The sheer joy of Antarctic Subaquatic Garbage Collecting

Sometimes things fall into holes and are presumed lost forever. Over the years, people working at Explorers Cove have dropped coins (for luck?), hand tools, cameras, nails, screws -- all sorts of things -- into dive holes. As divers, we enjoy discovering and recovering these "lost" items. It gives us a sense of satisfaction being Antarctic Subaquatic Garbage Collectors.

One time I found a penny on the seafloor (it was heads up) and gleefully handed it to Werner Herzog upon surfacing. Another time, Doug Coons and I recovered a 15-ft Jiffy Drill flight. (See this post on how they sometimes get hopelessly stuck in the ice and ultimately drop to the seafloor.)

Nothing can express the joy of Antarctic Subaquatic Garbage Collecting more than this picture of Cecil recovering a "lost" shovel. We used it for the rest of the field season, too!

Perfect Hole Followup

For many years now, I have included at least one artist on our Antarctic research team. The argument for this practice was recently presented at the SCAR meeting in Portland, Oregon (see: Scientists should consider an artist when selecting field team members).

Sometimes these artists have a lot of prior experience  (e.g., Steve Alexander - scientist, diver, and photographer; Shawn Harper - diver, photographer; Henry Kaiser - diver, musician, and videographer), but in other cases they have less (e.g., visual artists Claire Beynon and Laura Von Rosk). Regardless of their level of lab or field training, artists always prove to be excellent team members who remain faithful advocates of the continent.

Nevertheless, I'm often a bit nervous taking visual artists to Antarctica. Their "style" (forgive my ignorance of art terminology) is celebrated by their audience, and I'm concerned that Antarctica will change them in ways that might "ruin them." Will their followers be turned off by their Antarctic-inspired work? Maybe this is a silly concern ...

Laura Von Rosk has spent the last six months producing a new series of paintings. I'm biting nails, hoping that her images are well received. Maybe I shouldn't have asked her to melt so many perfect dive holes ???

Everything ... in its right place

Making uniformly wide (= safe) dive holes through the sea ice in Antarctica has always been a major challenge. For example, at our research sites at Explorers Cove, the sea ice is usually 8-21 feet (roughly 3-7 meters) thick, and layered with wind-blown sediment from the Taylor Valley - factors that create a host of problems. Blasting holes with dynamite worked well in the past, but in this post-9/11 world it is a logistical nightmare to use explosives. The only reasonable option is to slowly melt a dive hole using a Hotsie. Unfortunately, the Hotsie is a gizmo that wasn't designed for this purpose: it's a glorified carpet steam cleaner!

Keeping a Hotsie functional for the 2-3 days needed to melt a hole requires vigilance (and a toolkit). Recently, we've resorted to belief in "order" in order to keep it working.

To wit:

Now that we align its components in orderly ways, with expression of great love and devotion to the Hotsie, we are cranking out perfect dive holes. (Well, almost 50% of the time.)

I'm thinking of starting a new religion ...

A bit unstuck

The Herbertson Glacier site is finally finished! The Hotsy melted a nice hole, and in the process the stuck drill bits dropped to the seafloor. Today we loaded our dive gear on the ATV and snowmobiles, and set out to collect specimens, map the undersea topology, catalog organisms living under the ice, deploy sediment traps and experimental arrays, and add a new layer to our art/science project. Oh, and to recover those pesky drill bits.

The "down line" that we lower into the dive hole is decorated with flags and flashers; these help the divers find the hole while underwater. The down line has a basket on its end for lowering equipment and raising samples. A small bottle of emergency air rounds out the string of things lowered with the divers. Also seen here is a small hand winch we could use to help haul a diver out of the hole.

While the divers are underwater, the tenders must be prepared to help in any way. We carry first aid kits, hot water, and an emergency supply of oxygen (inside the grey box that Claire is holding).  Not to mention radios with spare batteries to call for help, if needed.

"Prepare for the worst; expect the best" is our motto ...