Christmas in July

My friend/boss, K, spearheaded an awesome Christmas in July extravaganza this month. Leading up to last Sunday's extravaganza, we had a series of movie nights with Christmas-themed offerings, we decorated the galley for the occasion....

...had a Christmas cookie-baking decorating night...

...and then, on Sunday, all gathered in the galley to watch "A Christmas Story" on the screens in there...

...leading up to a delicious dinner...

...followed by a White Elephant-style gift exchange that started out tame and turned out to be hilariously raucous. Such a fun time, and a great way to cap off the month. After this week we're really in the home stretch of the year down here--only three more months or 1/4 of the experience to go.

Weekly snapshot #39

Cold and dark! That pretty much sums it up for this week, which is totally fine with me, because this is I think the last spate of total darkness we'll get to have this winter. Have to appreciate while I can the sight of the Milky Way stretching overhead, the faintest auroras showing across the sky, and the multitude of stars. None of which you can see in the attached pic, but oh well. It's all there, I promise you.



 

What now?

For the first time since I got down here in October, I do not have a backlog of posts ready to go and had to go looking through my pictures for something to give you this weekend. I came up with these pics, of me and my froworker K, pretending to warm ourselves by one of the test smudge pots the fire team was trying out prior to the medevac last month. The first shot was taken by someone we asked to come out there with us for the purpose, and the second was taken with a telephoto lens through the window of the cargo office by someone who wanted to stay inside while we had our little photo shoot. And it really is just all for show; getting close enough to the fire to actually feel its warmth put one in the danger zone for being completely engulfed in flame should a gust of wind suddenly blow in the opposite direction. Still, I love how both these photos turned out and figured I'd share.

The main chatter around station this week is that it's only about 100 days now until the station opens for the summer and those of us on the winter crew will start filtering out of here. It sounds so short to me! I get a little sad, and I have to keep reminding myself that we still have three solid months left. When I think of all that has happened in the past three months, it's a nice reminder that there is a lot of good stuff still to come--it ain't over, yet. And hopefully that stuff still to come will start happening soon so I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel for next weekend's post....

Weekly snapshot #38

It's definitely still winter...

...but the moon is so dang bright it seems like the sun! It's so crazy beautiful out.

This is probably the last full moon we'll have that will have this drastic effect on how much we can see outside. By the time next month's full moon rolls around, dawn will be...dawning. So, so strange.

Winter "resident"

Resident South Pole photography expert (and 12-time winter-over) Robert Schwarz took this amazing long exposure panoramic (360-degree) photo of the South Pole skyline a couple of weeks ago. (The long exposure is the reason it doesn't look very dark out; trust me, it's dark!) That's the Milky Way making an arc through the middle of the picture and you can see some Auroras on the horizon. I haven't seen it, but Robert says he could see with the naked eye a slight glow on the horizon where the sun would be if it was rising. It will still be pretty dark down here for the next couple months, but I'm constantly reminded that we're on the upswing of winter and this night won't last. Which honestly makes me kind of sad.



And then another:

If you want to see more of Robert's amazing photography, time lapses, and other info from the perspective of someone who is practically a South Pole resident, check out these links:

www.antarctic-adventures.de

www.facebook.com/southpoleskies

vimeo.com/polarlights



Weekly snapshot #37

A wee bit warmer this week, and the moon just rose today, so a wee less dark as well. Other than that, nothing to report, I don't think! Just enjoying the lovely routine of this experience while it lasts. Things will start changing again all too soon, no doubt.

Medevac

In case you never caught a glimpse on the news of the medical evacuation that happened down here a few weeks ago, here's a good clip to watch for context.


It was a very exciting/stressful couple weeks down here, though. One crew member had had a health crisis at the beginning of June that could have probably been managed down here for the rest of the winter. But when, a week later, a second crew member developed a medical condition that required evacuation from the station, preparations began for the first-ever true mid-winter medevac from South Pole.


After a week of intense prep, including testing fuel combos for the smudge pots that would light the runway....

...and dozing to recreate a runway (the summer one having been drifted over for months, now)....

...it was an insane thrill to see the plane coming in safely from its 10-hour flight from Rothera, on the Antarctic peninsula.

These are the first outside people we've seen in more than four months, plus weird to have the station lit up like a beacon so the plane could see us.

They were on the ground for about 10 hours, unpacking and repacking cargo, the crew sleeping, getting briefed on the two patients they were taking out, etc. (I'm in this pic, second from the left in the green and black coat.)

And then, suddenly the whole thing was over and it was back to 46 of us on station for the duration of the winter.

Last but not least, my favorite shot of about half of us posing with the plane. The crew at Rothera base sent us freshies (apples and oranges! for the first time in months!) and some amazing desserts, so we took a picture to thank them. You might not be able to read the signs we're holding up; it just says "Thank You Rothera," and I'm holding the Rothera sign.

By this point our two crew members who were flown out have long gotten safely home to the U.S. and are doing well. So, all in all a good outcome. And definitely an exciting time, though we were all nervous for the safety of the crew flying down here and our crew-mates who were evacuated. Big relief when they made it safely to South America and our South Pole routine could start getting back to normal.




Also, here are some articles about previous South Pole medevacs, if you're interested:
http://www.southpolestation.com/news/medevac2003/medevacpatient.pdf
http://www.southpolestation.com/news/medevac.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen
http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/10s/renee.html

 

 

Weekly snapshot #36

Temps have dropped again, though I hadn't been watching the weather and didn't realize it until I was outside yesterday and moved my goggles from my eyes to my forehead when they iced over, and then was shocked at how cold my eyeballs got so quickly, and when I tried to put my googles back over my eyes, they had frozen into the shape of the curvier dimension of my forehead and didn't fit my eyes anymore. Such problems, described in such mercilessly long sentences. 

I'm kind of bummed that my camera couldn't capture the greenish aurora stretching across pretty much the entire frame of this picture when I took it. You'll just have to trust me: beautiful.

BIG balloon launch

How is it July?!?! I never dreamed this year would fly by so quickly.

Now that we're in the colder temps of winter, the NOAA reps here have to alter their balloon launch techniques with materials that can better withstand these elements. So a few weeks ago, a few of us went out to help with and see (and help in our limited way with) one of the atmospheric (especially ozone) tracking balloon launches with one of the really enormous plastic winter balloons.

The launch we helped with went well, with the data collection graph here showing recordings until the balloon reached a height of nearly 30 km into the atmosphere: