Saturday 24 December 2011

A turn for the better.

My summer project is to run ESA?s LTMS3 equipment. It?s pretty smart,
really. ESA has designed thin, solid but very unobtrusive dry sensors
that clip into a t-shirt, one below each axilla and one that presses
onto the sternum. Together they record a two lead ECG continuously,
oxygen saturations with red and infrared light reflectance,
respiratory rate with impedance through the vest?s stretching,
accelerometry, heart rate, and it can add other things if necessary.
It all gets recorded onto a neat, seemingly bombproof datalogger
that?s light enough that you can forget it?s there. ESA is looking at
it as a prototype that can be developed in two ways; one, as a sensor
incorporated into a training space suit under development in Spain,
and the other as a circadian monitor for long term monitoring of
astronauts. What we?re doing with it here is a technical analysis,
to see how well it works and how well it?s tolerated in this very
hostile ecological setting. All I have to do is ask people to wear the
gear, and bring back the recordings to Europe. Although, I do have an
idea about looking at the data for a medical study, but that?s
secondary to the project aims we?re working with here.

But the software to operate the device has....died. Progressively,
bafflingly. On two separate computers. And so slowly that I wasted a
lot of time trying to figure out why what I did three weeks ago wasn?t
working properly one week later, and not working at all the week after
that. As I started the troubleshooting process with the Swiss
designers more and more problems developed. We have no idea what has
happened to it. And the thing about malfunctioning Antarctic
equipment, as many of the newly arrived scientists will tell you at
great length, is that life is not much fun until the problem is fixed
because time to collect data is so short here, you spend your every
waking minute trying to find a solution. Finally we decided to
abandon large aspects of the software and concentrate on whether it is
at least configuring the datalogger correctly to record. So I
transmitted some very short files ? 5 minute recordings - to
Switzerland for them to look at and I got the word back the other day
that they look good. So, this week I got back to setting up the
device on volunteers, and I?ll just take the raw data files back to
Europe with me. We just have to hope that they are good, as there is
no way out here to check a full-sized file. But, we have a plan and a
hardware system that appears to be working. It?s a relief.

One of the big deals of going from winter to summer is the
communication of all that happened, teaching new people how the base
works, and integrating everyone into a team that knows the important
stuff. And another big deal is perhaps that the old dogs don?t
respect enough that things will change with the new arrivals. Andrea
was very careful with regard to my nut allergy over the winter, there
was never a danger. Both the new chefs knew about it, but I should
have respected the risks with the changes. So, anyway, two weeks ago I
managed to have two anaphylactic reactions in 48 hours. It was OK, I
was only a minute away from the drugs to stop the reactions so they
didn?t get very far. But it does mess up your immune system ? already
deranged by the hypoxia here - for a while. The very next day a new
guy was moved into my room and I found him coughing and coughing later
that day. He?d developed laryngitis and stayed quiet about it until he
was safely installed in the station. I knew I was in for a rough time.
I?ve been coughing like crazy for two weeks, in that time most
people caught it and got better. So, my approval of communal living
has dropped a few points! And trying to fix the LTMS3 software
through all this, well, life for a while there seemed to be just a bit
hard.

In November we evacuated yet another case of HAPE down to MZS. And we
had another guy a week later, febrile with a sore throat a couple of
days after arriving here. Vincenzo, the base doctor treated him with
antibiotics. But 48-72h or so after, he dropped his saturations to 78
per cent, which is lower than normal for a new arrival here, but you
certainly don?t get a drop like that from a sore throat.
Interestingly, this guy had apparently developed fluid in his lungs
after developing a throat infection, and as a result his blood oxygen
levels were dropping. How much worse could it get? There was no way to
know, it depends on several unknowable factors, like how severe his
illness was at the cellular and biochemical level, how susceptible he
was to pulmonary oedema, and how fast he was acclimatising. Anyone
could have a threshold altitude at which they?d develop oedema at, and
there is no way to know how close they are to that threshold until
they cross it and become unwell. Or how easily circulating
inflammatory signals could tip the balance. We kept him here,
observed him and he got better, the crackles in his chest resolved.
Thinking about this when I realised I was getting unwell, I thought
that there is no way to know what could happen. So, just in case, I
worked through the night to organise and pack my data, samples and
equipment so that someone else could easily arrange the transfer of
all my year?s work if I had to leave the base. I knew it was likely
to be an overreaction, and that spending several hours in the cold was
not the best idea. But I know enough about this station to know that
when you need something organised, you?d better do it yourself! Or
your work could end up languishing here for a year until the next
summer campaign, and I really didn?t want to take that chance, however
small it seemed.
Anyway, everything is going the right way now. I?m just about back to
normal and I never had to stop work, thankfully. And my winter?s work
is all boxed up and ready to go, a little earlier than necessary. It?s
very nice to have that done.

Things are going well for the summer campaign now, too. All the
delayed scientific equipment has finally arrived and the scientific
teams are busily getting on with things. In working hours the base
seems almost deserted, now everyone can get on with their research.
The big OPALE study, a multidisciplinary team following on from the
EPICA work who have brought tonnes and tonnes of machines to analyse
gasses and radicals cycling between snow and atmosphere, is finally
up and running. Several other teams have already left the base, their
projects set up and running on automatic, or with one remaining to
keep an eye on it. Unfortunately one team had to leave before all
their equipment arrived and so they left without any data, but I think
that they took a risk on an unrealistically tight schedule. They
seemed fairly philosophical about it, anyway.

As the planes come and go they bring more and more friends from last
year, which is great. Our numbers are up to 80 now. But at the same
time the DC7 crew is thinning out. The Astrolabe should have arrived
in DDU by now, and will be departing again in a couple of days taking
four of the French guys with it. Ilann and Pascal left to go to DDU a
week ago - apparently Ilann has spent the time there helping with snow
petrel surveys ? and Vivien and Eric will fly down later today, and
then they all join the ship to return to Australia. They?re all very
happy to be moving on. David has left Concordia as well, joining a
scientific traverse that is travelling further into Antarctica?s
interior to Vostok Station, making three weeks of pristine atmospheric
and snow measurements along the way. Of the DC7 wintercrew, only me,
Fred and Djamel will be left. Wow.

Anyway, today some of the guys put up our Christmas decorations, and
we?re looking forward to a couple of days? break. I hope you have a
happy holidays, folks. And please spare a thought for all the doctors,
nurses and all the others who?ll be working through it, I know I will.

Actually, I've just realised I missed the last mail exchange of the
day, and when it goes with the next exchange it'll already be
Christmas day. Bonne Noel a tous!

--
Current meteo data: Temp -33.9 Pressure 651 millibars Wind speed 2m/s
Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8

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Thursday 8 December 2011

Settling into summer

Standing with the technical crew at the refuelling rig, watching
patiently eastwards as the first plane of the day lands. This one is up
from MZS. It disappears behind the buildings of the summer camp as it
slows on the airstrip. We hear the insectile buzz of the engines rise up
to a shriek, telling us the plane has turned off and is sliding up and
over the flattish hump in the taxi-way that separates the summer camp
from the airstrip. We wait, still watching, and it reappears carefully
negotiating it's way down the taxi-way through the buildings and
equipment stacks of the summer camp towards us.

The pilot has to throttle up the engines to a roar to get the plane to
turn through 90 degrees and pull up side-on to the fuelling rig. Clouds
of snow get blown away, obscuring the summer camp completely. The twin
otter's wing sweeps past us as it turns, it's tip just four metres or so
from us. A strong smell of paraffin washes past. The co-pilot jumps out,
and once the portside propellor stops spinning he gets a cover over the
air intake to stop it freezing. We push the unloading platform to the
rear door and straight away guys are inside and a chain of people in red
and blue suits forms, passing out the smaller crates and bags to the
waiting people and vehicles. No passengers today.

These days unloading the planes are very busy times. Lots of people,
rapid work. The plane is surrounded by attendant vehicles, small and
large. Several skidoos buzz back and forth, pulling trailers stacked
with cargo away to the base and the summer camp. The chargeuse, the same
Caterpillar machine that we use to dig up our drinking water, waits
behind the plane with a trailer ready to take some big cases up to the
EPICA labs. The trailer hasn't got any wheels or skis, it just a big
metal box that gets dragged across the snow. The Merlo, a very big green
lifter fitted with a forklift drives right up to the unloading platform
by the door of the plane to pick up the up the first of several large
crates. Several of us manhandle one onto the forks and it lifts it down
to the chargeuse's trailer. The pickup is parked by the refuelling rig,
having been used as a bus to bring down guys to help with the unloading.
The PB cento, a kind of cross between a flexmobile and a kassborer is
also parked up nearby. The Pistenbully idles behind us, waiting for the
work to finish so he can pass us on the way up to the summer camp. It
seems particularly busy this time because the first raid of the campaign
arrived a couple of days ago and all their tractors, some now fitted
with cranes at their back, are parked up near the taxiway. Their work,
unloading the rows of containers and tanks they brought, paused while
the plane is here.

