Here are a few photos I've captured of our sunset over the past few days. More will be uploaded over the next few days, and definitely more on facebook!
Frosty Station
Station and sunset as seen from ARO deck
Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunset Photos!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Baby, it's cold outside!
-86F – It keeps getting colder and colder! I love it! I really hope once the sun sets we’ll hit our -100F quickly, much like what happened down here last year. Our facilities engineer thinks he’s jinxed because the two previous winters he’s spent here have been warm – the Pole never reached -100F. I’ve had some friends from home suggest that we kick him out of the station when it gets near the century mark so that his bad vibes don’t affect us, but I’m not sure the weather gods will be fooled. -100F is so special because it is the temperature when you can become a member of the 300 Club. Much like Mount Washington’s Century Club, where they need to survive 100mph of wind, we need to survive -100F… naked (on MWN, they are fully-clothed). So where does the 300 come from? Welllllllll, we heat up the station’s sauna to 200F first, stay in there as long as possible, then toss the clothing (except for the essentials – foot covering, probably glove liners, and a neck gaiter for your face? I need to check my details and rules.), run down the ‘beer can’, out the door, and make a loop of the geographic South Pole before returning to the warm station, and most likely the sauna. We’re lucky this year. The geographic Pole moved about 30 feet closer to the beer can door, making the ‘run’ slightly shorter for us. Believe me – at these temps, every second counts. I’m psyched! Sorry… I will NOT be posting pictures from this event!
In my last post I explained how I hated the Big Red jacket and how I’m planning on holding out as long as possible – today may be the day I actually break it out. Rawr. I’m not enthused, but its becoming necessary. The soft shell I wear over my down layers is really not the right piece of equipment for these temperatures. I nearly broke the zipper this morning taking it off when I reached ARO. I was only outside for about 15-20 minutes, but the zipper was completely frozen and stuck. I definitely struggled getting out of it. The zipper is sealed to prevent water from getting in at temperatures where liquid water actually exists. Apparently this rubber-ish gasket-like seal doesn’t like temperatures over 100 degrees below the freezing point of water. Oops. When the wind blows, the down layers are not going to be enough to keep me warm. Plus, when I put on about 20 layers of clothing to avoid the Big Red, I feel like the little brother from ‘A Christmas Story’. Yiiiikes.
Tonight I am going to attempt to learn how to knit. One of my many projects down here for the winter is making next year’s Christmas presents for friends and family (at least until I run out of supplies). On R&R in Christchurch I spent a long time at Knit World, the most amazing yarn store in the world, picking out the perfect yarns to go with projects for family. I picked up crochet when I was home last Christmas (wow – two Christmas’ ago? Where does the time go?) and have already finished my sister’s presents. Now I have a great knitting pattern I want to try and make for my brother. If I can become a proficient knitter, so many doors will open up for me, as far as online patterns go. There are a ton of crochet patterns out there, but about ten times more knitting patterns than crochet! Verrrrry exciting! So tonight is the weekly ‘Stitch & Bitch” meeting, South Pole Chapter. The other Polie, who is the host of the event, is a knitter. She has made some beautiful items, including her own amazing socks out of merino wool. Sooo nice! So I’m going to corner and have her start to teach me. My first project is going to be something very easy. I’m planning on knitting a neck cowl – yet another layer I can wear when I go outside. It is like a neck gaiter, but very loose. It’s a nice layer to accompany more low-cut shirts (not that I’m wearing low cut shirts down here, but I’m talking about any shirt that isn’t a turtleneck). This project involves basic stitches and basic principles. I think it’ll be perfect to get my feet wet. Plus its something that I can use down here. Then I’ll continue to tackle Christmas! I’m very excited about my yarn purchases and can’t wait to give out the finished products!
Happy Stitching!
