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


----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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


----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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


----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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.