Thanks to the raid and recent planes, many of the scientists who arrived
in the last couple of weeks are at last getting their equipment and the
scientific work here can start in earnest. They don't just come with
sample tubes and notepads – the gear can amount to a lot of weight. One
group came up with a one tonne echosounder device that can be mounted in
a plane or on a sledge and it looks at stratification of the ice. They
detected a subglacial lake 50 kilometres from the base on a previous
visit. Another group came with an entire planeful of mass spectrometer
apparatus – I have no idea what they're looking for in the snow, but
apparently the clean areas of snow are to be kept super-clean this year.
There is a ping sound going off every 3 seconds out near the glacio
shelter that can be heard 500 metres away, apparently using sonar to
measure water vapour in the atmosphere. The summer campaign is really in
full swing now.

In retrospect, adjusting to the transition from winterover to summer
campaign took me a long while. The first gladness that others had
arrived never wore off but after about a week, it started to feel really
strained at the same time. The wintercrew having been split, there
seemed to be something that made it uncomfortable to have the wintercrew
guys around but to be working and socialising with others, or to be
working with one or two wintercrew but as part of a bigger group. I have
to admit that, such good friends as they are, in some ways it was a
relief that some of them left. Since they've gone I've at last been able
to relax into new friendships and the routine of the summer campaign. Or
maybe all that was needed was a little more time to adjust than I
expected. Or maybe again, tired as we were, the euphoria and energy of
the new arrivals was a little hard to handle and as they come back down
to Earth it's easier. I don't know, maybe none of these things, maybe
all of them. I can't quite figure it out. But after a few weird weeks
life felt settled again.

But I'm tired, worn out. And I've got tendinitis in my left shoulder and
elbow from the gym, knee pain goodness only knows where from, my legs
ache on the stairs and I'm beginning to think that my sleeping pattern
will never get back to normal. I sincerely hope this disintegration is
only temporary! Still happy though. I do like this place. Just like
working in a hospital the only currencies here are responsibilities and
priorities. There are teams working side by side and sharing expertise
whilst working toward their own diverse goals. And I find the people
that come here are particularly friendly, perhaps sharing a camaraderie
based on the feeling that it's a special place to be. People just wander
in to my lab, uninvited and just sit down and start chatting. It's such
a good change.

But strangely enough, in the last few days I have really deeply felt the
confinement of living here for the first time since I arrived, even as
the base opens up and reconnects with the outside world more and more. I
wonder if it's because we've past all but one of the important
milestones of our time here, the only thing left to look ahead to is the
departure. Or is it the press of all the new people, or perhaps their
reminders of what I've been missing? When I sat in the phone booth a few
days ago, looking forward to making my weekly phone call to M, and she
didn't have time to talk, and all the while I was sitting in this tiny
cupboard-sized room with incessant footsteps clanging down the metal
stairs that make the ceiling two feet above my head, I felt weary,
really weary. What I wouldn't give right now for some time at home, or
even just a swim, a really fresh tomato salad and the chance to walk
outside in warm sunshine without a suit on! And definitely, suddenly I'm
missing the freedom to go and do something new, to eat a meal in peace
when I want to, and escape the institutionalism.

So as station life settles in, I find after a brief interlude I'm
feeling unsettled again. For the first time, I'm really looking forward
to going back to normal life and seeing some new colour. Enough white
and blue! Great as this place is, it is demanding and working six days a
week without a break, and in such closeness to the people around, is
definitely tough. It's about six weeks until I put my feet down on solid
earth, seven and I'll be back in Australia. After a year here that's no
time at all and I'll be quite happy working away until then, but, from
now on I will be counting...

A year on the ice

It's a year ago today that we arrived in Antarctica – Me, Vivien, Ilann,
Djamel, and some of the Italians that have already left – Paolo,
Domenico, Angelo.

Antarctica was a fantastic adventure then but now, one year on, it's
been my home.

L'Ecossais that was a bit of curiosity at first, a year on one of the
veterans. I'm well known now, the many summer campaigners who I met last
year and have returned this year regard me as an old friend (Some of the
French technical guys have taken to insisting they speak Scottish, not
English!). There are DC8 crew already here, ready for the next
winterover, keen to hear what it's like. And I've been overwhelmed by
the number of the friends and colleagues volunteering to help out with
the new ESA project I've started.

It feels good to know you came, worked hard, and earned your place.

Wednesday 30 November 2011

Departures

I sit on a two metre high ridge of snow out by the `Brain? experiment.
It is a cosmology experiment, a strange looking solar powered
structure measuring cosmic background radiation, and it was built on a
platform of snow to protect it from snowdrifts. To me, though, it?s
just a handy windbreak. It?s been windy, for quite some time now and
I couldn?t put off going out with the datalogger of my new project any
more. I needed to check the battery can cope with the cold. I watch
little whirls of spindrift playing back and forth at my feet. They?re
tiny, tiny tornadoes that get stirred up by windshear along the edges
of ridges. They pick up snow, giving them a physical shape. You see
them several metres high in mountains, this little one is barely ten
centimetres, wider than it is tall, sucking up snow in the centre and
throwing it out in whirling little arms. It?s remarkably long-lived,
dancing backwards and forwards along the edge of the ridge for several
seconds before dissipating, to be replaced by another.

There?s a very strong halo in the sky, if you can look out against the
driving snow. No sundogs today ? the particularly intense bubbles of
rainbow colour that often appear at three o?clock, and nine o?clock on
halo?s ring, each with a white horizontal line radiating away form the
halo, and the arc of colour and whiteness below it at six o?clock. I
wonder what it is that makes sundogs appear. Sometimes halos have
them, sometimes they don?t. It doesn?t seem to be related to the
altitude of the sun, or the strength of the halo. It?s an interesting
little mystery.

I lean back into a cushion of very soft snow that?s fallen out of the
wind and been trapped here here by vortexes around the Brain
structure. It makes itself into a chair for me, just like snow that
had fallen from the sky back home. It?s unusual for Concordia. All I
have to do out here is just be out here, for an hour, and then I can
go back and check the datalogger continued to record. It?s a rare
opportunity to just relax outside, and reflect a little.

The Italians are leaving tomorrow, probably.

It's been a long week, failures with the new project equipment means
I've been pulling long days trying to figure out how to get it working
reliably and I?ve not had any time to spend with the guys, much to my
disappointment. Andrea Ballarini, our chef left a week ago, he was
the first to go. He really wanted off, his mind concentrated on an
upcoming busy period for his restaurants.

And now the rest of them are due to go. They were due to leave a week
ago, their work here finished, to spend a few days off at MZS before
boarding their plane back to CHC. But we've had bad weather every
morning, clearing every evening, then recurring the following day. So
every afternoon a plane is planned, every evening it's cancelled
again. They've moped around the base visibly boiling with
frustration. And as we inched closer to the 28th, and the date of
their departure from Antarctica by C-130, their frustration started to
become tinged with worry they might miss their transport off the ice
altogether. But this evening a twin otter made it up, the headwind
so hard they had to fly without passengers or cargo to make it with
enough fuel to land safely. They?re leaving tomorrow at 0530.

You?d think we?d be sad they?re going. But for one thing, the
wintercrew really drifted apart with the arrival of the summer
campaign. I?ve had my head down, working hard on thie LTMS3 project
for a couple of weeks and I?ve hardly spent any time with them. Plus,
with so many more French and Italians on the base, the wintercrew just
doesn?t spend any time together any more - each tends to stick with
their own, really just because of language barriers. And in terms of
work, The team has disintegrated and been subsumed into a larger
whole. In many ways the winterover is already forgotten, it takes an
effort to remember we were once such a tight team of colleagues,
friends, crew. It?s remarkable how fast that happened. And for
another thing, with all the visible disappointment and worry of the
last week, I suppose I?m mostly glad for them that they are going to
get off after all.

I had a chat with the pilots over dinner. They?re contracted by the
Australian program, and they were the first of our two planes that
came through on a touch-and-go refuelling on the first of November.
But the French at DDU asked the Australians for some help because of
our transport problems and I guess the Australians owe the French a
few favours because these pilots were told to `do everything you can
to help them.? And they really did a lot.

