two whirlybirds into an unplanned test of their survival bags. Antarctic pilots, it is well known, do not generally enjoy camping; before too long they found a break in the clouds and slunk back downstream to a good night's sleep aboard the Polar Queen.

This was now our thirty eighth day without a helicopter. A half-serious suggestion was made to drive to Cape Williams by skidoo, to dismantle a machine and bring it to Gondwana on the back of a Nansen sledge or two. It was quashed (perhaps somewhat regretfully) by the chief-scientist-in-charge-at-the-station, who pointed out that we would have to bring a pilot back with us too, that didn't like camping. Once again all were filled with gloom. Except me. I didn't mind so much; I was by then well into my 18th day of gravity base station measurements. I was doing Science, and feeling Useful. As soon as the news broke, I quickly gathered my equipment and hustled outside to measure, yet again, the gravity value at Gondwana.

Finally, on January 18th, two helicopter pilots flew triumphantly into camp bearing none other than Herr Professor Doktor Franz Tessensohn himself. But the joy this provoked was tempered by the news that he brought: up at Cape Williams, while attemting to land, the Polar 4 smacked itself up on the runway. (This had actually occured one week previously, which goes to show the state of our comminications). And the Polar 2 had not contributed a whole lot either. It turned out that a grand total of one-half of a line, out of an intended thirty-six, had actually been flown. The Distinguished Geophysicists were feeling slightly tarnished. The Polar 2 was scheduled to return to McMurdo on the 19th, as with only one airplane the fixed-wing crew was unable to provide the required back-up flight service. (The flight lines were out onto the plateau, beyound helicopter range.). In the irony of ironies, the Polar Queen would have to stay longer at Cappe Williams, while the helicopters flew the estimated 400 full, unused drums of aviation gas back to the Polar Queen, as well as various salvaged portions of the Polar 4. Not much scientific work would get done during that time. So any geophysial results were left up to the gravity and radar teams ~ and the northern group, lacking much helicopter time, was expected to be pretty much shut down. The pressure was on us.

Doom, doom.

At long last we flew out our field camp, on January 19th, to Brimstone Nunatak. It met us with the fogs of the river Styx: weather through which even Charybdis could not have piloted us. The local low pressure system that had moved in ran all the way from North Victoria Land to New Zealand. Out at Brimstone Peak we caught only a whiff of it, but the katabatic windstorms simply would not go away. Wind-driven snow made it impossible, much of the time, to venture out onto the ice. I managed to obtain ten gravity points over a ten kilometer east-west transect out of our base camp on January 21st, and was able to construct a small topographic sketch map for the terrain correction within the shelter of our campsite cirque. The ice radar team did a little bit better, as did our resident volcanologist. But we felt positively fortunate to be where we were when we heard the evening news on January 22nd. Up at Cape Williams, the excavated drums were rapidly disappearing. The two helicopters were buried one meter deep by wind drift. The Polar 2 was still visible, we were told; nothing was said about what was left of the Polar 4. (And we didn't ask, either). Even the radio officer was now shoveling, which meant that some fortunate soul had collected the bottle of whiskey that Guenther, the chief helicopter pilot, had had riding upon the event. Back aboard the Polar Queen, Shoveler Merit Badges were being prepared in an effort to reward the weary and stimulate furter interest in the project.

No matter. The skies cleared up after a couple of days, and after a couple more days the late season gale force winds died down to conditions of moderate benevelence, in which we could do something remotely resembling efficient work. We sallied forth. Our Resident Volcanologist scaled the heights and brought most of the mountain back in his rucksack. Even Atlas would have been impressed. The Radarmen scurried hither and thither across the blue ice, probing its hidden depths with frequency after differing frequency. And I, armed with my trusty LaCoste Romberg gravimeter and Thommen precision altimeter, measured a few more data points in a shotgun sort of pattern. We returned to camp exhausted but exhuberent, knowing we had fought the good fight. To us, if not our northern ilk, Antarctica would deliver her secrets! We doffed our caps and stood, bareheaded, in the very nave of our cirque, singing:


Meanwhile, out on the horizon, storm clouds gathered. At the Gondwana Station, late one evening, the fast ice in Gerlache Inlet began to give up the ghost. The very next morning the GANOVEN awoke to discover their dreadful plight. The salt water intake pipe had been smashed into complete and utter disfunction. Their woeful situation was quickly broadcast over the morning news. No more showers! No more flush toilets! One station denizen made good a rapid escape to cut thin sections at the water-endowed Italian base, where she remained for days on end. The others stayed, to wrestle with the problem ere accepting the awful truth. With a spirited effort, the entire technical staff at the Gondwana Instrument Factory (Antarctic Products, Inc.) set themselves to the challenge, and managed a one-day solution before the pump, onery as ever, took a second extended vacation. All work on the sewage treatment plant, the pride of GANOVEX VI, came to an end.

Meanwhile, at Cape Williams, it snowed. And it snowed. And snowed. And then, as if to show us who really was boss, it snowed some more. Buried drums and airplane parts awaited removal to the Polar Queen. Geologic work was at a standstill. Kamp Morozumi requested helicopter time for a look-see. "Next season," the radio intoned. Showing a rare degree of initiative and scientific zeal they contrived to break their field assistants leg and obtained the much-needed flight. The other northern field campers were getting nervous. Renire Rocks ran out of rosti. We incited their ire by ordering several boxes over the evening radio sched, to be delivered with the GPS unit. We felt smug and secure at our little frozen lake. With one eye on the barometer/altimeter and the other on the clear blue skies under which our three little tents bathed, we retired for a good night's sleep prior to a full day Doing Science.

It must have been the shade of a slighted Captain Amundsen that haunted us. We awoke to a katabatic gale. The skies were clear of all cloud, but out of the south came a veritable wall of wind-blown snow. The anemometer rose steadily all day. Just before dinner it went off the scale. As a matter of fact, the scale went off of it. The winds tore the little vanes off the spindle shaft when the pointer found it couldn't point any more. Ouch! One of the sledges was picked two feet into the air and slammed against the downwind moraine. I got picked up too, while venturing out; I slid twenty meters across our little frozen lake before experiencing total nullification of all acceleration and associated velocities against a sharp pointed rock. (Now I understand why the NSF issues us such bulky and antiquated clothing!). For a couple of minutes I thought my femur was broken. But it wasn't; after laying in the snow and howling for two or three minutes I managed to crawl back into my tent and drink hot tea steeped in Captain Morgan, which, though a temporary comfort, tended to exacerbate the problem several times during the night. At any rate, I managed to hobble out the next morning to examine the remains of our campsite.

Quite surprisingly, there wasn't a whole lot of damage. The wealth had merely been redistributed a bit. The rest of the day was spent collecting things and tying them down again, since the winds were still trying to rearrange the furniture. It wasn't until January 29th that things calmed down enough for the Italians to send out a helicopter with the GPS. And our very own pilot, Berndt, came out too, to give us a lift all over the place. Onwards, Science! As usual, things didn't exactly work out as we had planned. There were definitely strong winds to contend with. But the Kiwi pilot was out flying around, driving an Italian paleomagnetist hither and thither; we figured I could get a few data points in, at the very least. But Berndt had other ideas. Now I give him the benefit of the doubt; and I will, right here and now, state that I would rather a nervous helicopter pilot refuse to fly me when he is feeling nervous, than have some desk-bound personnel manager push him. One crash is enough. And that, best beloved, is precisely what happened. Berndt never did like our ice rink as a landing site at the best of times, and after a very short areal reconnaissance, he landed us back in camp, and told us he was going home. And he did, taking Gerhardt Woerner with him. Now we were four.

