Day Break

At the moment our daily duration of sunshine shrinks with 10 minutes each day.  This decline will speed up to nearly 40 minutes per day before we reach our winter with no sun.  With seasonal change so well defined it is undeniable that our time in Antarctica is limited.  I am tempted to draw the analogy between this and our limited time on earth but I will not go there.  


I guess a very disciplined approach to fully enjoy and experience every little thing should be reasonable.


The following was taken this morning.

Breaking bread

Today saw my debut in the field of bread baking.  Over lunch I decided to start kneading some dough and after work I got it into the oven.  I went for a 50% rye 50% brown bread and I think it tastes excellent (surprise, surprise).  The real test, however, will be when my team mates need to decide between frozen shop bread or freshly baked rye (albeit by a novice). 

Cold revisited

Today was a lovely sunny and relaxing Sunday so we thought of spending time in the great outdoors.  It was a bit cold, however, -27 degrees Celsius.  Then the wind picked up to roughly 15-20 knots which made the perceived temperature drop to about -40.  Then DVD's inside the base started sounding so much better...after picking out the ice blocks from your beard and after raiding the kitchen of course.  (The cold really makes you hungry.) I hope there is a few nice days left before winter and we do get them but I guess an "almost-nice-day" in Antarctica is still pretty nasty.

Newsletter

With great excitement we have published our first newsletter. 


Please look under my pages for the relevant link.   

Evening sky

The absence of life in Antarctica, more specifically at SANAE, is sometimes still startling.  Occasionally you see a small puddle of water  (few times in summer) or you look in between rocks expecting to see insects or some form of life but you are always met with the sterility of this land.  There are two exceptions, namely an occasional bird and lichen, which is a form of algae growing on some rocks.  Still you are sometimes surprised to not see some critter where you have gotten used to them.  No ants, no flies, no mozzies.  Colds and flu are also rare so I guess there are not many bacteria or viruses floating around.  It probably emphasises one of the unique facets of Antarctica, bugs cannot survive here thus, unsupported life is virtually impossible.

Sunset II

I bought myself a new camera for my visit to Antarctica and I just discovered a new feature...time lapse shooting.  Hopefully this will help with capturing Aurora in a few months.  This is my first attempt.  I know it is not yet to the level I want it but I haven't blogged in more than a week.

With the base to ourselves most of our team moved into bigger or better rooms.  Mine has three windows now, so I spend a lot of time staring.  

Cold

I see the weather link I added right at the start of the blog (yr.no) predicts the weather as a little too extreme.  At the moment the average temperature is around -15 degrees.  The biggest factors in how cold it gets is wind and the height of the sun.  The padded jackets and dungarees together with the "pampoen skoen" (pumpkin shoes - orange multi layered shoes),  one or two layers, proper gloves and headgear make this climate very livable.  My feet for instance has only felt cold once or twice.  When you, for instance, need to untie a knot and you take your gloves of in windy conditions your finger tips become painful in a matter of seconds also your nose tip if not covered can become painful. Your rate of work also affects your comfort levels so we generally don't go into stormy weather to stand around.


Apart from the chill factor associated with wind the winds can also get strong enough to blow you off your feet.  As our base is on the edge of a 200 m cliff you don't want to loose your footing for too long.  In strong winds being a little over-weight is recommended.  The rule of thumb for the minimum weight for a certain wind speed is the wind speed in knots plus 10.  (I.e. for 50 knot conditions you need to weight 60 kg).  During the last storm that delayed the ship's departure we had gusts of up to around 70 knots.


Also bear in mind that we are at the end of our summer so I might revisit this page in a few months.