These boys have pretty much seen and done it all, I guess. One of them
had worked for sixteen years solid in the arctic, landing on floating
ice. The other was the first to make a midwinter landing in
Antarctica, in the cold and dark and with no other aircraft in
support, at the south pole in 2001 to make a medical evacuation

The Astrolabe is still 200km off the coast of Antarctica. She never
made it in to DDU. She?s been there for weeks, encased in pack ice
several metres thick and 30km all round, being pushed backwards and
forwards as the pack drifts with the wind and tides. There?s open
water all round the floe she?s stuck in. But she is completely stuck.
They first flew out to the ship to deliver the helicopter?s needed
electronic components, by flying past the ship and pushing a crate out
the side door. Getting the helicopter flying again meant that the
Astrolabe was able to offload people and cargo again. A few days later
Paolo, Augusto and I sat in the radio room listening on the HF radio
to communication between the Astrolabe and these guys about 1300km
away, as they flew out and landed on the ice beside the ship. They
took off the ship?s remaining passengers and cargo. The guys tell me
though, that if a storm doesn?t break the pack, the Astrolabe could be
stuck for another ten days, two weeks maybe. My heart sinks when I
hear that ? it?s so going to screw up my schedule, one way or another.

I got out of bed at 0430 the following day, as the plan was for the
plane to take off at 530. We waited for a weather update from another
twin otter making a trip to Midpoint It?s go. After all the waiting
and waiting, the guys were just glad to go, and we were just glad for
them.

They are all smiles and jokes as they board the plane and get into the
eight or so seats fitted into place behind the cargo.
Domenico turns round in his seat and shouts `see you next winterover?
to me and Ilann, standing at the door. I give him the appropriate
torrent of abuse in reply.

Enjoy the sun, guys, and we?ll see you in June in Cologne, I hope.


--
Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8


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Monday 14 November 2011

New?Old friends

So our first arrivals got up here yesterday. Seven technical crew,
six Italians and one French. Four of them I knew from last year,
either working with them here, or having met them in Paris before
coming. And they brought lettuce, apples and oranges with them.
Wonderful.

Straight away, the new arrivals have brought a cheerful busyness, and
as I thought would happen, all the niggles and frustrations of the
wintercrew have completely evaporated.

The base even seems sunnier! we're busy with new activity, and we?re
expecting a couple more planes tomorrow. The air even seems fresher
as more people go in and out of the station. The summer campaign is
going to get into full swing very fast from here.

Happy times.

--
Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8


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Sunday 13 November 2011

Last night of the winterover, we think.

The frustration here has been getting pretty palpable. It?s causing
lots of minor, needless aggravation between the crew. It?s now a week
since the winterover was scheduled to end, but there is no relief yet.
With our planes still stuck at Rothera, the Australians were ready to
lend us one of their twin otters. In fact Bob, our first visitor, was
going to fly back to us on Saturday to refuel and then go down to MZS
to pick up our people and bring them up today. Bad weather at Casey
scuppered that plan, and in fact the plan was abandoned. But earlier
today we got confirmation that our planes have crossed the continent
and are at McMurdo, ready to go to MZS and come up to us tomorrow.
The meteo looks good. So, we think this time it really should work.
However, there is a fair amount of scepticism amongst everyone and
there is no feeling of celebration amongst the crew. We had our ?last
winterover dinner? a few days ago, accepting the fact that, that
actual night would certainly not be the end, but we were unlikely to
get enough notice to put on a proper ?last dinner? when they did
eventually come.
So we?ll believe it when we see the plane pull up on the taxiway, and
not before.So now that it probably is the end of hte winterover, it all feels
very anticlimactic and not knowing what else to do, I wandered
outside. I thought I might try sitting outside for once to write a
blog entry (pencil and paper, of course) in the sunshine.
Polystyrene, I'd like to say, is great stuff. It?s minus 40, and I
pulled a couple of sheets out of a frozen scientific container, one
to sit on and one to prop against the leg of the base so I could lean
against it and shelter from the breeze. And it?s keeping me really
warm. It?s so nice to be able to sit in the sun for a while, even if
I do have goggles and a face mask on. The humidity is a very pleasant
60 percent out here (inside the base it?s around 7 percent and I live
with a perpetually dry mouth). It?s quiet, and comfortable.
Looking round the disc-like, sea-like horizon I can see lots
of scientific shelters from here ? Fisica, Caro, Glacio 600m away in
front of me, to the left the horizon broken by the snowdrifts that
have completely submerged the Seismo and Magnetic shelters. From this
angle they look much like a wave rolling in from the south and about
to break. To my right and about 250m away the spiderlike
Astroconcordia platforms, and then further to the right and just
behind centrale the sixteen containers adapted to be diesel fuel tanks
that have supplied our engines all year. The life blood of the
station. And us, I guess. There?s enough left to keep us going all
the way into early February, but our next delivery is due in a couple
of weeks.
The strange thing is that the base and its surroundings seem
so different in the light, and with the snow around it having been
flattened by machines, that in some ways it seems like the winterover
must have happened in a different place entirely.I wanted to sit here and reflect a bit on the winterover, but as I sit
and think I realise it?ll take a bit longer to sort it all out. One
thing is for sure, it?s been pretty straightforward when all said and
done. No mechanical problems, we?ve been safe as houses. And only
minor interpersonal problems, looking back. I think we?ve had a
particularly professionally-minded crew. And I?ve liked this kind of
work, being part of a small, very interdependent team where you have
much more varied responsibilities than one would in any normal job,
and where there?s no-one else that can do your work for you.
We?ve done our jobs, and we?ve got base ready for a busy
summer campaign. And the guys are all ready to go home; everyone has a
travel plan now. In fact the first of the crew to leave is due to be
going in a couple of days, most will be gone in three weeks.I think about the fact that in the last eleven months I?ve never
walked further than 1km away from home. In the last nine months I?ve
spoken to just  twenty-three different people.And I?m struck by a stark memory,
maybe because I?m looking at the
Astro platforms. One night, just after midwinter I think. We had
been in hard darkness for at least five weeks. Domenico needed help to
fit some heavyish equipment on a telescope mount up on one of the
Astro platforms. So Eric, Djamel and I came to help. It was about
10pm, it was a still night, the temperature somewhere between -70 and
-75 degrees C. There was a high, full moon and his device was
designed to use the moonlight to measure humidity in the atmosphere.
It was the first time in weeks I could see my footing. I dragged a
sledge with all the equipment out there, then because I was too
breathless to do more, Djamel carried the instrument up a ladder and
we got it up on the mount. There was a simple little power cable
tangle but it took three of us five or six minutes to undo it because
of the dark, the restricted vision in our masks, clumsy gloves, and
the frozen cable unwilling to unbend from its coils.Then the other three went to the shelter to install a computer and
wire up the electronics, and I wasn't needed any more so I made my way
back to the base. No longer intent on the work, it occurred to me
that this was the strongest light we?d see until the sun came back in
several weeks. So I took a walk, all the way up to the far end of the
summer camp, enjoying negotiating the deep snowdrifts I found up
there. Walking between lifeless, dark abandoned huts and tents, it
seemed so like a different world ? the almost agonisingly long
darkness, the odd surface at once crisp and soft, coloured a uniform
deep dark grey and sparkling in the moonlight, even the thin
atmosphere I breathed seeming alien.I tried to make my routine, half-hourly, radio call to the base but I
found my radio's battery had been depleted by the cold, and because I
hadn?t planned the walk I had not brought a spare. I realised I was
totally alone. Out of contact and without company, I was alone in a
way I had not been since perhaps November the year before. I was aware
it was a risk being out here without a working radio but I was
surprised to find I felt a deep, contented, sense of freedom because
of it. Of the whole winterover, it was the only time I felt really,
truly relaxed.Total silence and stillness. Even the snow wasn't making any of its
booming or cracking noises. The only sounds were my loud footsteps.
The dark snow, stretching in frozen waves as far as the eye could see,
the sky black and featureless. All starlight swamped by the light of
the moon.
And the sight, unique and fantastic, as I looked back over
the camp?s snowdrifted domes and buildings, antennae and equipment,
and over haphazard striped vehicle tracks in the snow, at bright,
white, distant Concordia. Hi-tech and robustly safe in this fierce
environment. It?s lights warm, white and orange, shining out and down
making a bright halo on the snow all around the base.I was deeply conscious I needed to be careful out here. But at the
same time one of the very few times in a lifetime I was completely
contented to be where I was. Soon, though, the cold started to spread
into my arms and legs, seeping into my suit as if it were a living
thing invading through its weak points. The escapable but fatal
threat forced me back, reluctantly, to the lights. But that was a
magical time.
It genuinely seemed like I was on another world. And I loved it.Back to now, sitting out on the foot of the base in the sun. I?ll
have to go in; my hands are starting to chill because I?m holding the
paper and pencil. My project?s finished, the winterover is finished.
Of the ninety day summer campaign, I?ll be here for seventy days of
it, waiting for my successor to arrive. I?ve got a plan to try to get
another ESA project working. But honestly, I don?t know what?ll
happen next. I?m looking forward to it, though.
The one thing I can be sure of, it?s going to be really sunny. And
I'm so looking forward to that.