So there we were. The first thing I did was to move out of the cold geophysics tent, and into much warmer living spaces, hosted by Werner Hoelzl, that Gerhardt had abandoned. The next thing we did was get out the skidoos, and put all our junk on one of the sledges. We managed two gravity points before the satellites disappeared below the horizon. Such a triumph! Neither wind nor storm nor flailing logistics should stop us! Once again, I retired to bed, this time warm and cozy, confident that our luck had at last turned for the better. And such indeed was the case (or so it seemed), for the next few days anyway. We sat out one or two weather days, and worked another two or three days. Werner would drive me where ever I wanted to go, me on the Nansen sledge cradling the meter in my arms, trying both to act as a shock absorber and at the same time remain on the deck, and he careening over sastrugi like a mad Austrian racing car driver. And once (repeat, once), when he was unavailable, I set out on foot, alone across the blue ice flats towards a nearby friendly outcrop, manhauling my sledge behind me. I felt like Captain Scott, or the last surviving and better-fed member of the Franklin Expedition. The data fairly flew in. On paper I could, at long last, draw a gravity transect some twenty-five kilometers long, running east to west, just as it should. True, the data were somewhat attenuated, relative to what we had planned to have had accomplished by now; but at least I could send a FAX to my stateside Oebersturmfuehrer, informing him of my belated exploits and inquire about the state of my paychecks, which the last post had informed me were nonexistent. All was sunshine. Until, one day, at the end of a long, long traverse, I noticed that the sixty-five ampere super heavy duty Sears Die Hard equivelent automobile battery was wet underneath. With battery acid. Leaking out of a crack in the bottom of one of the six internal cells, which had obviously frozen. In one fell swoop, I had been reduced from twelve volts to ten, and at one of the most utterly inopportune times.

Let me digress just a hair, and explain the situation. The LaCoste Romberg gravimeter is a heated instrument, and must, at all costs, be kept at its operating temperature for the duration of a survey. Failure to do so compromises the data. The meter, in Antarctica, was drawing about nine-tenths of an ampere, at twelve volts, which means that the big black battery of which I just spoke could be expected to last some seventy two hours between charges. The normal, ordinary, batteries supplied with the instrument would be history after seven. My tactic had been to use the little power packs in the field, which gave me about a fourteen hour working day, and at night hook the meter up to the big battery, which I charged once a day, for two hours. This kept the balance. No fretfull days. No sleepless nights. No crying babies to nurse every six and a half hours. Life was convenient, and scientifically safe. Now, with the bank account gone, the utilities turned off, with the battery dead, I was facing disaster. There was nothing to do except live for the meter. Constantly. Two feedings per night; only one per day, thanks to solar panels and the camp generator. I felt like a British Nanny. During the next few days I managed to get a little work in, for an hour or two, but could never stray very far from my Source. I decided it was time to return the meter to civilization.

But alas! As you might expect by now, this last bit proved more easily said than done. The Gondwana Station lay fast in cloud, and deeper in snow than we would ever have imagined. Local wit suggested it was beginning to rival Cape Williams. And, should it lift, there would have to be an Italian helicopter scheduled in the area before Berndt would be allowed to come get me. Waiting for the Polar Queen to come around might be a more favored option, the radio said, except that at this time the Queen found herself beset by heavy ice, seven miles from open water - and was unable to flee should the white oceans miraculously part, as the excavation at Cape Williams was still in full swing. Moses himself could not have induced a departure until all expeditionaries were safely on board. What with the usual fog or whiteout conditions afflicting one or the other - the ship or the camp - the scheduled arrival of the Polar Queen in McMurdo (on February 5th) was looking to be such poor odds that even a London bookie wouldn't touch it.

So I resorted to batteries. Spare radio batteries, unused radar echo-sounding batteries; Sony Walkman batteries; you name it, any kind of battery or series thereof delivering twelve volts. To keep them warm, I slept with the batteries. To keep them happy I abused the camp generator. No gravity meter was ever attended so dearly, so lovingly, nor subjected to so much worry and parental concern, as LaCost Romberg G62. Finally, however, even the Powers That Be were convinced that my extraction was critical. With a happy meter but a sad heart I flew out of Brimstone Camp one sunny, windless morning, losing my residency, citizenship, and seniority, never to return.

