Day 3: Starting to work, starting to play

CREST getting delivered to our hanger.

This is our third full day at McMurdo. We arrived in time for a late supper last Wednesday, so I won't count that day. On Thursday we unpacked our shipping containers and set up the lab. Yesterday we took delivery of the instrument, and removed its shipping container from around it. That meant removing lots of bolts.  Today we got the instrument talking to our ground computer, and took stock of what repairs might be needed.  We identified two veto photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) that weren't giving a signal, and several crystal PMTs that weren't working either. In addition, we verified that one STAC (group of 16 crystal PMTs sharing a piece of electronics hardware) that was not working just before shipping it down was still not working. That's our starting place for our repair work.

BTW- There is a strange issue with blog post dates. My computer is on Eastern time and that's the post time that is used. But I am 18 hours IN YOUR FUTURE! So while this blog may post as being sent in on Friday, for me it is Saturday afternoon.  If you do something wrong I will will know about it before you even think of doing it. So don't.

CREST in the hanger, awaiting our attention

My days consist of getting up at 6am, having breakfast, then catching a shuttle to the LDB site (which takes ~45 minutes).  I stay until 5:30pm, when another shuttle takes me back to McMurdo proper, where we have dinner (over at 7:30) and decide what to do with our evening. Lunch is in a special galley at the LDB site, and I must say that I am eating like a king. We had beef Wellington today, with fresh cheeses (blue, goat, smoked cheddar, among others), fruit, salad, fresh-baked bread.... Yum!

Meanwhile, in the short evenings after dinner we have just begun to explore. For now we plan to work every day (including tomorrow, Sunday, the traditional day off at McMurdo) until we have a good handle on the extent of our needed repairs.  Last night I (re)visited the coffee bar, where I watched the last bottle of red wine on the station get drunk (not by me!).

The tube to under the Ice

Inside the tube under the Ice.

There is something new this year that I have not done before. There is a metal tube with windows on the bottom that gets lowered into a hole in the ice.  You can climb down the tube (one person at a time!) and view the underwater world under the ice. There were lots of wee sea urchin larvae swimming about, and the sunlight filtering through the ice was eery. Nearby on the top of the ice there was a Weddell seal sunbathing.  These are monstrous beasties, and make me think of a giant sea slug. While we watched, it began shuffling about, eventually disappearing into a small hole in the ice.   I also gave my colleagues a small tour of the station.   I'll give you one later, so stay tuned!

Fat Weddell seal

Arrival!

I thought I would share this picture I took of myself right after getting off the plane, which you can see in the background.

I am working on a few posts to describe the science we are  exploring and how the CREST instrument works.  Until later!