Penguins and Seals and Winds oh my….

Saw my first penguin on Halloween. It was an Adelie penguin all alone. At first it looked like a black blob on the ice, but then it stood up for me and I got a few photos. I couldn’t get closer than I was so you can see the penguin just to the right of the ladder in front of the second fuel tank from the left.

I saw my first seal on the pressure ridges at Scott Base that same day. Looking through the binoculars it still just looked like a big black blob so there are no pictures of the seal, but here is a shot of the base with the pressure ridges in the background. The sign used to say “Population 20 plus Sam” and they must have cleaned it up only days before I took the picture. There are about 40 Kiwis at Scott Base during the summer.

The winds are back. Yesterday and today the winds have picked up bringing our temperatures right back down to -60F. We were getting pretty comfortable in -4F with no winds so this reminds us where we are currently living. Our night shift crew were working in -51F.

While the wind speed is only around 30 MPH, because there isn’t much relief, and no trees, in this land the wind feels stronger. It blows snow around creating ground blizzards, blows your feet around when you pick them up to walk, blows any unrestrained debris around, and drops the temperatures rapidly. I drove through my first condition 1 yesterday. The roads on the sea ice are flagged and I could still see one flag in front of me so I kept going towards my destination. Once the flags ran out I sat there until there was a break and then quickly made it to a building. During Condition 1’s we are suppose to stay inside, or wherever we are in our vehicle. I could see how it would be freaky if you were an explorer in the middle of nowhere, or on an un-flagged route, but from where I was it wasn’t so bad.

Also on Halloween – a big day for me – I drove a project group around and was able to join their tours of otherwise restricted areas. The T-Site (tower site) where all of the communications towers are located, the golf ball where a satellite dish resides in a giant golf ball shaped dome, and the building that houses what look like 80’s style super computers to monitor what the satellite dish picks up. The golf ball site is a NASA site and it is for scientific research purposes. It monitors about 30 satellites which travel from pole to pole in about 90 minutes. The group was really fun and there are a lot of photos – and a movie – of our tour.

Golf Ball

Exiting the Golf Ball

That evening we had a “Get to Know You Gathering” in our dorm. We had a great turn out and people had treats in their rooms as we went through meeting everyone and checking out their rooms.

Ben left yesterday for 3 weeks at WAIS Divide, a remote field camp site. He’s out there with other carpenters setting up the camp which will eventually have a population of about 70 people.