--
Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8
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Saturday 12 November 2011

Weekly report

Tomorrow, my weekly scientific report is going to say simply this-

---

Project Cognipole/ESCOM (1305 Pattyn)

Project essentially completed. A few final measurements this week.

Long Term Medical Survey (Bachelard, Angerer)

final questionnaires this monday
no further routine medical examinations are planned

---


Happy days...


Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8


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Wednesday 9 November 2011

Waiting, waiting...

It?s a long time, nine months, a winterover. But definitely the
perception of the time passed varies. In the last week of a cycle of
data collection, I?m tired and it feels like it?s been forever. One
week of good sleep later and it can feel like it's been hardly any
time at all. But that?s nothing like now. BUt right now, time seems
to be passing particularly slowly, and the winterover just feels
relentless.

It?s because the summer crew are late, and we don?t know how long they
will be. And yesterday, the day the first plane was planned to
arrive, all our normal communication lines went down, and information
was very hard to get. MZS?s HF radio developed a fault and we
couldn?t speak to them. Email had been down the last 24h ?we?ve
still never figured out what it is that affects it - We knew that the
crew in Christchurch were delayed getting to Antarctica, finally in
desperation for news, Paolo phoned ENEA in Italy.

What?s happening? Are they coming soon?
Not yet.

The Twin Otters that will be working for our program are stuck at
Rothera, on the other side of Antarctica, bad weather preventing them
from getting over. They can?t even get to the Pole. The earliest
they can get to MZS and then up here is Saturday they think. The
waiting is starting to really get to some of us. For me, the thought
that maybe one day soon I might actually get something fresh to eat is
starting to get really distracting... The first of the summer
campaign personnel, on the other hand, are at MZS presumably
thoroughly enjoying it as I did last year.

The Astrolabe is not getting on much better. We hear that she?s
stuck in pack ice 200km from DDU, and she can?t get further on. And
to make matters worse, she might have to turn around and go back to
Hobart without putting in to DDU. She has a helicopter on board
that?s necessary to offload the cargo, and it?s developed a fault,
something big, something they don?t routinely carry spares for.
There?s some discussion about whether an airdrop could be arranged to
deliver the necessary parts to her where she is, out in the ice. If
not, it?s back to Hobart. Once she can get out of the pack, that is.
Fred tells me R0 (R zero, the first rotation she makes from Hobart to
DDU and back) each year is often beset with problems in the pack.
She?s not built for ice breaking, as she needs the flat hull for
manoevering in the islands and icebergs at DDU. So when the pack ice
is thick there?s nothing to do but wait. Storms are handy ? the waves
break up the ice and then with the helicopter to guide the vessel,
she can find a way through the fragments. No luck this time, it seems.

I have to admit thought in terms of my work here things couldn't be
going better. The delay means I'll get all the crew through the
final cycle of testing before the winterover ends, and make good on
all the delays we had at the start of the winterover. And we could
get our first plane on the day I finish the project. Funny how things
work out...

--
Concordia station
75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E Local time UTC + 8


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Thursday 3 November 2011

The end of our isolation

Two Twin Otter planes made the trip from the Pole, in the end. Laden
with equipment and headed for the Australian Casey station, they crossed
Antarctica entirely, having made the long journey down from Canada,
stopping at Rothera to swap wheels for skis and then crossed the whole
continent from West to East, stopping first at the Pole then briefly
with us, on their way to the opposite coast and Casey station.

It was wonderful to hear for the first time a distant burr of the plane
on approach. It was such a familiar, but forgotten sound. And it meant
so, so much - a feeling of connection to the rest of the world at last.
I wasn't at the base for the arrival of the first plane and I didn't
meet that crew but I was back in time, twenty minutes later, when Bob
and Perry landed in the second plane. It was -45 degrees, right on the
minimum temperature to start a twin otter's engines, so neither plane
switched off fully. In fact Bob turned circles on the taxiway for ten
minutes waiting for the first plane to finish refuelling and clear the
station, keeping the engine temperature up.

The first twin otter taxied off just as I got back. Bob pulled up to
refuel and he and Perry jumped out of the plane and started hugging
anyone near them. It was a really nice gesture. I mean, it's nothing to
them to arrive here, this is just one more stop on their journey. But
they know how much of a big thing it is for us to see them. They took
twenty minutes to refuel, the pilots hanging around chatting to us as
Fred, Alessandro and Vivien ran the refuelling rig. Then when the
process was done, they took a packed lunchbag from Andrea chef and got
moving straight away.

I had walked up to the summer camp, lining up to take a picture of them
taxiing away. They taxied past me on their way to the airstrip, and I
gave a wave goodbye. And two minutes later I was standing right in the
open, in the middle of the main strip there when the distant plane took
off heading north, angling steeply up and then it looped back, dropped
right down and came low heading straight for us, to buzz the base.

It was a fantastic sight. The plane flew right over my head, seemingly
just above mast height, massive vapour trails pouring off the engines
and, I was wooping at the top of my voice and punching the air as they
zoomed right over me, past the base and headed toward the horizon. They
were completely gone in just a few moments, fat trails lingering in the
air behind them.

So that's it folks. It was a very brief meeting, but it means everything.
We're open for business.

To all the summer crew people on their way to us - whether right now
you're waiting at DDU watching icebergs drift by, or you're on
L'Astrolabe as it negotiates it's way through pack ice, or still in
Christchurch enjoying the summer sun, or just arrived to help open MZS,
in Hobart overseeing logistics, at McMurdo just killing time, on a 747
en route from Europe, or still at home preparing - we're looking forward
to seeing you all real soon.

Pictures below -

Midnight, 21^st October
The last sunset of 2011 31^st October.
The first plane arriving on the 2^nd of November

Saturday 29 October 2011

Abuzz

Well, it had to happen.
The summer campaign shenanigans have started, even before our
winterover is over!

Today we got the message that there is an Australian plane over at the
South Pole ? the US Amundsen-Scott base ? wanting to get to Casey
base, and they will need a refuelling stop. On Monday. Maybe. Or maybe
not. Maybe later in the week. Maybe. (laughs - it's all too familiar
now)

Yep, it?s us. We thought we had another week to steadily do all the
work to get the airstrip and fuelling station ready. It turns out
that in fact we?ve got today and Sunday.

So Fred and Alessandro spent most of the day dragging out and speedily
overhauling the fuel pump, to finish putting the refuelling station
together, while I got a crew together and we hauled up to the airstrip
and spent the whole afternoon digging out the runway markers from the
snowdrifts they inevitably catch through the winter. Helpfully, the
Kassborer decided today would be the day to develop a fault and David
and Vivien spent the day fixing it. Which thankfully they did, so
tomorrow they can flatten the airstrip.

We?re all really quite wrecked, but we?re all set. And looking forward
to maybe our first visitors for a while, now. There had better be
some fresh tomatoes on that plane. They owe us...


--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Local time UTC + 8


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Tuesday 25 October 2011

Thirteen days to go.

You?ve no idea how beautiful a stack of beaten up, grey aviation fuel
drums can look.

Today David finished grooming the strip between the base and the
summer camp and then he and Vivien started putting together the
aircraft refuelling station by stacking about sixty barrels out near
the base. It promises that the arrival of firm friends and new faces
is very, very close. Thirteen days, barring delays, to the first
plane. And last night Domenico and I, who?ve toasted each milestone
through the winterover, raised a glass to the last 5 per cent of our
winterover. Elsewhere, we know that the Astrolabe has already
departed Hobart and after a brief stop at MacQuarie Island will be
putting in to DDU in a few days, to end their winterover. She is
carrying the first fifty people of the new summer campaign. The team
to open MZS are assembling in Christchurch, New Zealand, from where
they will fly to McMurdo and then go by helicopter to the base. Their
radio is due to come on, on October 31st. The flood of Antarctica?s
migratory people is beginning to arrive for the summer.

