Martin's Antarctic Visit  
January 2004  

Tending and operating the steam drill is the entire sea ice team, from left to right: Kim Morris in black hat, Martin Jeffries in coloured hat (a $20 bargain at the McMurdo Station store), Hajo Eicken our fearless leader in goggles, and Patrick A'Hearn holding the thermistors that are being melted out of the ice.

The steam drill uses propane (tank in front of sled) to heat freshwater (white carboy left of sled) in a heater inside the blue box. The steam passes along the hose and exits as a high presssure jet that quickly melts the ice.

The equipment sits on a Nansen sled. Such sleds can carry a lot of freight, but they were designed to be pulled at slow speed by a dog team, not at high speed by a snowmachine. We had a lot of trouble with this sled slewing around wildly and occasionally overturning as we travelled over the ice. An Iñupiat/Inuit-style komatik would have been much better, but none are available and it would take a lot of persuasion to convince some rather old-fashioned and conservative people to replace them with better sleds.

Note how we are all wearing similar clothing: red jackets, black pants, white bunny boots. This is because everyone participating in the U.S. Antarctic program is issued with a set of identical "Extreme Cold Weather Clothing". Consequently, we all look rather alike. The clothing is on loan and must be returned when we arrive back in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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