In my last post I explained how I hated the Big Red jacket and how I’m planning on holding out as long as possible – today may be the day I actually break it out. Rawr. I’m not enthused, but its becoming necessary. The soft shell I wear over my down layers is really not the right piece of equipment for these temperatures. I nearly broke the zipper this morning taking it off when I reached ARO. I was only outside for about 15-20 minutes, but the zipper was completely frozen and stuck. I definitely struggled getting out of it. The zipper is sealed to prevent water from getting in at temperatures where liquid water actually exists. Apparently this rubber-ish gasket-like seal doesn’t like temperatures over 100 degrees below the freezing point of water. Oops. When the wind blows, the down layers are not going to be enough to keep me warm. Plus, when I put on about 20 layers of clothing to avoid the Big Red, I feel like the little brother from ‘A Christmas Story’. Yiiiikes.
Tonight I am going to attempt to learn how to knit. One of my many projects down here for the winter is making next year’s Christmas presents for friends and family (at least until I run out of supplies). On R&R in Christchurch I spent a long time at Knit World, the most amazing yarn store in the world, picking out the perfect yarns to go with projects for family. I picked up crochet when I was home last Christmas (wow – two Christmas’ ago? Where does the time go?) and have already finished my sister’s presents. Now I have a great knitting pattern I want to try and make for my brother. If I can become a proficient knitter, so many doors will open up for me, as far as online patterns go. There are a ton of crochet patterns out there, but about ten times more knitting patterns than crochet! Verrrrry exciting! So tonight is the weekly ‘Stitch & Bitch” meeting, South Pole Chapter. The other Polie, who is the host of the event, is a knitter. She has made some beautiful items, including her own amazing socks out of merino wool. Sooo nice! So I’m going to corner and have her start to teach me. My first project is going to be something very easy. I’m planning on knitting a neck cowl – yet another layer I can wear when I go outside. It is like a neck gaiter, but very loose. It’s a nice layer to accompany more low-cut shirts (not that I’m wearing low cut shirts down here, but I’m talking about any shirt that isn’t a turtleneck). This project involves basic stitches and basic principles. I think it’ll be perfect to get my feet wet. Plus its something that I can use down here. Then I’ll continue to tackle Christmas! I’m very excited about my yarn purchases and can’t wait to give out the finished products!
Happy Stitching!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Quick Note on ECW
First of all, Happy Pi Day! Gotta love the ol’ 3.1415926…
Second of all, this is the coldest day I have experienced on station so far! We have officially hit -81F! Wow! At these temperatures there are very few vehicles we can actually use outside, and your soda is chilled pretty quickly sitting on the deck. I have had several friends from home asking how you can possibly stay warm at these temperatures and how long you can safely stay out. Hopefully this posting answers some of those questions…
ECW. Those three letters are ingrained in every Polie – Extreme Cold Weather… gear. When we pass through the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) on our way through Christchurch , New Zealand
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of some of the gear that is issued. Being a bit of a gear fanatic (and snob, I may add – hey, don’t judge), I brought down a lot of my own cold weather items. And I’m pretty glad I did – you can never have too much ECW down here. I came prepared with my own long underwear, fleece layers, hats, glove liners, gloves, balaclavas, neck gaiters, goggles, winter boots, socks… can you possibly put anything else on your body? Now I wear a mix of my own gear and the issued gear. Here’s how a normal trip outside goes:
First, I put on a pair of medium-weight long underwear, thick socks, and a t-shirt. Next is my insulated pair of Carhartt bibs. These bibs are serious – I highly recommend them. I am actually going to invest in a set when I get home. They are heavy-duty, warm, and have a million pockets. They would be great for hanging around outside in the winter – I’m thinking ice fishing here… The boots are next – I bought a pair of Sorel Sorels
How long can we stay outside? I’d say at these temperatures, a normal person should probably stay outside for about an hour before coming in at least for a few minutes to warm up. Our Materials folks are mainly working outside on the berms, where things that aren’t currently needed are stored. They dress a lot warmer than I do because they are out there so long. You could stay out longer if you had to, but you would definitely need hand warmers and foot warmers! And move around a LOT !