The bulk our preparation has been finished. The base has been cleaned
and is looking very new, and we are hard at work digging out the tents
and metal buildings of the summer camp from almost a year's
accumulated snowdrifts. We each are taking turns, fitting the work
around our regular hours. I have to say it does make a big
difference. A couple of months ago the camp looked truly abandoned,
and I realise that it kind of made me feel the same way. Now, the camp
looks tidy and renewed, and with it the future is looking more
optimistic. It's really good to be out in the sun. For me, an
outdoors person who has been inside so much of the last nine months,
it feels great to get out and do some simple work.

It?s getting warmer and warmer and for a brief time, the temperature
is noticeably oscillating between day and night. Through the day it
generally gets up to minus 45. Bliss. Windows are open all over the
base, giving that fresh, spring feeling. And the other day, looking
out from the glacio lab?s window, I put my hand up to shield my eyes
from the high sun, and felt my palm warm from its rays ? a forgotten
and very welcome sensation.

Evenings are a magical time just now. We are only six days away from
our last Antarctic sunset of 2011. Night is already a thing firmly of
the past. We have good strong daylight twenty four hours a day. And
the evening sky is the most colourful I have ever seen, with rainbow
like colours right round the horizon and reaching high up into the
sky. To the south at mid ?night?, when the sun swings down like a
pendulum and just dips a few degrees below the horizon, we see a sunny
glow and, above blue snow, flanking either side soft versions of all
the colours of the rainbow, from orange on the horizon reaching up to
a pale blue sky. But the graduation of rainbow colours also occurs
horizontally as you look round the horizon, from the orange through
reds, purples and into blue in the north.
And there, where the blue colour develops on the horizon, a shallow
rainbow of reds and purples arcs over the base. Below the arc, deep,
deep blue sky on the contrasts with brilliant white snow, above the
arc the sky is very pale blue. And as the sun sinks lower below the
horizon that red arc lifts up into the sky, at a rate that you can
almost see it rise up - like you can be almost aware of the hands of a
clock move - and the deep blue band below it thickens. I suppose
it's a transient thing that'll be gone in just a few days time as the
sun gets higher, but it's such a fabulous sight that, after all, I'm
not sorry that the night sky is gone.

Change is happening at last, and quicker and quicker. Outside, inside,
all around us. And it feels really good, now. Come on that plane, you
can't come soon enough.

You know, I can not believe that it was only fifty-five weeks ago that
I met these guys for the first time ? the beginning of October 2010.
Feels like we've been together for a lifetime.

--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E

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Monday 10 October 2011

Reaching out

Now we've passed the equinox, our days are longer than yours. Unless
you are one of the 70 or so people of this planet closer to the
geographic south pole than we are. True darkness is gone already,
and with it the awesome sights of the night sky. In all sorts of ways
Concordia is coming out of her hibernation, and for us crew
individually, we're already feeling a big change. Now we are looking
to the near future when the first people of the summer campaign
arrive, and our departures soon after. Most of the crew have already
been given departure dates.

November 7th-12th. The specific date changes as ENEA finalises it?s
plans, but at least we know now the first plane is going to land in
the second week of November. Most are saying that the end of the
winterover is in sight but to me it feels as if a new chapter began,
so quietly that no-one noticed, perhaps a couple of weeks ago when
the first departure dates came through. The days are so much warmer
too ? generally around -50C which, with the suits we have, is
comfortable. It's so much easier to go out, you can see normally.
Sunlight illuminates our mealtimes. Life feels much less constrained.
To me, the winterover feels already over.

The astronomers have mostly given up their work as the light is
interfering with their instruments at night. So they are now up and
having all their meals with us, and there are no empty seats at the
table. Everyone's sleep is back to normal and some of the guys look
ten years younger. Everyone is visibly happier, and the crew really
feels back together again, although it never actually felt at any time
before like it had been pulled apart. Strange.
The researchers I?ve been working for are already looking ahead to
next year?s experiments and I?ve been helping a bit with planning
them. I've been in touch with the guy who'll be the ESA doctor next
year quite a bit ? he's British too. His travel to Concordia has
been delayed and it looks like he?ll be out at the beginning of
January. I've agreed to stay on the base until he gets here so I can
show him the ropes. Looking at last year's schedule of the ship?s
rotations it looks like I?ll be getting into Australia around the 1st
of February. Family is a bit disappointed but hey, I have to admit
I?m not surprised at all and ? thank God - neither is my very
forgiving fiancee. I've worked out how to make use of the summer
campaign, hopefully, with another ESA project I wasn?t able to run
through the winter as we had hoped. I'm really looking forward to a
change of routine.

Paolo and Djamel have been working on getting some souvenirs made for
us ? tshirts, postcards, that sort of thing. Paolo asked me to call
the makers in New Zealand to clear up a few things. And aside from
the crew, my fiancée and family, this guy was the first person I'd
spoken to since February. I have to admit it was slightly weird. But
afterwards, it felt good to be reconnecting with the normal world. A
couple of days later I called a shop in the highlands to order some
bits for my camera. The real world is definitely still out there!
And by chance a couple of weeks ago too, Andrea doc, with not much to
do while keeping the radio watch, managed to find a Radio Australia
signal on our UHF. It?s a terrible signal but for occasional, random
stretches it?s pretty clear. So occasionally I tune in to see if the
signal is good. And it's really great to be able to listen to
something new, something current. The first thing I listened to
turned out to be on the international week of the forest, - which I
thought was pretty funny given I?m on the continent without a single
tree.

I've been thinking about the fact that we are more relaxed, and still
a bit more snappy and quick to argument that before, and I've been
trying to work out why. At first I though it's just tiredness,
working six days a week with not much to do to relax is hard work, for
sure. Or maybe it's just being fed up with being here. But I'm
beginning to think that it's actually to do with the fact that the
winterover is ending. Life has been challenging and forced us
together in a way that?s not so necessary now. And too, life has been
very simple. When you think that we've not driven, shopped, paid a
bill, been diverted by a telephone call, no unexpected visitors, no
partners to accommodate, we've got such a complete set of highly
competent crew here every problem could be fixed without any fuss or
cost, and the people we live with are all experiencing the same
challenges. And having a social life was just a matter of turning up
for a meal. But looking ahead to leaving, we're facing complexity
again and perhaps that's not very comfortable. And perhaps we're
beginning to assert our individuality that we had subsumed for the
sake of cohesion, and that comes with a loss of tolerance. In other
words, it?s because we're not concentrated on now any more, but
distracted by the future.

Too, the longer you are away from home the more problems can
accumulate and sadly, a couple of the guys are going to go home to big
changes or big problems. For me and for others though, our big
changes are great. Thanks to his time here, Ilann has made contacts
in the US and is looking to arrange an internship in ocean chemistry
in San Diego in the US. And me, I've been offered a PhD by the group
in Brussels I've been collecting data for. Andrea doc's plans for
travelling through Asia are nothing short of remarkable, and at the
end he'll arrive home to a new house in his beloved Bari that his
family have helped him buy.

But for all that we are looking forwards and outwards, and renewing
connections with normal civilisation, it means that our talk is of
endings. Ending of the isolation, ending of darkness, ending of our
experiments, being relieved by our successors, Dates for leaving the
base. We're putting the base back the way it was in the summer
campaign. New arrivals are coming with what will be inevitably
disruption of a rhythm I doubt we can fully recognise until it's gone.
We've gone through such changes ? personal as well as the
environmental. Found ways to work with people we never would in our
previous worlds, and probably gone through some big personality
changes to do so. I'm starting to think about going back to
civilisation with just a little trepidation, as I wonder if old
relationships might have to change too now to accommodate a change in
me, and that could be difficult. Actually, it could be very difficult.

Hey, it's a long way off yet, Eoin. Keep your head down, don't lose focus.

--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Local time UTC + 8


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Fun Run

Fun run


This weekend I organised a 'fun run', to support the Linda Norgrove
Foundation ? she was an old university friend of mine killed in
Afghanistan a year ago, and her family and friends have set up a
charity in her memory. They held a run in Scotland this weekend and
we did a one here to support it. I just asked the guys, and they all
readily agreed. It's wonderful to discover you've got friends who'll
do that. Only in Scotland they're running 10k and we're running
500metres. But I promise you, it was tough enough. I tried it a
couple of weeks ago and it was my limit, I thought my chest would
explode.

Running here is a bit of a challenge ? our blood oxygen is pretty low
? around Hb saturations of 89-91% and that generally drops to 81-82%
on maximal effort. And the air is so cold and dry ? around minus 50
degrees centigrade just now - it?s is tough on the throat and chest
to breathe hard. And the snow is very soft underfoot, very hard going
to run in.

