21 December 2006
by Ntsikelelo NtshingilaI woke up this morning and there was one of the biggest icebergs I've ever seen right in front of the boat.
This is where they are going to build the ramp (where they offload the cargo using the boat cranes. The ice shelf is so high I guess they have to use the Caterpillars to clear the ice and make a bay to offload. We recorded some helicopter sounds while doing more inspection. We went for lunch and we had cheese pie which I did not like it was just too rich for me. I just ordered more potatoes and just had those with juice.
Went back to the cabin did more sound works and Adam decided to work in the library, I decided to take a 30 minute nap and told Adam to wake me up when he goes to the library. 2:00 pm came and he woke me up but I just couldn't"t get up so he went ahead, I ended up sleeping for about 2 hours. I woke up went to the library and started with my daily journal. Adam did a fantastic job in creating an Antarctic Audio slideshow Documentary(where he grouped together 10 pictures and linked them with some of corresponding audio - so when the audio plays you just click manually to view the next picture). While writing the journal Amanda came and announced that there is some mail for Adam and that the drinks Tom ordered have been delivered but instead of getting 72 Windhoek beers they gave us 48 with the advantage of ordering another different case the following day.
My appetite has gone up very tremendously these last couple of days, I just get hungry so very quickly like right now I can't wait any longer to get some dinner into my empty stomach, I guess we are getting used to the food or it could be that we don't wake up for breakfast anymore. When Tom and I came from recording the chopper take off we met guys we have never seen before since we got on the boat and they had huge bags with them heading for the chopper, it was the overwintering team they looked as if the cold does not intimidate them. I saw another guy we have never seen again in the dining room during lunch and it seemed he was given a welcome by the guys who knew him as if he just got on the boat(strange) and then Struan started to speak about alien invasion, that really got me thinking... Antarctica is used for space studies and sciences maybe one of the overwintering teams has seen something strange or has recorded something on this matter, perhaps.......
They haven't offloaded any bulldozer yet for making the bay I guess it's another 2 or 3 days for us on the ship, I have a feeling that we are going to reach the base on Christmas day. As soon as we reach we get on with the job we came to do, maybe Tom can give us one day off just to celebrate getting off the boat or celebrating Christmas(his birthday - Jesus, Mary and Joseph!). The time now is 17:17 pm and the sun I must say the sun never sets in these parts of the world, you get out at 00:00 am and it looks like 1 in the afternoon (crazy, crazy, crazy). Peace...
21 December, 2006
by Adam HydeJust 4 days to go and it looks like we may spend our first full day on the continent of Antarctica on Christmas day. As a child growing up in New Zealand it struck me as odd that the Christmas songs always spoke about snow and sleighs and enjoying a white Christmas. New Zealand has Christmas in Summer, and the only thing white at that time of year is sand and pavlova. I wondered if I would ever see a white Christmas and imagined what it would be like. I never quite thought it would be like this.
We are now parked at Penguin Bukta with the nose of the boat resting on the ice shelf. Looking along the giant wall you see the rounded droopy overhangs giving the appearance of one long frozen tidal wave like the Tsunami painted by Japanese painter Hokusai.
The bull dozing team are in their dozers on top of the shelf digging a path so the ship can offload the gear. The shelf is too high for the boats crane to reach, so they have to cut a slope down through the ice to a level the crane can reach. Its not safe work as there are dangerous overhangs in the cliffs . As recent as last year they almost lost a few dozers when the shelf collapsed. We sit in the boat and wait and watch occasionally what is happening on the ice some 20 meters above us.
If you look down at the bow you can see the shifting tones of turquoise and aqua of the shelf as it runs deep below us. The gently rippling water shifts the light and color below us and it has something of the appearance of an Aurora in the sea.
Some of the over winter team have come aboard. Its been weird these last days we have noticed some new faces and kidded our selves that SANAP must have some scary genetics lab deep in the hull of the boat where they manufacture new crew for the base. If so then their experiments went a bit mad as the over winter team look pretty wild. Long beards, hair all over the place, and did I imagine a slightly mad look in their eyes? I think possibly so...still they are a weird sight to come across in the hallways after not having seen a new face for 2 weeks or so.
I have also met a chap on the boat that is a Linux geek. I am trying not to embarrass myself by talking unix as a default conversation with him as I do enjoy software politics and don't want to scare anyone with my fanaticism. I think I see the same dark fear in his soul as he is a Slackware user which is about as hardcore as you can get, I am sure sometime while we are at the base we will degenerate our discussions into obscure file formats and OS wars to the exclusion of all. Also there is a guy Tom talked to that is interested in running the FM station I am to build as a r a d i o q u a l i a project while at the base. He will be over wintering and will run it through winter. The trick is to test the transmitter to see if it will get the 100 or so miles to Neumayer as he is keen to broadcast to them. I don't think it will do it so we may have to fly in another transmitter.
After a slightly spicy meeting yesterday things seem to have settled down. Routine and knowing what the plan is (ie. the boat isn't going anywhere for 3 days) helps reduce anxiety. Its good things feel calmer as its a great team and temporary bumps, however predictable, are still frustrating. I am working on my slide shows, I think its a nice format...they aren't finished but as soon as I get some bandwidth I will upload them, probably after Christmas.