Late January 2010 - Icebreaker and Tanker Arrival

In late January - The Swiss Icebreaker Oden first shows up on the horizon and makes its way to the Pier. The Pier is simply a flattened out, compacted dirt area slightly above sea level that is partially protected in the cove in the Northwest end of McMurdo Station. Ballards, or large pilings are sunk into the ground for the boat to tie off on. The Odin showed up about a week and a half to two weeks before the Tanker arrived. The Oden breaks up the ice pack and creates a path for vessels to reach McMurdo. I believe there are three main vessels -

-The Icebreaker - to break the ice

-The Tanker - for fuel for the station

-Vessel - brings cargo/supplies (leaves with solid, liquid, and haz wastes, etc. - arrives later)

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Here is a picture of the Oden just outside of the pier. You can see the broken up ice pack in front of and behind it.

Here some time later is the tanker easing into the pier. The Odin is in the background. It goes out to meet the tanker in open waterand escort it into McMurdo. The tanker arrived around the 18th of January.

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On Saturday, January 23, The Oil Spill team was called given the order to boom the boat. This hasn't been done in years, but is a precautionary measure and also a training exercise in the case of an actual spill. The Environmental Group that I am a part of is on the Oil Spill team.

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Here is a picture of the deployment of our skiff off of the pier. This skiff has never seen the water, so their was some anxiousness as it was dropped off into the water. There wasn't much of a launch ramp!
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Here is a picture of the oil spill crew ferrying boom into the water, while the skiff drags the boom around the tanker. It was attached to the opposite side of the tanker using magnets and then formed a semicirclish holding area for a possible fuel spill. The yellow boom has a float on the top and a chain on the bottom - this serves to hold the boom upright in the water column and to contain any fuel from exiting out of the cove and into McMurdo Sound.


This is the final product - boom around the south west section of the boat.
The mountain in the middle backround of the picture is Observation Hill.


Close-up of skiff, tanker and helicopter in the background.