It’s funny, because once you reach cold temperatures, it doesn’t feel much colder, even when the mercury drops. The main difference is that you get colder faster. Earlier this morning I ran out to the roof of ARO to check on some instruments in just a fleece and Crocs before checking the temperature. Sure, it was chilly, but it didn’t actually feel different. I was amazed at how quickly I felt the cold, and then knew something was up. Over the summer I could stay on the roof for several minutes at a time without a jacket, hat, or other ECW. I would even go out in a t-shirt! (I know I’m crazy though – the temps were still well below zero) Now I at least make sure my face is covered. Air this cold is horrible for the lungs – you can damage the tissues by breathing it, giving you a horrible cough for a month or so. Balaclavas are your friends! I’m much more careful going outside these days.
Speaking of going outside, I’m headed back out to work on the Skua Shack, continuing to move clothes, random appliances, shoes, and costumes (we found a gorilla mask last week) into the station for the winter. Since the Skua Shack isn’t heated and I’m planning on being out for a while, I’m definitely going to use hand warmers!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Fire Extinguisher Fun
Today it really does feel like the sun is setting! There are clouds on the horizon, obscuring most of the direct sunlight. No real sunset colors yet, but you can feel that those are just around the corner. The wind has also returned, thank goodness – for the past few days it has been too light for me to complete my scheduled air sampling. It is very frustrating waiting for conditions to change! Every morning at breakfast for the past few days I look at the weather displayed on the scroll, sigh, and wish for wind. This is counter-intuitive for most people. Wind equals cold, so why would you want wind? Sometimes I feel a little bit backwards.
By the time I'm at ARO I'm a little frosty. And I'm only outside for 10 minutes!
It has been a fairly uneventful week, as far as life in the station goes. Everyone has played it pretty low key. Yesterday the fire team had equipment training – we went over how to operate the O2 sensor (used to see if we have an atmosphere that can support breathing during drills and events) and fire extinguishers. Before this training, I completed a good deal of research on fire extinguishers and learned some interesting things. Did you know that the first patent on a fire extinguisher was filed in 1723 by an English chemist? I bet you didn’t. This first fire extinguisher contained gunpowder and a fire-extinguishing fluid. To work the extinguisher you had to light a fuse – the gunpowder explosion scattered the liquid out of the extinguisher and onto the fire. Its just my opinion, but I think it’s a little counter-productive putting gunpowder near open flames. I wonder how many additional fires this started compared with the amount that it actually extinguished. But I guess if you already have one fire, what’s one more?
Tonight we are having a double-feature at the ‘drive-in theater’, aka gym. The matinee is ‘Tron’ and the real feature (at least in my mind) is ‘Black Sheep’, the New Zealand
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Polies Donate to NZ Red Cross... and other station happenings.
As some of you may have just seen from Facebook, the South Pole’s contributions to the New Zealand Red Cross are now officially $10,000! For many Polies Christchurch is like a second home, and it was devastating watching another crippling earthquake hit the city two weeks ago. One of our crew here collected donations, found a donation-matching opportunity, and got our total contribution up higher than I would have ever imagined! $10,000 is small in the big scheme of things, but every little bit helps. It felt good to contribute something to the disaster, given our huge distance and inability to help with relief. We are also considering shipping a large quantity of lightly-used clothes to the Red Cross in the spring from our ‘Skua Shack’. That’s a long way off though…
Things have continued as usual at the South Pole. The biggest thing happening on station is the imminent sunset. Only about two weeks away, the sun is verrry low on the horizon and is very noticeably sinking each day. Its fun to sit at breakfast and have the outside look like a sunrise. The same is true at night – it looks like a normal sunset. The strange thing is having the sun setting mid-day. When I walk back to the station for lunch around 1200, I always think I’m walking in for dinner and wonder where the day went. It is an odd feeling. The fact that the sun is departing for six months is really starting to sink in. We will have several weeks of twilight before it actually gets dark, allowing us to adjust to walking around at ‘night’ and without the light to guide us. Just crazy.
