Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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This photograph shows the beauty of brash, a mosaic that is first noticed when approaching the Antarctic in an aircraft, over pack ice. Atka, Burton Island, and Glacier are near the entrance to the channel, which is blocked by the giant berg at right. The open water here is in the vicinity of Cape Royds. The nearest ship is not breaking ice, but moored so that work can be done on the hull. A shore party is barely visible. one of the ten Diesel generators that supply power to two 10,500 horsepower electric motors driving the shafts. 'cThis one is sand- baggingf he says, meaning it's resting. The evaporators can distill 16,000 gallons of fresh water a day, and last year they supplied lVlcMurdo with water for ten days, when the last snow had been scraped off the brown hillsides. There is no resemblance between this scene and the old time cursing and coal-heaving. Several 'isnipesf' as the enginemen are called, stand attentively in front of a bank of relays that control the governors which prevent the rams from oversteering. Others follow each change in revolutions as the ship charges the ice, idles, and backs down. They seem dignified, because of their absorption, and because they are astute enough to see how their own machinery affects the functioning of the whole ship. Suddenly a man comes up to Ens Doran and tells him that one of the pins has let go in the steering mechanism. A snipe in the control room says it was the same watch that let it happen before, but later they find out that a remote telltale in Loft-Conn didn't show the rudder's position accurately. The ship must stop breaking ice while the pin is replaced. The Exec sits at the head of the long table in the wardroom, which offers excellent food served by a pair of stewards. The drink is sometimes iced tea, and sometimes an ersatz liquid that appears each day in a new color. Lcdr Voyer, a Naval Academy graduate with submarine experience, is basically a merry man, considering that he has an entire ship on his mind. Yet he thinks nothing of stopping so1neone in a passageway, reminding him of a hairline breach of discipline, answering a technical question, and heading off a morale problem - at one stroke. An AC2 waits at the XO,s elbow until he has finished a joke, then hands him the evening weather report. 'iBallard takes pride in working up the weather like a professional, Voyer confides later. i'He is becoming a bit of an analyst himself. At breakfast the XO receives a message: ATKA' AT 52 . This odd little fact means something to someone everywhere on the ice. The third breaker has remained behind to escort the tanker Alatna through the pack, but even though she has scarcelyleft New Zealand there begins a sensitive listening-process which, much later, picks up the routine remark that she is having trouble with one of her main propulsion generators. Eastwinal under the Coast Guard, takes a wintering-over party in january to Palmer Station on Anvers Island, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and while she is there she serves as another weather-reporting station. She may be called to free one of the thin-skinned cargo ships or pick a few men off an untenable place on the coast. The big difference between Deep Freeze and the early Antarc- tic expeditions is that the smallest party in the most remote part of the Continent is in radio contact with someone. VX-6 once flew a Herc from Rhode Island to Byrd, in April, after the station had been buttoned-up for the winter, to bring out a Russian exchange scientist who became ill. The isolation experienced by Cherry- Garrard, only 50 miles from McMurdo, is a thing of the past. .

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