Another night in paradise

They cancelled our bag drag last night less than an hour before we were expected at Cargo, but I didn't check the flight schedule so I (and a few other people) hauled our stuff up the hill then hauled it back down again. The weather's turned bad again so they'll probably cancel again.

The bad news is that it looks like the weather will continue to be bad for at least a couple of days and the math is looking increasingly bad for me. My return flight from Christchurch is scheduled for Dec 2, so I'd need to leave Pole by Nov 30 at the latest. My time is slipping away!

The good news is that I've now got everything I need to live in McMurdo for the next few days. I spent the morning getting my computer set up to access the Wifi network in Crary Labs library, a quiet place with decent tables and chairs. I also got a keycard so I can get into Crary after 5PM because it looks like I'll be spending at least a few days here.

In order to get the keycard, I was required to take a safety tour. The building is home to most of the scientists who work out of McMurdo and it has working chemistry and biology labs, some which use hazardous chemicals. The safety tour was mainly aimed at pointing out the various hazards in the building and the locations of first aid kits, emergency showers, etc. I'd never gone on the tour before so it was (surprisingly) interesting!

The tour ended on the lowest floor in the marine biology room which has several active experiments. The most interesting one involved rock cod (I think?) which make up 90% of the ocean biomass down here. These fish thrive in the polar waters because they have a compound in their blood that acts like antifreeze. Due to global warming, other species are starting to invade their territory, so scientists are studying how the fish are affected. They've also got several smaller (bathtub-sized) tanks with successively warmer water to study how the fish will react to the warming ocean water.

There's also a "touch tank" filled with small creatures from the nearby bay. The tank's water is continuously refreshed with water pumped directly from the bay, so it's near freezing, but if you're willing to brave the frigid water, you can reach in and touch the sea spiders, sea lice, and other small harmless creatures. The sea spiders and sea lice are found in other parts of the world, but they grow HUGE down here, and scientists are trying to figure out why. One hypothesis is that their metabolism is slowed down in the freezing water so they live much longer than normal.

One of the most fun features of Antartica is that you can't even get a safety lecture without hearing about really cool science!!!