Many of us have been training together in the gym for months, and this
was our only time to go head to head ? there was certain to be some
pretty earnest competitiveness. Although I?ve put everyone through
some hard exercise inside, I had no certain idea what would happen
when we raced outside. So, we played it safe. There is just no
physical way you could run 10k here. The best thing would be to do a
short, fast race. That way we stay close to the base, and we stay
within sight of everybody else the whole way through. I got out a GPS
and wandered round the station looking for a good course, and I found
it?s 250 metres from the base up to the summer camp. Perfect. Run up,
round a St Andrews flag I planted up there and back to the start line.

So that was the plan, but I wondered how on earth could I persuade
anyone to do this. But it turned out that I didn?t need any
persuasion ? I asked, and everyone agreed. I was pretty amazed, and
really glad, to discover that everyone in our frequently fractious
crew was so ready to turn out, just because I asked them to. Of
course I played it a bit smart. I know well who would like to run,
who would be willing to run, and who would definitely not. So I
approached those guys and straight off asked them to help me run it ?
safety guy, photographer, filmer, race starter/timer. Everyone was
doing something they were happy to do. So we had ten runners and four
support. You know, I think it might be the first time of the whole
year that all fourteen of us were outside joining in something
together. Ilann won it by a long way as we knew he would, so I had
to have a second prize for everyone to race for, which Alessandro won.
Remarkably, I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

It turns out that the charity got people running on every continent.
So, although we didn?t directly raise any money I think we helped the
charity make a bit of publicity. I think they?re going to put up some
photos and video clips we sent them on their website, if you?re
interested. You never saw people so exhausted after taking 2 and a
half minutes to run 500metres.

--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Local time UTC + 8


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Friday 7 October 2011

Reaching out

Now we've passed the equinox, our days are longer than yours again,
unless you are one of the 70 or so people on this planet closer to the
geographic south pole than we are. True darkness is gone already, and
with that we've lost the awesome sights of the night sky. In all sorts
of ways Concordia is beginning to rouse from her hibernation, and for us
crew individually, we're already feeling a big change. Now we are
looking to the near future when the first people of the summer campaign
arrive, and our departures soon after. Most of the crew have already
been given departure dates.

November 7^th -12^th. The specific date changes as ENEA finalises it's
plans, but at least we know now the first plane is going to land in the
second week of November. Most are saying that the end of the winterover
is in sight but to me it feels as if a new chapter began, so quietly
that no-one noticed, perhaps a couple of weeks ago when the first
departure dates came through. The days are so much warmer too –
generally around -50C which, with the suits we have, is comfortable.
It's so much easier to go out, you can see normally. Sunlight
illuminates our mealtimes. Life feels much less constrained. To me, the
winterover feels already over.

The astronomers have mostly given up their work as the light is
interfering with their instruments at night. So they are now up and
having all their meals with us, and there are no empty seats at the
table. The technical crew are able to work properly outside at last, and
David with the chargeuse particularly is busy moving containers around,
starting up other heavy machines that were mothballed through the cold
months, like the bulldozer, and digging out the larger snowdrifts.
Everyone's sleep is back to normal and some of the guys look ten years
younger. Everyone is visibly happier, and the crew really feels back
together again, even though it never actually felt at any time before
like it had been pulled apart. Strange.

The researchers I've been working for are already looking ahead to next
year's experiments and I've been helping a bit with planning them. I've
been in touch with the guy who'll be the ESA doctor next year quite a
bit – he's British too. His travel to Concordia has been delayed and it
looks like he'll be out at the beginning of January. I've agreed to stay
on the base until he gets here so I can show him the ropes. Looking at
last year's schedule of the ship's rotations it looks like I'll be
getting into Australia around the very end of January. I've worked out
how to make use of the summer campaign, hopefully, with another ESA
project I wasn't able to run through the winter as we had hoped. I'm
really looking forward to a change of routine.

Paolo and Djamel have been working on getting some souvenirs made for us
– tshirts, postcards, that sort of thing. Paolo asked me to call the
makers in New Zealand to clear up a few things. Aside from the crew, my
fiancée and family, this guy was the first person I'd spoken to since
February. I have to admit it was slightly weird. But afterwards, it felt
good to be reconnecting with the normal world. A couple of days later I
called a shop in the highlands to order some bits for my camera. The
real world is definitely still out there! And by chance a couple of
weeks ago too, Andrea doc, with not much to do while keeping the radio
watch, managed to find a Radio Australia signal on our UHF. It's a
terrible signal but for occasional, random stretches it's pretty clear.
So occasionally I tune in to see if the signal is good. And it's really
great to be able to listen to something new, something current. The
first thing I listened to turned out to be on the international week of
the forest, - which I thought was pretty funny given I'm on the
continent without a single tree.

I've been thinking about the fact that we are more relaxed, and still a
bit more snappy and quick to argument that before, and I've been trying
to work out why. At first I though it's just tiredness, working six days
a week with not much to do to relax is hard work, for sure. Or maybe
it's just being fed up with being here. Or, maybe it's because we know
each other well now, and trust enough that it's OK to relax and let
loose the temper a little and it won't cause any lasting harm. But I'm
beginning to think that it's actually to do with the fact that the
winterover is ending. Life has been challenging and forced us together
in a way that's not so necessary now. And on the other hand, life has
been very simple up until now, and it's getting less so. Consider that
we've not driven anywhere, or walked through a crowd, or shopped, paid a
bill, been diverted by a telephone call, had no unexpected visitors, no
partners to accommodate, we have all the peace and quiet you could wish
for, and with only fourteen of us on the base we've had plenty space and
privacy. we've got such a complete mix of highly competent crew here
that all problems could be fixed without any fuss or cost, and the
people we live with are all experiencing the same challenges, and have
been fairly mutually supportive. And having a social life was just a
matter of turning up for a meal. But looking ahead to leaving, we're
facing complexity again and perhaps that's not very comfortable. Perhaps
already conflicting pulls are beginning to place a little stress on each
one of us. And perhaps we're beginning to assert our individuality that
we had subsumed for the sake of cohesion, and that comes with a loss of
tolerance. In other words, it's because we're not concentrated on now
any more, but distracted by the future, and what's happening beyond our
six-mile-radius disc.

Too, the longer you are away from home the more problems can accumulate
and sadly, a couple of the guys are going to go home to big changes or
big problems. For me and for others though, our big changes are great.
Thanks to his time here, Ilann has made contacts in the US and is
looking to arrange an internship in ocean chemistry in San Diego in the
US. And me, I've been offered a PhD by the Belgian group I've been
collecting data for, and I'll be heading to Brussels for a couple of
years. Quite how M and I are going to make that work I don't know yet
but we'll find a way. Andrea doc's plans for travelling through Asia are
nothing short of remarkable, and at the end he'll arrive home to a new
house in his beloved Bari that his family have helped him buy.

But for all that we are looking forwards and outwards, and renewing
connections with normal civilisation, it means that our talk is of
endings. Ending of the isolation, ending of darkness, ending of our
experiments, being relieved by our successors, Dates for leaving the
base. We're putting the base back the way it was in the summer campaign.
New arrivals are coming with what will be inevitably disruption of a
rhythm I doubt we can fully recognise until it's gone. We've gone
through such changes – personal as well as the environmental. Found ways
to work with people we never would in our previous worlds, and probably
gone through some big personality changes to do so. I'm starting to
think about going back to civilisation with just a little trepidation,
as I realise that old relationships might have to change too now to
accommodate a change in me, and that could be difficult. Actually, it
could be very difficult.

Hey, it's a long way off yet, Eoin. Keep your head down, don't lose focus.

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Captions

For the photos posted below. In order.


