Chchchchanges...

It has been overcast, snowy, and the wind has been blowing a sustained 50-60 knots going on six days now. Everybody is a little crazed from it, and coupled with being end of season tired, people are stepping lightly around each other here. In spite of the weather, there are definitely a lot of changes happening around Palmer Station. For the last couple of months, all we've seen is the occasional leopard seal hauled out on an ice floe, and a couple of resident sheathbill scavengers that hang around station, but lately there has been a lot more wildlife around as the days get longer. Lots more giant petrels, kelp gulls (I think I got my id right), cormorants, and various other seals. I'm really hoping the penguins come back before we leave. We get Adelie, Chinstrap, and Gentoo penguins here. It definitely feels like spring is around the corner, even with the terrible weather we've been having lately. I guess I shouldn't be complaining about the weather, it is Antarctica after all ;-)...

Yesterday on my day off the wind let up a bit and I was able to take a hike (snowshoe) on the glacier and over to Point 8 on the south side of glacier that is accessible to us. The break in the wind wasn't quite as long as the hike, so I got pretty hammered on the way back, but it was a welcome break from the aforementioned craziness of being inside for pretty much all of five days.

The ship will be here in a little less than a month, and people are really starting to talk about the end of the season. It turns out that they couldn't get the funding for the comm tech and I to stay an extra two weeks, and I'll be coming home with the rest of the winter crew. I'm pretty happy about that, as that was going to be the hard part of staying longer, not getting to leave with the people I spent the winter with.

That's the update for now. There were some beautiful nacreous clouds this morning, and I snapped a few pics with my phone. This is from the back deck of the carpentry shop, looking uphill towards the sat comm radome/RF Hut and TerraLab. They don't do them justice, but here you go...







The station doctor, Steve Allerding, just pointed me at a bunch of pictures of the clouds that he took, so here they are too.

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Courtesy of Steve Allerding

Popular posts from this blog

Weekends...

Image
I've talked about what work days are like, but I thought I'd explain how weekends work down here too. Most of the time we work 6 days a week, and have Sunday off. Every once in a while, about once a month or so, we'll have a 2 day weekend. On Saturday we'll work our normal jobs for half of the day. After lunch, we clean up our offices and work spaces and then head to the galley around 2pm for the weekly station meeting. At the station meeting there is a recap of the week, a look at what's up for the next week, news from around Antarctica, and "gentle reminders." Gentle reminders are where anybody can bring up anything that they think might need to get done or changed, things that are bugging them, etc. It's a good way to keep resentments from popping up in our small and isolated community. At the end of the station meeting, we all draw a slip of paper out of a bucket with our job for "house mouse", which is the weekly deep cleaning of the...
Read more

All packed...

Image
The last two days before I leave have been quite hectic. One day of orientation with the IT folks in Denver, and one day of orientation just for the winterover crew. Because I was local, I didn't get to stay in a hotel like the others and had to commute to Centennial on south side of Denver both days. That, coupled with a lack of sleep due to the excitement factor, made for some very long days. All ready for a winter in Antarctica Anyway, several people have asked me what I'm bringing down with me. They supply extreme cold weather (ECW) gear that you get issued in Punta Arenas, Chile. These are the classic red down parkas with the fur around the hood that you see in all the Antarctica "hero" shots. They give you a bunch of other stuff as well. When I looked at a bunch of YouTube videos of Palmer though, everybody was wearing their outdoor gear from home. When I asked about this, everybody said you just use the ECW gear for dirty work-line handling for the shi...
Read more

First hike...

Image
Backyard looking south Today we had our first day off in two weeks. It's not normal to go that long without a break, but due to the compressed turnover between summer and winter crews it was necessary. Backyard view from glacier For my first day off I decided to go check out the glacier behind the station. To get to the glacier you have to cross an an area called the "backyard". It's the moraine between the station and the glacier and is *maybe* a 1/2 mile between the two.  Winter is coming-sun angle at 11:30am   It is really rough, and you have to pick your route carefully. There is a lot of stuff for science in the backyard-antennas for various experiments, seismometers, magnetometers, a GPS station for tectonics from UNAVCO in Boulder, etc. But lots of antennas for a ham radio geek like me ;-)... In addition, there is a rec hut and tent platforms that  you can check out to get away for a night. Icebergs Onc...
Read more