The Half-Year Mark

June June June! How is it that it is already June?? Anyway, this will be a relatively short update, hopefully with a few photos thrown into the mix to spice things up.

A few days ago, all of us on station saw the sun for the last time. A few of the expeditioners made a fuss about it (the good kind) by sitting out on the helipad watching it set behind the Vestfold Hills with a beer in hand. However, because I am soft and weak, and I have also seen the sun rise and sun set many-a-times for the last 26 years, this occasion did not quite stir the 'solar longing' in me. I may or may not regret my actions at snubbing the sun, now that it has done its disappearing act for the next 6-8 weeks, but only time will tell. On the other hand, though, we've been getting absolutely FANTASTIC moonrises! I've always been more of a night-walker than a day-worshipper anyway, meh.


LEGOtown on a crisp Antarctic evening (the time would have been about 3pm?)

Also, we've had some major snowfalls around station over the weekend, the weather was even kind enough to muster up a blizzard. A REAL ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD. The winds raged for more than 24 hours at around 60knots (which converts to about 120km/ph), visibility was cut down to mere meters and I could feel our Living Quarters building shake with the storm. It was amazing. The next morning, everything was covered in white as far as the eye could see. And because we don't have much light anymore, surface definition was all but lost and I walked head-first into a huge snowdrift while making my way to the aquarium. It was amazing.


 Papa dozer and baby dozer hard at work shovelling all the accumulated snow away and turning the landscape of station back to the familiar 'Mine Site' variety.

Anyway, the station is still ticking on. I hardly bat an eyelid now when I walk out into the wilderness and the thermometer says that it is -27.5 degrees Celcius. Hell, if it's anything warmer than -30 d C, I usually treat it as a good day and it becomes a mini-win for me. There are days where it takes me a lot to muster up enough will power and motivation to even get out of bed. I blame it on the darkness and the cold and the futility of trying to think that mere humans can even begin to tame this harsh frontier, but those days are few and far between. We're not taming anything, all of us are here because we like to think we can.

While walking down to work in the dark this morning with an electrician (colloquially known as a Sparkie), we had a conversation that ran kinda like this:

Sparkie: Are you glad you stayed for winter?
Me: (Pauses). Yes, yes I'm glad I stayed for winter. Are you glad you stayed for winter?
Sparkie: (Pauses). Yes, I'm glad I stayed for winter.


I reached my 26th birthday and all I got was this lousy Black Forest Cake (actually no, it wasn't lousy, it was fan-fucking-tastic!)