Me. ESA research MD and leader of the rescue team.
Training with the rescue team. A,B,C,D out here is more along the
lines of:- Airway (+/- C-spine) , Bleeding, get out of the Cold, Do
everything else once we?re all safely inside.
Analysing the quality of ESA?s recycled water system
Setting up an EEG cap during an ESA experiment
Outside, a bit askew after work on the American Tower
Rescue exercise in -75 degrees, simulated fall from height
Sampling the recycling system

Angelo. Meteo scientist and GPS mapping specialist.
Outside the Caro scientific shelter which he has to dig out after
every storm too.
Inside Caro, solving communication problems between the base and the shelter
Preparing a radiosonde ? a GPS locator, temperature and humidity
sensor which gets attached to a balloon and flown up to 15km high,
measuring temperature, humidity, and windspeed all the way up
Launching a helium balloon with radiosonde attached
Cleaning snow off a radiation sensor

Alessandro. Electrotechnician.
Doing some woodworking in the workshop
Waving in one of the last Baslers of the 2010/2011 summer campaign
Installation work on one of our three main engines
Roped access work during the transfer of a year?s food into storage
inside the base through a hatch on the middle level

Ilann. Chemistry student.
Repairing an anemometer (wind speed)
Cleaning all the meteorological instruments on the American Tower
On the American Tower
Collecting snow samples
Analysing the samples back in the base

David. Mechanic.
How much water do 14 people consume in 9 months? ? the size of the
hole the chargeuse is in gives some idea
Dumping snow into the fondoir
David inside the Chargeuse
Practising techniques as part of the rescue team
In the workshop

Djamel. Astronomer.
Inside the dome that protects the ASTEP ( Antarctic search for
Extraterrestrial planets) telescope
Outside it
Monitoring results back at the base ? they have several candidate
stars which now only need replication by another telescope for
confirmation
The cylindrical hut serving Astroconcordia, the site where all the
French astronomical instruments have been installed

Pascal. Electronic and instrument engineer with CNRS.
Seismological gear
Walking to one of the many scientific shelters around Concordia
Measuring the local magnetic field. Please don?t ask me how.
The Fisica shelter, new, and will never need dug out!
Looking at ozone data.

Fred. Chief engineer/technical manager.
Maintaining one of the three marine engines that are our main power supply
Testing the failover to an emergency engine
Refuelling a Basler (DC3)
Running our emergency generator
Outside
The BTDC office (Bureau Technical Dome C)

Andrea Ballarini (?Balla?). Our chef.
The huge Easter egg he made ? it lasted weeks and weeks
Ice cream maestro
At work in the kitchen
Bringing in some chicken from the freezer (i.e. a container outside)
Refilling air tanks during a fire exercise

Andrea Cesana (?Doc?). Station doctor.
In the Brain shelter downloading cosmological data
In the operating room
Getting ready to go outside last summer
During a medical exercise ? mock appendicectomy
Keeping radio watch

Eric. Astronomer.
On one of the telescope platforms at Astroconcordia
By the telescope on the platform
Inside the Astroconcordia shelter
Two more telescopes nearby

Paolo. IT/communications specialist.
Working on the parabolic antenna, that hopefully soon will give us
continuous internet access via satellite
Trying to pick up a wifi signal serving a remote sensor
Conducting a teleconference
On a digging team for a remote seismic sensor. Tea break is tea break,
even in Antarctica
In the radio room

Vivien. Plumbing and heating specialist.
Monitoring the temperature though the base
Working on the Grey Water Treatment Unit
Emptying the large exterior water tank
Outside centrale
Part of the aircraft refuelling team
First surgical assistant, his role in case of a surgical emergency

Domenico. Cosmologist.
Starting up IRAIT, a large telescope, for the first time during a winter.
Outside the base
In a heated tent out by the Italian astronomical experiments ? heated
to -20 degrees.
Taking daily snow samples for some glaciology experiments, noon,
around midwinter
Operating a hygrometer, ground work for plans to install a large
telescope in the future


--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Satellite uploads at: 02.30, 09.00 and 14.00 UTC
Local time UTC + 8


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Sunday 18 September 2011

Springtime in Antarctica.

I have to admit the last four or five weeks have seriously dragged.
After we passed the landmark of our first sunrise nothing really
changed much, and there seemed to be nothing much to look forward to
anywhere in the near future. We?re tired and the adventure certainly
had lost its gloss temporarily. You could see fatigue heavily creasing
most of the crew's faces. The sun rose yes, but for the first couple
of weeks not really enough to make a difference and, looking back, I
was disappointed and frustrated at how slowly the light came back.
You would look out the window at around twelve o'clock and see a
sliver of the sun above the horizon getting slightly larger day by
day, but it was still only about two weeks ago that for the first time
we could leave the lights off at midday and still be able to see
comfortably.
Everyone kept working hard, but for sure enthusiasm was low, for
everyone I would say. For me, I put off a lot of organisational
matters, and for things like writing to this blog, I tried many times
to start writing something but could never finish it. Still, really,
even now that things are much better I?m still struggling a bit. I?m
tired, really tired right now.
So, rather than try to rewrite all those bits and pieces into one huge
meandering essay, what I?ve done is cut out and collate some of the
things I tried to write over the last month. In reverse order, like
the rest of the blog.

Loss of the sublime 16th September
The sun is getting higher and higher and when it sets, it sinks less
and less below the horizon. It will go from being totally absent, to
present 24 hours a day in just twelve weeks. And it's now five weeks
since its first sunrise. Already there's now a faint glow of
residual light in the south almost all the night, and only about an
hour of total darkness, and returning a couple of hours later. In
ten days time at it?s lowest the sun will be less than twelve degrees
below the horizon all through the night and it will send light round
to us all through the night, obscuring the starlight.
So, what all this means is that in a few days time there will be so
much light in the night sky that we will no longer have such a clear
and crisp view of the centre of the milky way, and it will rapidly
fade altogether as the sun becomes ascendant.
It's been an awesome sight. Never before have I appreciated depth, in
the sense of distance, in the night sky. Here, you can see a 'middle
ground' of bands of black interstellar clouds, and behind them the hub
of the milky way they partly obscure, and all on the 'background' of
stars that are in fact other galaxies. I have spent hours and hours
outside at night to admire this sight. I could never have imagined
seeing such a thing and even aside from everything else that has made
coming to Concordia an amazing year, being able to see our galaxy so
clearly and have a totally unexpected perspective on our place in the
universe has been easily worth spending a year here. I'm so sad it
will begin to fade now.
I had the good fortune to be on nights with the astronomers again ,
when last night Pascal radioed in to say he was outside and was seeing
an aurora. We got outside to see it. It was small and indistinct,
and faded quickly, and I doubt we?ll see another.

It was a fairly warm night and the sky was very clear, so I thought
I?d take some pictures. I went to get my camera, only to meet Vivien
and David, who were heading out to the swimming pool.
The fondoir is the big heated tank that snow is dumped into to melt
into water for our consumption. It's been built out of a container,
and is a few metres long by about a meter and a quarter deep, with a
liftable roof. Every month or two it gets emptied and cleaned, and
that means we can use it as a 'swimming pool' for a couple of days
before. Fred announced he?d be opening it this weekend. So these
guys went out to use it, and of course switched on the strong
exterior base lights. So that was it for my night sky photography.
Nothing else to do but put my camera away and go join them in the
pool. It was midnight, -50C and the water was about +25 C. After a
short while all our hair was white from frozen steam. All very
civilised, until you have to get out. Our shoes, left at the side of
the pool were frozen solid, so we soaked them in the water for a
minute to soften them. And then you get out, and leg it pronto to the
heated tent beside the tank.

Toast 15th September
I'm on nights with Eric, Djamel and Domenico again. And I work out
that today we're 80% of the way through the winterover. Domenico and
I have toasted each of these milestones with a glass of grappa, and
it?s the same tonight. We?re getting there. Cheers folks!

Not Such Fun Run 12th September
I ran outside for the first time in a long time today. 250 metres, to
a point I fixed by GPS, and back. And I only just made it.
I had heard that Linda Norgrove's foundation is organising a fun run
in October and I thought we could try something here in support. I?m
hoping to persuade most of the crew to do it, and I?ve got some takers
already. I've been waiting for a warming event to get out and try,
to see how feasible it is. And when I got up today and found there
were clouds across the horizon, today was definitely the day. So, to
see just how far we can run at 3200 metres above sea level with an
atmospheric pressure of 650 millibars in soft snow at -55C, I and
Andrea Ballarini tried to run 500 metres. And we made it, just.
Absolutely fighting for breath at the end of it. I think that was
pretty much my limit.
But, it was great to exercise outside, and I felt pretty euphoric for
a couple of hours afterwards. Probably just hypoxia but hey, it still
feels good...

