November 18,

Howdy, this is Aaron. Today started out just as most every other day down here starts, with diving. Kathy and Stacy went into the hole at the road site in order to finish up the sampling at the site while Oliver tended them. Dan and Andrew went in a little ways away at Outfall A, while I tended. They went in at Outfall A but were going to swim over to Outfall B, which is just a little way to the south but is pretty well frozen over. Outfall A is cursed or something, because we've dove 4 times here and still haven't gotten all the samples do to one problem or another, so Dan and Andrew were going to enter the water for what was hopefully the last time.

Of course we had to get in the water first. A juvenile weddell seal had hauled out and wasn't showing any inclination towards moving (you can see the stubborn look on its face). Eventually he started to scoot its way over to the hole, which had frozen over. So we got to see how the weddell's clear ice out of their holes. It was really neat. It just opened up its mouth really wide and started raking its teeth against the ice, and it actually tore through the ice very quickly and went through it's surprisingly small hole.

Once the seal squeezed through its hole we could start preparing for the dive. The excitement started right away when Dan entered the hole. The hole had frozen in and its diameter had decreased substantially. Dan, being the large fellow that he is, obviously had some troubles fitting down. He gave it several attempts but just couldn't squeeze down (here you see him trying to get down). We offered to jump on him to pop him through the hole, but he sensibly pointed out that while it makes sense in theory, who would jump on him from below to pop him back up? This seemed to be a very valid point, so after one last attempt we hauled him out and gave up. The dreaded Outfall A had defeated us yet again. But we did not give up, we drove over to see Stacy and Kathy, who were coming back up from their dive, to get their advice. Stacy, cold though she was, bravely volunteered to go in at Outfall A.

So we tried again. Andrew went in first this time, and went down relatively smoothly. Stacy went in next. She also descended without much difficulty, so I went to check on the down line tied to the Pisten-Bully. No sooner had I stepped over to the Pisten-Bully, than I heard somebody come back up. It was Stacy and here eyes were the size of dinner plates. She was yelling through her regulator, which needless to say greatly hinders one's ability to understand her. I ran over to see what was the problem when I finally understood what she was saying. She forgot to zip her drysuit all the way down, so she got a nice refreshing dose of 28 degree water inside her suit, enough to ruin anyone's dive, and she was yelling for me to pull her out. Somehow I managed to haul her with all of her gear up out of the water far enough to zip her back up, and in the process nearly joined her in the hole. Showing a spectacular amount of fortitude, she went back down. So I went back to check the line, and had just reached the vehicle again when she came right back up. After some garbled communications I figured out that her inflator hose had come off when I pulled her out before, so she was getting a nice bit of suit squeeze when she went down, which is quite uncomfortable. Even after this though, she still went back down. Of course she didn't have a light, and the area is incredibly dark underneath, so she dropped right down the down line and a little ways away to collect the chemistry samples she needed. She collected the samples and her mask froze up, so she couldn't see anything. Luckily Andrew was nearby with a bright light, so she went towards it and waited for him to notice her and lead her back to the hole, which I'm happy to say he did. So this is how Outfall A was finally conquered, through the shear grit and determination of Stacy, a true American hero.

The rest of the day went by uneventfully compared to the morning's dive. Dan and Stacy went for a dive at Cape Armitage to take some still photographs. Andrew and I went in also. Andrew collected sponges for his project, while I just shot some video. It is a nice dive with some really cool sponges down deeper, plus there were lots of borks in the underice. Borks are, in case somebody hasn't written about them yet, a species of fish that lives in the under ice and are really cool. They hide out in the platelet and anchor ice that is on the bottom of the sea ice. Anyway, that is about it for today.