27.11. Morning routine

 

Svea Research Station. Photo: Kristiina Virkkunen/FINNARP 

As Strongbad says “the morning routine is the most important routine of the
day”, so here’s mine.

It is my turn to make breakfast. Misery. Cold, and especially damp. In the sleeping bag it’s nice. Outside it’s not. There is a drip of water from the ceiling splashing on the floor, where it freezes. But the sun is shining through the back window and the day needs to be started. So up quickly, out of the bag, into the clothes left from last night - still only a week in use (quite fresh considering the time and clothing I have for the next 3 months). The old back is very stiff from yesterday’s work, hard to pull on the socks, must be getting old for this game…

 Find my pee can and get some relief… those of a more fussy disposition sometimes go outside to the pee pole, 20 m away, but that’s a bit much for me first thing, especially as its up a nasty snow hill and requires a fair bit of extra clothing and care - the can is much more simple.

Get the porridge on. Boil endless water - well actually about 5 litres, which seems endless when it is to be melted from snow at -15C. Wake up Aslak when it’s all ready. Do the field schedule with Aboa. A discussion of the day’s plans, yesterday’s events, and the bits of news that exist in two communities of 2 or 3 people 200 km apart in the Antarctic. Set up the GPS base station to run all day. Get down the rocks to the snow scooters and leave for the day.

The bedroom. