Sea Ice Training 101

I was in desperate need of a spa day in Christchurch. And since the powers that be could not accommodate that need, my supervisor decided to send me out for a day of Sea Ice Training. Spa Day, Sea Ice Training... same thing.

So, my comrades and I climbed into the Hagland (pictured above), and set off from the safety of our beloved volcanic island, to the precarious sea ice. We drilled holes. We measured the thickness of the ice. We learned to read cracks and when to worry about the width of the crack. Did you know the sea ice can get down to only 30" in thickness before you need to start worrying about it's stability in terms of driving a vehicle over it? Seems a little crazy to me. So we learned to calculate whether or not we could drive our vehicle over a crack depending on the width of the crack and the depth of the ice and the length of our vehicle. Sounds a bit close to calculus, but it's not really that complicated.

And when we drilled into the ice, we did hit sea water and we got to collect samples for some group, which included some little creature that came up in the sample. Looked like a little bug sort of sea creature. Just a tiny little guy.

The most exciting part of the day were the gangs of penguins we saw far off in the distance. The Emperor Penguins are making their appearance this year. From our perspective, it looked as if some of the penguins were having a social with the seals. A small gang of them walked up to the lounging seals and then stopped. And hung around. I suppose they were too shy to ask them to dance.

So, no, we didn't actually do facials or manicures or massages out there on the Sea Ice. But it was a fun day anyway.