And... Oden Is About to Arrive at McMurdo

Sailwx shows the icebreaker Oden, off Cape Royds, about to finish opening the passage to the US base at McMurdo. What the sailwx maps do not make clear is that the Ross Sea is mostly covered by the Ross Ice Shelf, and that the icebreaker forges a channel through annual sea ice to open the way for the supply ship (and maybe some cruise ships, oh if only I could, oh my)...

... (Click for larger image.)

The retreat of the sea ice is proceeding fast. Cold and Dry and Far South
says that they can see to open water from McMurdo already, but not yet see Oden.

Hunting blogs to follow this year. In addition to Cold and Dry, and South Pole Serian, also there is also SSEC's On the Ice. More????

Ships Again

As the plane flew along the Strait and over the harbor at dusk on Monday, there seemed to be ships everywhere. And yesterday a big tanker (apparently Alaskan Legend) was parked out in the harbor directly below the college library's swath of windows. Should have taken a picture then, today there is thick fog.

The view from VTSLite (Click for larger image.)

Portland Bay never reappeared on the ship trackers I use. Set out for Korea with all those logs aboard and who knows what happened next. David Sellars, who writes about the harbor for the Peninsula Daily News, told me that there are two more log ships due to load in January. No sign of them yet, but if I can get out of the house early enough this morning (not much chance of that), I'll go look.

Lastly, South Pole Serian (who is actually at McMurdo on the Ross Sea) pointed out we can track the progress of the icebreaker Oden, and supply ship Nathaniel B. Palmer, on sailwx.com. Woo hoo, sort of. Last news of Oden is four days old.

No way around it. Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the first poets I read because my mother read them, Millay Frost Teasdale; these lines * are still filed away in memory.

      I have a need to hold and handle
      Shells and anchors and ships again.
      ...
      I am too long away from water;
      I have a need of water near."

The Cyrillic Ship

The end of the story at the beginning: I called the Pilot Station just now and persevered with the guy on the phone until he was willing to look at his records and yes, the bright orange ship with the Cyrillic lettering that I saw in the harbor on September 16th was Russian: it was the "Bereg Mechty". She's a refrigerated fish carrier built in 1982. Good picture of her at images-of-ships.co.uk. She might be for sale, if I understand this market report. She was detained in Seattle in December 2007 for safety issues: "2. PORT STATE CONTROL (Recent Detentions) M/V BEREG MECHTY (Russia) detained at Seattle. DEFECTS: Auxiliary steering gear pump#2 does not have adequate strength to sufficiently steer ship or be brought into speedily action in case of emergency causing undue risk to crew. Stbd lifeboat engine not ready for use after given 30 mins."

Bereg Mechty in Port Angeles harbor, but lettering too small to show to anyone who knows Russian...

The day before yesterday there were two big ships at the Marine Terminal dock down at the harbor. I love the way the tankers tower when they're docked to the west of downtown, taller than any building we have; but because of patchy fog on the water, I had to go right out to the dock to get a picture. While I was taking my snap of the Lawrence H. Gianella and Polar Discovery,

Lawrence H. Gianella and Polar Discovery

I spotted the building that houses the Port of Port Angeles Marine Terminal/Security office, and decided to come back and ask them about the cyrillic ship. Today the fog was thick right down to the water. I bounded up the steps with my question, but the gentleman had no idea, I guess he only knows about what comes to the terminal. He suggested calling the Pilots, who would have brought it into the harbor. Finally, an answer: Bereg Mechty.

Polar Discovery, fog

I should go down there more often. Even when you can't see anything it cheers me up.

P.S. I can't believe I had the Gianella right there at the dock in front of me and didn't know to look at its Antarctic adaptations. The name was vaguely familiar, but I assumed that was because it had been around the harbor on some previous occasion. No. It's 'cause I used to obsessively read about Antarctica, and the Gianella is often in the story of the annual arrival of the ships at McMurdo (1) (2)(3)(4).

Meanwhile, Somewhere Else...

... it's summer in Antarctica. Melting caused by global climate change is underway, though we mostly don't see it yet (1)(2)(3), at least not on this scale. Transantarctic Mountains from the air... (from the US Antarctic Program's Antarctic Photo Library).

OMG: look at this one... or this one... or...

Reading

Kim Stanley Robinson went to Antarctica as part of National Science Foundation’s Writers and Artists Program in 1995, the same season as Sara Wheeler and photographer Jody Forster. As a thriller his Antarctica at the 200 page point is still moving slo-o-o-w; and, except that it is set a short distance in the future, it is still not clear what makes it science fiction instead of political satire. But oh my goodness, they took him everywhere, he takes his characters everywhere he saw, and his descriptions of what he saw are extremely evocative.

Later: I've been reading about Antarctica for a long time. I used to think that if life had a rewind button like a VCR, I'd roll it back and do glaciology instead of dropping out to become a hippie, and by middle age I'd be a senior researcher camped out on Ice Stream B, with graduate students to bring me hot chocolate in the mornings... That was vague, but this is specific: if I had one do-over pass to spend in my life, I'd try harder to go to Antarctica when I left the temple in 1992 or so. I applied for a job with whomever was the support services contractor back then; they never replied. Oh, ok, I thought; and set about getting a correspondence bachelor's degree so I could get an MLS so I'd have geographic mobility in my profession. So I didn't go to Antarctica, and I also didn't move when I got my degree, and here I still am for another 48 hours. And I will never see the Ross Ice Shelf, it's irremediable. The big regret of my life. When I lose track of why I am moving now, I think of the Ross Ice Shelf. I am NOT going to be old in the desert and wishing I had moved back closer to the ocean. It might not work out but I have to try, hard. Watch me. Here I go.