Another big highlight (other than the setting sun) of last weekend was the crepe extravaganza. Two of our wonderful crew took all their practicing and made the crepes a reality on Sunday night. Wow. I have to get the recipes! They made both sweet and savory crepes to order. It was amazing. I had the vegetarian savory crepe to start with, which was a crepe filled with cooked spinach and portabello mushrooms sautéed and reduced in white wine. The crepe was then topped with a reduced red bell pepper sauce and pine nuts. (I think this was the filling and topping anyway – I may be getting some of the details wrong!) Simply heavenly. The dessert crepe was a crepe made with a yeast batter, giving it a slightly fermented flavor which complimented the Nutella and pureed banana filling. We are so spoiled down here!
For the most part, everything is running smoothly at ARO, giving me time to dedicate to other things such as planning fire team training and cleaning out the Skua Shack. When all of the summer Polies left and donated items to Skua, there was absolutely no organization. Literally, everything was piled up on the floor of the small wooden shack on skis. What a mess! This past weekend a few of us hauled out about 8 garbage bags worth of items. Most of them were worth keeping, but many items had to go. I’m going to be continuing this process for the next two weeks. At sunset, Skua gets dragged out to weather the winter months with the other small mobile buildings at the “End of the World”. All of these buildings get moved downwind of the station and stored in a row to minimize the amount of drifting we need to shovel out at the beginning of the season. Why make several large drifts when you can just make one really large drift?
We have made it to three weeks of our 2-a-day workouts and we’re still going strong! One additional person has joined our little group, making a support group of three encouraging eachother daily. Its great! Its amazing what 1-2 hours of exercise makes daily! I think next week we are going to try moving on to Level 3-4 of Power 90. It should be interesting. Also a good thing. We know all of Tony’s quirks on the first DVD and I’m not sure how much more we can make fun of the people demonstrating the workouts. Doing the workouts everyday, we can recite the dialogue along with the DVD. At least we have added our own music to our workouts. Freija and I have compiled our most trashy workout music possible – we have a lovely mix of 90’s club music, Dutch rap, and just plain terrible modern pop. Love it.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tours and Crepes
Two days ago I got to take a tour of the entire station and surrounding areas with our facilities engineer, Weeks. It was an excellent tour! It was advertised as a ‘3 hour tour’ (I know – very Gilligan’s Island ), but it actually went to almost four hours. And on top of that we skipped the Dark Sector and other outlying science buildings. The tour started out going through the station – mainly the rooms we don’t normally have access to, and special features of spaces we occupy all the time. We were able to poke around fan rooms, electrical rooms, the emergency power plant (EPP), subfloor (the space under the floor where the pipes for our utilities run through), etc.
After thoroughly roaming through the station, we proceeded down the Beer Can to the New Power Plant (NPP). We saw where our water gets treated – the water we are currently drinking is melted ice from around year 100 or so. It is extremely clean. It is actually so pure that the water is caustic and needs to be treated – we add chemicals to regulate the pH so it doesn’t destroy our pipes and literally leach the minerals out of our bodies. It is amazing. We also saw the ridiculous amount of CO2 we have for the power plant fixed fire suppression system. If all the CO2 was released at once, it would fill all the spaces at that level to 6 ft – this includes the power plant, ice tunnels, LO arch, and garage if it was open. How would we ventilate all those spaces? Good question! Moving on, we saw all the generators – we have 4 in all. Three are large generators that we normally run off of (one is running, on is standby, and one undergoes repairs at one time), and a smaller generator that is known as the ‘peaker’ or the ‘kicker’. If we draw more power than our normal generator can handle, the little guy kicks in and provides the difference. If we run over the capacity of those two generators, non-essential things get turned off.
