Anticipating the Sunrise

We are all anticipating our first sunrise in months: August 19th.

Antarctic Winter Film Festival

Each year many of the Antarctic research stations celebrate a 48 hour film festival. It is one of the ways that, during winter, people on isolated stations can feel part of a wider community. It is also a lot of fun. The film festival is organized by McMurdo Station and requires participating stations to make a short film (5 minutes or less) over a weekend. This year 10 countries at 13 stations made 27 films on the weekend of August 4-5. All the films were shown in the galley last Saturday night. It was hilarious to say the least.  I can't remember the last time I had laughed so much. The short films must contain five essential 'elements'. The elements are chosen by stations who have won the festival in previous years and this information is passed on to station film crews the evening before shooting is allowed to begin. So it is a flurry of activity putting together a creative idea, writing a script around it, ensuring all of the elements are included and then creating costumes and sets, filming the production and finally editing. This year the elements had to include (1) a queen, (2) a computer mouse, (3) a map of the local station area, (4) the sound of ice cracking, and (5) the line of dialogue "I will save you". A  group from  McMurdo did a 5 minute remake of  'The Thing".


Sunday turned out to be an inside day even though I had planned a long hike all week. But at -65.2 degF it just wasn't worth the risk. The forecast doesn't look too good either.

Today: -61.2

Tonight: -70.1

Tomorrow: -70.6 

Working at the 10 meter boresite antennas on Monday.

The shadows in the sky are from a Mt. Erebus ice tongue.

Looking across from Hut Point to the Transantarctic mountains.

The memorial cross of Scott's Tera Nova Expedition on Observation Hill.

On the opposite side of Ob Hill are the windmill turbines and to the left another radome I work at.

It was a nice but very cold day. The task at the boresite was brutal as after a few minutes outside I jumped into the van to warm my hands then back outside for a few more minutes. After 40 minutes of this the task was complete.

Nice selection of fruit at Sunday brunch.

Monday night auroras. Photo credit to Matt.

A short video of McMurdoites having 'fun'.

Another selection of scanned decals.

The shadows in a previous picture are caused by this ice tongue from Mt. Erebus. The sun is below the horizon casting the shadow. An ice tongue is a long and narrow sheet of ice projecting out from the coastline. An ice tongue forms when a valley glacier moves very rapidly out into the ocean or a lake.