10th September
Our days are long, sunny and about ten degrees warmer generally. And
it feels great. Today I had a lateish breakfast and sunlight blazed
in the window. We opened a window and let a little fresh air in,
even. In addition to the warmer air, if you get outside and the
sunlight does add a bit of warmth. In the suits that we have here, it
feels very comfortable, now And the effect that has on your feeling
of health is remarkable.
Just one month after the first sunrise, the length of the days now
feel like springtime. As the day goes from fully night to fully
circumpolar sun in just twelve weeks, it means that the dawn is about
eight minutes earlier every day and the sunset about eight minutes
later. In another three weeks time it will be getting warm enough
that if we needed one, it should be possible to land a plane, and it
will be quite comforting to have that back-up back again.
But as the feeling of springtime is really strong, thanks to the
lengthening days, now the stillness and lifelessness of Dome C seems
more striking. The only movement you can see outside is the steam
from the engines, and its shadow on the snow. And whilst that seemed
normal in the wintertime, now I really miss seeing and hearing living
things out and about, particularly birds.
Elsewhere in Antarctica, McMurdo station has already had its first
planes of the year arrive, and in contrast Amundsen-Scott base at the
South Pole has yet to see the sun. I suppose it will be at the
equinox it makes its first appearance. Mario Zuchelli will open up in
early October.
The last month has been long and slow, and I think everyone felt it.
It?s now seven months we?ve been isolated, we?ve seen and done
everything there is to see and do, the work and company doesn?t
change. Only the amount of light in the sky is the only thing changing
and at last boredom is beginning to set in. I brought a John Muir
Trust diary with me, with photographs mostly of Scotland. Turning the
page to a new week and new picture is becoming something of an
important event for me now, which struck me today as a bit of sign...
Life with the crew is slightly strange in that, one the one hand, I
think people are feeling good that the sun is up and we are marching
quickly toward the summer campaign, which will bring a change of pace
and duties. It?s easier to get outside as it?s warm in our suits now
and work is easier as you can see. Radio batteries last longer, hands
don?t freeze so badly or so quickly when you handle things. Sleep is
back to normal for everyone. So on the whole everyone is more
relaxed, also too as we speak each others? languages better. The mood
is definitely brighter. But on the other hand I think that
everyone?s nerves ? without exception ? are a little worn, by the
isolation and close proximity, and the prolongued tiredness. Minor
issues seem to be able to flare into arguments more easily than
perhaps they did at the beginning of the winterover. But, still not a
single major conflict, DC7 has been a good crew it seems.
The politics of the vaiselle are a little telling. When it?s your
turn to wash up the day?s dishes, people come and help. But, recently
when it?s a French guy on the rota, other French will come to help,
and when it?s an Italian, it?s Italians who help. Subtle, but
noticeable separations seem to be evident in other situations too,
like at the dinner table, and on a Saturday night the French and the
Italians are in differenct places. Inevitable I suppose, and it
doesn?t imply that they?re not getting along. It?s just that it does
get tiring speaking other language, and it?s preferable to stick with
your own people. Fortunately I still get help from everyone when it?s
my turn to wash up, and in general I definitely get made to feel an
honorary member of both nationalities.

Frozen ocean September 5th
This afternoon Fred started up the emergency engine and switched over
the power to check that our emergency generator and its lines are all
working properly. He does it a few times in the year, switching over
just for a few hours. He does the same with the summer camp engines as
it is our safe retreat should disaster strike and we lose the base.
The emergency generator is housed in the noisy building rather than in
the separate centrale building, and walking past it, roaring away, on
my way to the grey water treatment unit there is the faintly sweet
smell of a well kept marine engine and it prompts memories of various
boats and ships I?ve been on, from little sailing yachts that were
little more than caravans with a mast, to the engine room of HMS
Invincible. And again I?m struck by how much our base is essentially
a ship on legs. Totally self suffient, alone, insulated against a
hostile environment. I could go on.
I?ve been thinking about that before today, because when you look out
the window at the snow, it often looks like the sea. The sun at
midday now casts strong shadows from sastrugi on the snow, long thin
and parallel to the horizon, and they really look like waves. And
adding to the appearance, the precipitous temeprature inversions we
get at the level of the snow causes very strong, rippling air
turbulence, like you get over a road on a hot day. It seems to give
movement to the snow surface and some days it really, really looks
like a calm, glistening ocean.
The memory thing is interesting. Throughout the winterover I?ve been
remembering the most random things, without any apparent precipitant.
It?s obvious it occurs because there is a kind of sensory deprivation
here, as nothing changes and nothing new arrives. So it?s not a
derangement of memory, just the natural outcome of understimulation.
It?s not distressing but it can be very distracting. They are very
specific, and utterly random. One day, for example, whilst clipping
solid ECG electrodes to a t shirt I get suddenly hit by a memory of a
quiet high street of a village, that I don?t even know, just off the
A9 when I once pulled off looking for fuel and took a wrong turn.
Other times memories have popped up of walking out of the entrance to
the anatomy department practical labs in Cambridge, the road to
Braehead shopping centre Glasgow, going down the steps into Waverly
station, waiting on a deserted platform at Perth station one night,
cycling through Bury St Edmunds. Standing in Kirkcaldy Hospital's
lift. It?s odd, occurring daily and inexplicable. And why the
association with making journeys?
The appearance of the sea is probably a similar phenomenon, occurring
at the visual perceptual level. Memory in our perceptual processes is
creeping where it shouldn?t be and altering the way we perceive
things. It happens all the time. Doors squeaking are heard as birds
calling, hearing a rustling outside can evoke a neighbour gardening,
the chugging of the ventilation system sounding like a ship passing by
?this isn?t me specifically, all these examples are things that other
crew have described to me. It's OK, nobody's going mad. I do wonder
how much more severe it would get in a capsule taking 9 months to get
to Mars, though, where you couldn't get outside, you couldn't exercise
properly, and there's nothing to see even out the window. I wonder if
you really could be driven mad by your own memory.

August 26th
End of cycle5 of the research project I?m doing. And now I'm going to
bed for a week. Later, folks...

26th August
Random thought; I've never lived anywhere with no snowfall before.
Even Cambridge gets some snow per year, but here, at Dome C in
Antarctica's interior, there is absolutely none. I've seen misty days
with lots of frost forming in the air and on the snow, and we get snow
drifting, for sure. But in my 13 months here I will not see a single
snow shower. Because it's just too cold for it to snow. Just one
more oddity about this place. (We do get around 20-30cm of
precipitation per year, forming frost. That?s less precipitation than
the Sahara desert)

25th August Peeling apples
Every few weeks I cook. The chef gets Sunday off too and so everyone
in the crew takes a turn to cook. Now the current cycle of data
collection ends and I get to be master of my own time for a couple of
weeks. I always cook in these hiatuses, every six weeks, largely so I
keep a bit ahead of the minimum required.
At the beginning of the winterover in February we had two tonnes of
fresh food sent up to us. They came from Australia and were pretty
much the same as we have in the UK.
Some fresh food ? apples, potatoes, onions, carrots and the like, have
lasted very well thanks to the dessicating atmosphere, and the total
lack of microbial life ? the only bacteria and fungi on the base
really come from our skin, I suppose. Not the best adapted to live on
apples! But the fresh food is finally getting a bit ropey now. I peel
the skins of the apples these days ? otherwise you can?t be sure what
you?re biting into.
Reading the book of Roald Amundsen, and descriptions of the British
expeditions, you realise that scurvy was a huge worry to the explorers
and careful planning went into making sure food was kept well. To us,
scurvy is really just a historical thing. We have practically half a
container stacked with fruit juice cartons and no worries whatsoever.
Last time I cooked Fred, the chief engineer offered to help. Three
months ago I would have seriously worried that this would be a
communication challenge too far, but his English and my French have
improved so much that it was fine, his English is still way better
than my French of course. He?s a good guy with a good sense of humour
so even though the communication was still pretty deficient and
involved lots of arm waving, charades and shouting, we survived the
day with friendship still firmly intact. Actually it was a pretty good
laugh. The only casualty were the fishcakes that got no salt.
Making british recipes here can be a little challenging, but my
cooking has on the whole been received very well. With the occasional
exception. Once I decided to make a lamb broth, and discovered too
late the only cabbage we have was red. Purple. Dark, dark purple, and
so the soup was purple too. But on the other hand the cullen skink
(AKA at Concordia ?Scottish fish soup?) I made in Paris for the crew
has been in demand. It's a bit of a project as we don't have smoked
fish here. Andrea our chef has a way to smoke fish if we get him some
woodchips, so I have to ask Ale to do any woodworking he has planned
so we can have the sawdust. I think on the whole the French
appreciate my cooking more than the Italians. As much as it would
pain them to admit it, French and modern British cooking have quite a
lot in common, really. The Italians tend to like having only one thing
on their plate at a time, whereas the French tend to like a big
plateful with a variety of things on it, like we do.
Anyway, now that the fresh food is running out I have a big problem,
because all our food is tinned or otherwise preserved food from Italy
and France. And I have no idea what any of it is! And even the things
you can recognise, like mushrooms are continental species that taste
completely different. So it?s a beef stew and Scottish fish soup. And
I?ve no idea what I?m going to do next time.


--
Concordia station 75°06'06''S - 123°23'43''E
Satellite uploads at: 02.30, 09.00 and 14.00 UTC
Local time UTC + 8


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