From there we went into the LO, the Logistics Arch, where all of our food and materials not outside are stored. We proceeded to the Fuel Arch, which holds 450,000 gallons of fuel. The walls of the arch are covered in beautiful ice crystals. The emergency exit from the back of the fuel arch is a spiral staircase which goes up to the surface. This space is also encrusted in ice crystals. It is just gorgeous – I need to go back there and get some good shots with my big camera…
We jumped in an LMC after going through the garage, and Weeks took us around the rest of the station – through Summer Camp, to RF where our satellite dishes are located, the fuel pits, the Otter pits (where the twin otters park), the berms, cryo, and the rodwells. I could explain more about these places, but it would also take three hours! I’ll explain a little more in later blogs… It was a great tour!
Yesterday was a typical day. I have been waiting for the wind to be from the right direction and the right speed for flask sampling for two days now. First it was too light (under 5 meters per second), then it shifted out of our Clean Air Sector, and now its back in the right direction, but too light. I just can’t win! Hopefully this afternoon it will pick up a bit. Or at least tomorrow.
Last night was wonderful – Freija, Susan, and I did an hour of yoga. From there I went straight to the sauna and then to the shower. Wow. I am going to be so spoiled when I leave here. I may need to find an apartment when I get back to the States that has a sauna. After that I ate dinner, watched a movie, and passed out at 9:00. Just lovely.
This morning at breakfast there was a group making crepes. They were testing out their recipe and technique today in anticipation of making them Sunday night for dinner and dessert. The dessert crepes were AMAZING. Wow. Just as good as the crepes we always ate in Seward , AK
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The rest of summer -and- 'I Think We're Alone Now...'
Okay continuing with the summer…
New Year’s was a LOT of fun at the South Pole! A few days before the end of the year, the Austrian/Norwegian ski race made it to the Pole. This was a huge event – the whole unsupported cross country ski race from the coast to the Pole was filmed for an Austrian documentary. The documentary support vehicles arrived at Pole a few days before the skiers and set up camp. The skiers made it just a few days before the holiday. The Austrians won – Hermann Maier, the world-class retired downhill skier was on this team. It was pretty neat hosting a celebrity here!
For New Year’s Eve, there was a large party at the Austrian/Norwegian camp, which was about a half mile from the station. The weather was beautiful – a crystal clear evening with light winds. We got so hot walking out the camp that the ladies and I that were hiking there shed most of our layers down to long-sleeve fleece. What stellar weather! At the party, one of the vehicles was running and had Bob Marley music pumping out of the speakers. The two teams and Polies mingled, hearing about the race across. I got to speak with one of the drivers of the vehicles. He said it was a great drive until they came to an area where they needed to steer 12 hours out of their way to preserve scientific data and clean air. Upon further questioning, I discovered that he was talking about the Clean Air Sector, which is the ‘wedge’ of clean air I sample from and protect here from ARO. I thought that was hilarious. I definitely thanked him for going out of his way to keep my data clean!
We didn’t stay too long at the party – I wanted to see midnight at the geographic pole. So the ladies I arrived with and I had our obligatory photo with the awesome arctic trucks and then made our way back to the station. Back in the elevated station there was much merry-making occurring before the turn of the year. I hung out with my friends and waited for midnight.
A few minutes before midnight a large group of us ran out to the Pole. It was a little odd celebrating the new year in the middle of the night with the intense sun shining. It was an experience. We counted down the new year in front of the geographic South Pole marker and cheered when we hit midnight. Very cool! There was much kissing, hugging, and photo-taking. I must say it was strange celebrating New Year’s very much ahead of the United States
Because New Year’s was technically on a Friday, it was a work day and our party was postponed to Saturday evening. During the day on Saturday the gym was transformed to a concert venue. It was amazing – I didn’t recognize it when I walked in during the evening. It was better than a high school prom that transforms their gym. (Okay – I may be biased.) An elevated stage was set up at the far end of the gym with a full setup for the bands – a professional setup for the instruments. A professional sound system was also constructed and a killer light system. There were professional lights suspended from the ceiling (spotlights, lights projecting patterns, etc.) that really set the mood. Christmas lights were hung around the perimeter of the gym, sparkly décor, and a curtain on crepe paper that covered the door. Mike from Ice Cube created a bar that was a table suspended by two carved wooden penguins. It was amazing – I am totally commissioning him to build me a penguin table when I get back to the states! There were snacks, Mardi Gras beads, hats, and tiaras outside the gym for people to grab on their way in.
