20 January 2014
We didn’t expect to have any visitors to our field camp during our two weeks here, but last Friday as I was walking from my sleep tent to the kitchen tent I saw a skua, a large seagull-like bird, flying overhead. At first it didn’t register as being strange but then I realized that we were 100 miles from the nearest open water or source of food. The bird flew around a few times checking out our camp and then landed by my tent.
Skua at Tall Tower field camp
Our other visitors also came from the sky. These were two Twin Otter pilots that flew into camp on Monday to pick up Ben and some extra gear we no longer needed. Ben had come to the Tall Tower field camp to help us setup two of his research group’s Snow Web automatic weather stations (AWS) but needed to return to Scott Base, which is just a couple of miles from McMurdo Station, to help retrieve the Snow Web AWS network that was deployed earlier this season around Ross Island.
Ben with one of the Tall Tower field camp Snow Web AWS
The Twin Otter is a ski equipped twin propeller plane that is a workhorse plane in the polar regions. This is the primary plane used to put in and take-out distant field camps and is the plane we use to service our network of AWS. In addition to picking up Ben the Twin Otter also took Ben’s snowmobile, a 12 foot snowmobile sled, Ben’s camping equipment, and two 55 gallon barrels of fuel we no longer needed.
Suz watching the Twin Otter taxi to a stop at the Tall Tower field camp.
We aren’t expecting anymore visitors before we leave on Monday, but we’ll see if we get any more surprise visitors.
Thanks for reading.
John
