3 Days Before the First Arrival

This Friday the first Basler plane from McMurdo is supposed to arrive as long as the weather permits. Within two weeks our population will go from 47 to 150. Seeing new faces will be weird... and they will be tan and excited and have fresh things, oh boy oh boy. The new peeps will relieve our winterover crew... a bit. There's still lots we have to take care of. For instance, I have to pack up my room (cave) and move my goods via snow mobile to the summer camp, where I have volunteered to stay just to see what it's like to live out there.

Yesterday we took down the Scott tent and the day before a brave soul decided to camp out there. He lasted 6 hours. I hold the record for staying out there for 8 hours :)

Here's our newly groomed ice runway. We're just waitin on de planes.

The galley crew has been working around the clock to get the station cleaned up. Here's Picaso Lee steam cleaning the galley chairs.

Here's his final product. Amazing.

Here are some super doughuts I made for our charity buffet. Eat So They Can is an international charity group that asks cooks to host dinner parties. The proceeds from the dinner parties reach out to the needy, check out the site for more info. Special thanks to Nick the Baker for bringing up this opportunity.

We went all out for the buffet... fresh pancakes, omelletes and scrambled eggs along with..

Chef Fran's fresh oven-baked pizzas to order.

The crew really came together for this event and it was a great success.

The geographic south pole marker.


Ra.

Ozonesonde Movie

This video was put together by winterover polie Nick Morgan and on his blog there's tons of info coming from Antarctic scientists. The instrument attached to the balloon in the video measures ozone concentration and temperature as it rises in altitude. The data is relayed back to computer systems at the BIF and is then displayed in graphs that show us how much ozone is up there. As for the ozone hole, it's still not well deformed and this is probably explained by a not well deformed polar vortex.

Terra Nova

In December 1911 4 explorers reached the South Pole for the very first time.

2 December 1911

"…the plateau over which we are now travelling resembles a frozen sea…excellent going for a skater, but unfortunately unsuitable for our dogs and ourselves. I drag myself with my sticks ahead on skis. It is not easy." - Cpt. Amundsen

14 Decemeber 1911

"So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole. God be thanked!" - Cpt. Amundsen

"…the great thing is that we are here as the first men, no English flag waves, but a 3 coloured Norwegian." - O. Bjaaland

Then in 2010 4 new explorers set out to reach the South Pole...

25 September 2010

"Geeze, we can't grow any tomatoes outside with this harsh climate. It's so cold and dry, nothing will survive..." - Farmer Joe

"Eh guys, I think it's time we sit down and have some soup inside our tent. Wait, did anyone bring a match?" -Hung

"The great thing is that we are here as the 1,200th and some winterover Polies, so many black flags around marking holes in the ice, here let's plant this beautiful 3 coloured American flag next to the tent" - Sir David

"Umm has anyone seen my lucky two dollar bill?" - Cody