Three bands played during the evening for us: a bluegrass band, a Grateful Dead tribute band (Cold Dead Polies I think?), and a band that played rock music. As the crowd grew, the dancing started and lasted all night. Even when the bands were finished with their sets, we switched to music mixed by our awesome IT staff. That lasted well into the morning. I think I called it quits around 2:00 or 3:00am. After dancing all night and staying up late the previous night, I was exhausted. It was a great New Years!
The rest of the Summer flew by. I’m not actually sure where the time went. The highlight of the remainder of my summer was my trip to Christchurch , New Zealand
I spent the week wandering around Christchurch Christchurch
Returning to the South Pole was like going home. I was relieved to return to my routine, my work, and my friends. The next few weeks flew by even faster than those between New Years and my trip. Everyone not spending the winter had major senioritis. All we could talk about for weeks was what they were going to do in New Zealand
In the blink of an eye, the middle of February arrived. Within a week, the station went from a population of over 200 people down to 80. On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, I got to marshal in a C-130 (basically park the plane). Since it was V-Day, I waved huge hearts to bring the plane in to their correct position. I was so giddy to bring in the C-130! It made my day. It was incredible standing directly in front of the gigantic plane skiing directly at you. I watched the fuelies to take my cues and finally stopped the plane at the fuel pit. Very very cool. I was buzzing the rest of the evening from that experience!
And suddenly it was February 15th, the day of station closing! How did that happen? Two planes were scheduled to bring us a little more fuel and take away the last of the summer folks. The first plane was loaded with our galley staff and other support staff. It was difficult saying goodbye to my good friends! I was very excited for them, though. They were all so happy! When the plane departed, the turned around and did a low fly-by almost directly over us. Verrrry cool! At airshows you see the fly-bys, but this was a LARGE plane and it was LOW. Amazing! The second plane was much more difficult for me. It was my very best friends leaving. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry. Luckily I was prepared with tissues. Unfortunately at -45 F, your goggles fog and freeze very quickly when you cry! My goggles were pretty much useless. I hugged them all a million times and finally had to watch them walk over the fuel line, in front of the last C-130, and then out of sight as they boarded. It was completely surreal. Then winter-overs brought in the remaining equipment, and the plane taxied (or skied, rather) away.
We all looked at eachother and basically had the same thoughts outloud: Well, we’re stuck with eachother now! There was a lot of joking, laughing, and jumping around when the plane started its takeoff. By this time, the visibility was reduced, so we didn’t actually see them takeoff at the end of the skiway. There were a lot of cheers when we saw the plane emerge from the blowing snow on the ground and bank right. It took a while, but we finally saw them returning far on the horizon. This time, they came in low and fast and made a HUGE turn right over us! These pilots are awesome. You would never see a plane in the US
When the plane was out of sight, we all wandered back inside. At that point we had been outside almost 3 hours and were FREEZING. I went back to my room, crawled into bed and warmed up before returning to work. It was funny because seeing the planes taking all our friends away was extremely surreal, but as soon as they were gone we all jumped back into the routine. It felt very natural. Although the station was now deserted, it felt as if this was the way it was supposed to be. The summer was the exception to the rule. In a way it is. For only 4 months, there are 250 people on station. The rest of the year the population is under 50.
That night we watched ‘The Thing’ in the gym. I must say that it was an extremely stressful day, so I was exhausted. I fell asleep near the end of the movie (Kurt Russell version) – right when they were exploding everything in their station. I must have been tired! I woke up for the credits and hauled myself back to my room. The original ‘The Thing’ was played next, but there was no way I was making it through that one! Oh well – I’ll have to rent it at some time from the store this winter and finish them both! All I can say is that this station does not have a flame thrower. I think this is a huge oversight and I’m not sure how we will make it through the winter without at least one for our defense against malicious aliens.
