Cancelled Flight

Yesterday's field team had a long day, leaving at 8am and returning at 9pm. Unfortunately, even with such a long day, they only made it to one site, instead of the planned-for two, due to problems with the GPS instrumentation at the site. The plan for today was for me to fly out with a fairly large team (6 + pilots) to service the site they didn't make it to yesterday and move a second site from rock to snow (to improve noise levels). So, this morning, with four hours of sleep we drug ourselves to breakfast and weather call. But, just before we boarded the shuttle to the runway (an hour's ride away), we received word that the flight was cancelled due to weather. So, we'll try again tomorrow. This sort of cancellation is frustrating, but is par for the course working in Antarctica.

So, today has been spent working in the office (no pretty pictures - sorry). I've been looking at the data we got from the two sites that have been serviced. Although all work is valuable down here and we must wear many hats, I have to admit that I'm enjoying looking at seismograms and doing the work I'm trained for instead of the equally necessary - but less interesting - cargo and battery work I've been doing on previous days.

We did get some good news today, our team members that have been stranded at Union Glacier Camp for so long have finally caught a flight to McMurdo. They will be stopping at the South Pole, so they may not make it to McMurdo until tomorrow, but we're all very glad they are on their way (though probably not as glad as they are). Having some folks here who are more familiar with administration will make our lives much easier, as we've been barely muddling through the intricacies of station prioritization and arranging our flights.

Finally, I lied about the pictures. I hate a post with no pictures, so here a few of our work spaces that I took a couple days ago.

The Polenet office/lab space.

The cubby in our lab where I work. Why? Because food and beverages are not allowed in our "lab", but are allowed in this cubby because it's technically an "office." I must have my coffee while I work!

One of a couple"staging areas" where equipment gets sorted and prepped for the field. We are allotted a certain square footage we are allowed to use, the rest is allotted to other projects.