This next series of photos are of Scotts hut here at McMurdo. this was brougth here from Australia and re assembled. It was last used in 1910 or 1912

Inside the hut

scenes from inside the hut

Hard to imagine that sixtten men lived in this space for months

The heavy equipment operators and the maintainence dept built an underwater viewing room. Its placed in a hole in the ice about 80 to 100 feet off shore. there is a warming house and a tube sticking out of the ice

You decend down a 8 or 10 foot tube placed in the ice

after decending the tube you sit in a small room with four windows under the sea ice

this is plate ice which is the fresh water that freezes letches out of the colder salt water

small fish in the water

This is thc Crary science lab building. This is the main research and technonogy center in antartica. The research covers everythiing from weather ,water ,animals,geology, volcanos,Ice etc.etc.etc. Ibelieve there are over 100 different research projects going on this summer and all are co-ordinater through and supprted by the staff of this building. We got to tour the facilities and see some interesting exhibits.

These are antartic cod. they spend their whole life under 70 feet of sea ice. Coming to the surface seems to be an exciting novelty to them

The touch tank is filled with beautiful and unusual creatures

This is a type of snail like animal that' shell felt like partially hardened playdough

Creatures in the touch tank that live on the sea floor under the sea ice

There was a huge Holloween party in the gym on saturday night.

This is one of the diningroom attendants. They are invaluable to the operation of the food service department. Do all the cleaning,dishes,line attending, dining room cleanup and on and on. Agreat bunch of hard wordking young people. He's dressed as Ob hill the 800foot mound of volcanic debris just on the edge of town. Fantastic costume

I went as Skua Man. Skuas are the scavaging seagull type birds that are beginning to show up. It is also the name given to the recycling center here on base. People leave stuff they dont want to take home. Other people skua in for their own use. I skua'd my whole costume and the day after holloween I took it all back to skkua for someone else to use

It was a great party!

I got to go out on the ice with the two divers on staff Rob Robbins and Steve Rupp. Their combined expierence diving in Antartic waters under the ice is over 35 years.

They had a small heated house on the ice over a hole drilled through about 10 feet of ice

Prep your gear, sit by the hole and....

Drop into the hole. They were down in 28 degree water for about 20 minutes. They checked gear, took some video and collected sea urchins from the sea floor for the sceince lab touch tanks.