The station has been officially closed for two weeks, but we are already into a great routine and almost settled in for winter. There has been a lot of effort put into closing the station thoroughly. We cleaned out Summer Camp, got the rooms completely ready for next season (linens and all), and winterized the Jamesways. The fuel line was pulled in from the skiway in only four hours (a record, I hear), and our maintenance folk are still working hard to winterize the outbuildings before the sun sets.
On a personal level, we are starting to set up winter non-work activities. Freija and I have started a great workout routine: in the mornings we get up at 5:30 and do Power 90. In the evenings we do yoga. We’re eventually going to work up to P90X. Its amazing how much more difficult working out is here. Combining our altitude (feels over 10,000ft) and lack of humidity, an easy workout at sea level is a killer one here! Its great! Other than working out, we have our crochet and knitting sessions (called Stitch & Bitch), Thursday Comedy TV nights with Rachel and Rob, astronomy lessons every Monday, Ladies Night monthly, and parties every weekend. My social calendar is packed. Literally.
We had our first fire drill yesterday morning. We simulated a fire in our emergency power plant (EPP). The EPP is in B-Pod, our emergency pod on station. There is a fixed CO2 system, throwing some interesting complications and solutions into the mix. With a fixed CO2 system, if the CO2 is released, you cannot enter the space where it was released for 20 minutes. This gives the CO2 a chance to completely smother the fire before it is dissipated by an open door. However, if a door is open to the CO2 space or if there is a leak in the door, CO2 is hazardous in the quantities we use. It displaces oxygen, causing someone exposed to high levels to feel woozy, drunk, and eventually pass out and suffocate. We take huge precautions with CO2 releases in our enclosed station. The 20 minutes is nice because it gives us a chance to assess the situation, turn off power and heat to the space, and prepare our firefighters for entry.
For our first drill, it went very well. There were three people ‘tagged in’ to the EPP, meaning we potentially had three victims trapped in the space. When it was ‘safe’ to enter, firefighters were sent in to look for victims and any fire that wasn’t extinguished. There was a smoke machine inside the EPP that was supposed to completely smoke out the space, but since power was cut to the pod early on in the drill, it was free and clear. Lucky for us! Muahaha. The fire did a great job making sure the fire was out (it was) and bringing out the two victims we discovered. Overall, all teams did well working together to handle the emergency. Almost half of our team was brand-new, since the summer people had left and many winter-overs hadn’t spent the summer on station. I think we are going to have a great response team this winter!
The sun is now very low on the horizon. Its just under 9 degrees above the horizon. If you take your hand, hold it out at arms length, and hold your hand out horizontally, the sun is about 4 finger-widths above the horizon. Its insane. Sunset is only three weeks away! With the sun at such a shallow angle, very little solar energy is making it to the surface to warm us up (plus the snow reflects 90% of sunlight anyway) – its getting a little chilly here! Today the temperature is -64F. With an 8 knot wind, the wind chill is -93F! I think that’s just a little colder than it is at home. Its not so bad walking outside in these temperatures. I still get overheated walking to ARO from the station. The difference now is that no skin can be exposed. I wear a balaclava, neck gaiter, hat, and goggles everytime I go outside. I also wear two sets of mittens and a pair of liner gloves. I can no longer completely remove my gloves to adjust and maintain my outside instruments. If you touch something metal, you will immediately get burned and probably leave some of your skin on that piece of metal. Everyone has to be careful about how they are dressed when they venture outdoors.
We have also all put up our flag lines that will guide us to our laboratories when it gets dark outside. Our flags out to ARO are spaced about 15 paces apart. Its important to know the distance because sometimes in the dark when the moon isn’t out, you navigate by sound. The flags flapping in the wind (its almost always windy here) are a good guide. If you know your number of steps and listen for the flags, you’re good to go. Apparently its also good to navigate by the stars. The Southern Cross constellation is right above us, spinning around itself during the day and night. If you know what direction you need to go and glance at the Southern Cross, you can maintain that direction during your walk and not get turned around. There are a lot of tricks to learn!
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