Antarctica 2018: Chapter 1: From Hawai’i to Antarctica!

Welcome to my Antarctic blog! Follow along for updates on my journey as a scientist at the South Pole, as well as tips for future first-time Antarctic travelers and PIs.

Firstly, I’m very excited to be headed to Antarctica, as Principal Investigator of a joint National Science Foundation and Air Force Office of Scientific Research project called LANDIT. You’ll hear me refer to the NSF and AFOSR a few more times before this blog is over, but it’s thanks to their funding of my research that I’m able to make this trip.

I'm further fortunate to be traveling to the South Pole, the very bottom of the world! Since it’s my first visit to “the ice”, or Antarctica, I’ve been reading a lot of forums, and this snippet I found pretty much captures what I’ve found in my dealings with the NSF: “[South] Pole is tough!”

I’ve got that “elusive ticket to freeze”!

South Pole Station is small, hard to get to, and austere: you really have to justify why your project needs that location. As Buzz Aldrin found out, due to the difficulty of getting there, a medical emergency can be life threatening. That’s why there are tourists at McMurdo, even a few at Palmer (the second of three US research stations on Antarctica), but almost none at Pole. You need to give the NSF a definite reason, both in your proposal and in subsequent logistics discussions, that says this is why my project needs the South Pole, and not anywhere else in the world. I’ll get more to the science of LANDIT in another post later, and why we couldn’t go anywhere but the Pole to do it.

So without further ado: from Hawai’i to Antarctica! I’m enjoying one of my last days in the sunshine before it’s time to head south. The journey south began last week, when I left my home base of Maui Island, Hawaii, bound for California. If you’re American, there are two jumping-off points for the southernmost continent: New Zealand and Chile. In general, folks headed for McMurdo Station (the big town on Antarctica) fly to the ice from Christchurch, New Zealand, while those bound for Palmer Station go through Punta Arenas, Chile. Most traffic to the Pole routes through McMurdo, so I’m headed to Christchurch tomorrow, by way of Los Angeles.

If you are selected as an NSF Office of Polar Programs Principal Investigator, you submit what is known as a SIP, or “Support Information Package”, to the agency. This requests all the logistical support you will need on the ice to carry out your experiment - and trust me, when you’re at the end of the world, you need a lot of logistics support. As a PI, the SIP is probably the most crucial document to the success of your science. I spent more time writing up my SIP than I did the original LANDIT proposal (and that took a long time). You have to think through all the details, and I do mean all… right down to the length of network cable you’ll need, hours of technician support, environmental permits… in addition to the basics like beds, snowmobiles, and the ever-present obstacle: weight of equipment on the ice flight.

All the equipment I’ll be dragging by hand to the bottom of the world.
Almost two hundred pounds of equipment in six bags. That’s a lot of baggage for one person.

Normally, the NSF ships scientific equipment to your jump-off point, either Punta Arenas or Christchurch, by ship. Principal Investigators have to get their equipment to Port Hueneme in California by (in general) mid-September, for it to make it to the jump-off point by mid-October. From there, the NSF will fly it on cargo airplanes, either DC-3s or LC-130s, to its final destination on the ice. In all likelihood it will get there before you do.

My situation, however, is a little different. I'm hand-carrying my equipment to the ice, because the alignment of my telescope is extremely sensitive. However, the “ice flights”, or flights from the jump-off point to the Antarctic continent, are weight limited. Cargo tonnage is strictly controlled, or the plane wouldn’t be able to take off and land safely. In my SIP, I requested 110 pounds of hand-carry equipment. Which meant: I had to make sure I carried no more than 110 pounds, in addition to the allotted 85 pounds of personal gear. More on that below, but an important rule! The cold weather gear (called ECWs) that will be issued to you at your jump-off point weighs 10 lbs., and you must keep 4 lbs. of leeway in your personal gear allotment to stow that equipment!

In fact, I came in at 109 pounds and 10 ounces - talk about cutting it close! I’m headed down there alone, with no graduate students or research assistants, and I can already tell that schlepping 200 pounds of equipment around will not be fun. Sadly, the six ounces to spare meant that my Koloa coconut rum did not make the cut.

The NSF is the administrator for the US Antarctic Program, and ASC, or the Antarctic Support Contract, conducts most of the legwork on behalf of the NSF. They are very organized, very good at their job, and are dealing with a lot of people (if you want to get a job in Antarctica, they are the ones who hire you!). Since I’m just an expedition of one, and there are PIs traveling with thousands of pounds of equipment and dozens of people, I’ve found myself at the tail end of their planning cycle. Which isn't a bad thing… but sometimes I’ve had to remind myself to be patient. ASC books your hotels in Christchurch, your airline tickets from the mainland, as well as approves your SIP and helps you prepare for your deployment. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the ASC team — these guys are true professionals. They know what it takes to succeed in Antarctica, and they help steer you onto the right track if you’re an ice newbie like me.

You also need to think about things like customs and immigration. I’ve got a very detailed list of everything I’m importing into the country, and I’ve pre-filled the NZ High Value Asset Declaration Forms: doing both in advance is highly recommended. ASC Travel provides you with a letter that quotes the specific statutes of NZ immigration law, so you can get a 12-month visa to the country even though you only have a one-way airline ticket. That just came through last week for me – don’t hesitate to contact ASC if you think you are missing something, but it’s best to do it by phone. After 1 October, people are already deploying or waiting in Christchurch for ice flights, and those in travel status get first priority. Phone calls are the best way to get through and at least ask if the delay you’re having is normal. In my case it was.

Preparing for a deployment to the ice can be challenging, even for people like me who consider themselves organized. I’ve had to think about the next two months. How much toothpaste do I use across that time? How many Q-tips will I need? SD card storage for my camera? How many batteries is too many batteries? I’ll be spending Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas at the Pole. Should I bring a costume? (Yes!) How will I pass the time? (Pack of cards, the DVD set of every Game of Thrones episode to date, books on Kindle). All of that weighed (pun intended, haha) against the baggage limit for the ice flight. I imagine this is how astronauts feel when packing for a six-month stay on the International Space Station.

I’ve gotten several good tips from former Antarctic adventurers: bring things that engender warm thoughts (I brought some aloha shirts from Hawaii - alas, the coconut rum from Kaua’i will have to wait). The coffee sucks so bring your own (I’m bringing Kona coffee, which has apparently been a hit in previous years). Bring something to trade for favors (Chocolate covered Macadamia nuts!) Everyone gets really into the holidays, so bring a costume for extra points (check!). Of course, it’s entirely possible that my friends are messing with me, so we’ll see what happens when I whip out my costume on Thanksgiving Day.

With that, I’m off to “the ice”! Next post from New Zealand, where I’ll be reporting in to the US Antarctic Program Clothing Distribution Center to get ECWs issued, then wait for my flight to the ice continent. I’ll post more about LANDIT and our science as well. Until then… aloha!