There were benefits in Civilization, of course. The meter was warm. I was warm. I was very well fed. I visited the Italians. I got to go xenolith hunting with the dreaded Gerhardt Woerner (whom I happen to get along with quite well, actually, thank you). When things really got slow, I could always get out my meter and measure, yet again, the gravity value at Gondwana Station. And Mount Melbourne went pink in the evenings, which is a delightful thing to see - until one realizes that the significance of the pinkness is about three weeks remaining in the season before a scheduled to return to Lyttleton. Local wit called upon the GANOVEX constant, that marvelous factor that really isn't any kind of constant at all, but actually much more of a sliding scale sort of exponential function, to create all kinds of different winter-over scenarios. But the reality of the matter was simple: either I was going to acquire some data in the next three weeks, or I was going to have been seasick two weeks for nothing. Speaking scientifically, of course.

So at the station we waited. And waited. Finally, bright and early one morning, there she was - red hull and all, bow a little bit more battered than I remembered, but at least no holes yet. Life was wonderful again! I should board her immediately, and head south to McMurdo, to read the meter at another standard spot, sort of a calibration run, and then do oodles and oodles of science south of the Drygalski Ice Tongue. In hasty preparation, I packed my bags and prepared the meter for imminant takeoff.

Doom, doom. Nothing of the sort: der konstant was at work again. We couldn't believe it. The ship was too full! Every single cabin was apparently jammed to the gills with leftover airmen and aeromag men trying to get down to MacTown for a quick ride home! No room at all for the gravity man. So there was nothing to do but wait a couple more days until Das Boot returned, minus a few sundry specimins. Sadly I trundled my things back to the Gondwana station, except for the meter, of course; that went over to the base station rock, where I made yet another desultry measurement or two.

So we waited. And waited. (Sound familiar?) And believe it or not, in the promised two days, there she was again! And believe it or not (squared), my luggage, my meter, and myself all got on board relatively quickly and efficiently. That's when I discovered why the ship was too full: everybody had had their very own cabin and was most unwilling to relinquish it! As a matter of fact, by our absence the Gondwana personnel had effectively lost theirs. Gerhardt and I had to shack up together, since I had been booted out of mine by a Dornier pilot who hadn't won the exit visa/ticket lottery at McMurdo Station. But that was all right, really; we comforted ourselves with a tour of the lower hold, which was beginning to resemble an aircraft spare parts factory. And then we repaired to the Captain's slops chest for a more nautical variety of the Demon Rum.

Onwards through the fog! We sailed around the Drygalski Ice Tongue to the edge of the Harbort Glacier, and there we sat. One day's worth of work, to establish a base station, and then white-out. I became lost in FORTRAN code, wending my way ever deeper into a computational morass. Finally, late one afternoon, the skies cleared and I was informed I had been granted a helicopter. Salvation was at hand. We would work all night and obtain at least seven new data points. We loaded things up, including the konstant, and off we went. And wouldn't you know it ~ at the very first site, the GPS satellite navigation system decided not to navigate. It simply refused. Bigger batteries, warmer spots in the helicopter, even shameless begging and pleading; we tried it all, to no avail. We were shut down, dead in the water.

Now, just another small digression, on the sacred role of the GPS. A successful campaign of gravity measurements requires the services of several instruments. There is the gravity meter, of course, which is something akin to a very sensitive bathroom scale, but that only makes the gravity measurement. Gravity, you see, is very dependant upon a number of factors. For example, the farther away from the center of the earth you are, the less gravity you will feel. And if you are standing right on top of the South Pole, you will weigh just a little bit more than if you were standing at the equator. To correct for all this, an accurate elevation measurement and an accurate latitude position are essential. At most places in the United States, for example, these things are not very hard to come by. But in Antarctica, where topographic maps are drawn at two hundred meter contour intervals, and where benchmarks are for the most part a concept totally unknown, GPS is far more than a little black box. It is manna from heaven. It is even more fundamental to the survey than the gravity meter, because without it, one simply cannot reduce the gravity data into something meaningfull. The trusty altimeter/elevomiter of mountaineering fame will give an elevation to within twenty meters or so of instrument error, with an additional barometric error that is unknown and essentially incalculable and a hysteresis effect that is severely exagerated by ups and downs in a helicopter. For this survey we needed a precision to the order of five meters, or less. And now, after two months of flawless performance (and just when things were getting exciting), the GPS had given up the ghost, and we were not going to get anything near the elevations we wanted.

