Images of

ANTARCTICA

Kapitan Khlebnikov

Photos © 2002 Seth White

Home

Most Antarctic tour ships sail around the Antarctic Peninsula area, and stations like Palmer are inundated with tourists every year. But a few also come to the Ross Sea. This year, two tourist ships came near McMurdo, the Kapitan Khlebnikov and the Akademik (Russian name that I can't remember and our internet link is down right now so I can't search for it). Tour groups from both ships were supposed to fly into McMurdo via helicopter for the day, but for some reason, only the Khlebnikov passengers came in. Here is a picture of the fuel tanker Matthiesen (left) and the Khlebnikov (right) at the ice edge, as seen from Arrival Heights. Due to the severe sea ice conditions this year, the Khlebnikov could not get any closer to McMurdo than this (it arrived a week or two before the Polar Sea extended the ice channel for the fuel tanker....see here).

There have been a lot of ships near McMurdo. At one time or another, the icebreakers Polar Sea and Healy, cargo ship American Tern, fuel tanker Matthiesen, research vessel Palmer, and tour ships Khlebnikov and that other one were within a few miles of the station. Here is a pic of traffic in and around the ice channel. From left to right: Healy, Polar Sea, Matthiesen, Khlebnikov.

Since I didn't get any close up pictures of the ship, here is the Khlebnikov as shown in a tourist brochure. It's a Russian ship whose home port is Vladivostok and I think the tour operations are run by a European company. It was around the Ross Sea quite a bit this year, and it went back and forth to NZ at least once.

The ship again in a brochure photo with one of it's Mil-18's. I think this pic was taken near McMurdo....that is, um, Brown Peninsula in the background?

So, for one day, the Russian Mil-18's were flying back and forth between the ship and McMurdo, shuttling groups of tourists back and forth. I heard them coming and going, so I took a few minutes away from the balloon launch training to take some pictures of these weird looking helicopters.

I saw a few of the Russian pilots hanging around station while the tourists were getting the official tour. Has to be a great job flying to all the best spots in the Ross Sea region.

The Mil-18 again. Very different design from the usual ones you see flying around town, i.e. the A-Stars, 212's, and Coast Guard helos.

Controls of the Mil-18. Very spartan....

Mil-18 tail rotor. I figured this would be a lame picture, but I took it anyway. Turned out OK, actually.

So here is one group of tourists in the Crary Lab. Karen Joyce, Crary IT supervisor, is looking at the camera. They were giving a little spiel to the tourists, and as I walked by, I took a picture of them. I think they were all pretty amused that someone was actually taking *their* picture.... Like the official USAP RED PARKAS, they had strips of scotch-light on their parkas. Hence, the patches of glare from my flash.

More tourists milling around the entrance to Crary. A cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula can be had for something like $5000. But to get down to the Ross Sea, it starts at more like $10,000. If you get the full package deal, including McMurdo, Scott Base, and all the other sights here, it's closer to $25,000. Tourism in Antarctica ain't cheap. I was going to give a Crary Lab tour to a group from the other ship, which was supposed to fly its passengers in the next day. But they never showed up, and I have no idea why. I'll bet the passengers were not happy that they didn't get to the station.

I went out to Cosray later in the day, and saw the Mil-18's flying people back to the ship from Scott Base. So here's a pic.