At first, all was gloom and despair. But then some bright soul remembered that the Italian geodesists owed us a favor, and we were dispatched by express private helicopter to see if we could borrow theirs. They were delighted to see us. We shook hands all around, and drank endless tiny cups of strong coffee. We flirted with their secretaries. We held high level executive discussions. And all to no avail. They had no problems at all with the concept of loaning us the instrument, but the act of actually getting their hands on it to give to us was the stumbling block. The GPS was already safely boxed away in one of the big steel containers that littered the hold of the good ship Italica, and she was off and away upon the high seas in a matter of hours. The magic black box was impossible to find. Once again, we were victims of fate.

So back to the Polar Queen we flew, bleak and despondant, and to add insult to injury we were forced down by foul weather at Prior Island. We finally got back to the ship in the wee hours of the morning, to be informed that the instrument had magically fixed itself, and we were out in the morning at 800 AM, promptly, to see if it would be any better behaved. It was. Over the next two days we managed ten data points before the late season white-outs moved in again. (At the height of this storm some wit remarked that it was really just as practical to look at the back of the satellite photograph as the front of it). Once again life was plush, steaming in the sauna each evening and sleeping late in the morning. I processed the data, whose graph came out looking like the teeth of a two man lumberjack crosscut saw. But all good things must eventually come to an end; the weather broke again, for the better, and off we went to finish the line. And this time we made it. Out to the point beyond which the pilots wouldn't fly, for all sorts of sundry reasons; and the gradient, which hitherto had flattened out, giving us hope that the continental crust had achieved it's final thickness and we could go home, started plummeting again.

As did the barometric pressure.

Down, down, down it went. We awoke to decks laden in new fallen snow. Clearly winter was coming; clearly we should be going. And that is just precisely what we did. Broadside to the southerly swell, we rounded the protruding Drygalski ice tongue, pitching and rolling as only an ice breaker can. (Only five brave souls turned up for lunch, and one of them reputedly had to come back for a second helping shortly thereafter.). We steamed into the calmer waters of the bay fronting the Gondwana Station, and there we remained, for one last glorious Saturday night dinner. With the helicopters securely welded onto the D-ring floor brackets of the upper hold, and the various and sundry aircraft frames and engines stowed neatly away below, we toasted each other with upraised glasses while our knives and forks seemed to work by themselves, trying valiently to stuff their owners full to the brim with seven days worth of vittles before the journey home should begin.

EPILOGUE

Thus ended the Expedition. The midnight sun set over Terra Nova Bay, and aboard the Polar Queen we gathered on the heli deck for one last group photograph before sailing away to lands of balmier clime. In the cold autumn twilight, under rose-tinted skies and enveloped by the long dark shadows of majestic Mount Melbourne, rich German baritones rose in song:


(All present coalesce into single file, forming a processional into the wheelhouse, there to consume the sacred ceremonial wine in vast and liberal quantities ere setting sail.).



Flight deck of the Polar Queen, at anchor off North Victoria
Land, Antarctica. Photo: T. F. Redfield.

THE END

Go to:
  • Fun and Games at Terra Nova Bay


  • The top of the Technical Exploration homepage
  • T. F. Redfields bibliography
  • T. F. Redfields resume
  • T. F. Redfields list of Skills and Abilities
  • T. F. Redfields references
  • A bit of science: what Tim thinks about Alaska.
  • The Antarctica listings
  • The Antarctic Mountaineering listings

    • And just in case all of that wasnt enough, here is the UNOFFICIAL version...

    FUN AND GAMES AT TERRA NOVA BAY


    or:

    HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
    (AND HOW ZIMMY SPENT HIS MONEY!)




    EPILOGUE

    Go to:
  • The top of the Technical Exploration homepage
  • T. F. Redfields bibliography
  • T. F. Redfields resume
  • T. F. Redfields list of Skills and Abilities
  • T. F. Redfields references
  • A bit of science: what Tim thinks about Alaska.
  • The Antarctica listings
  • The Antarctic Mountaineering listings
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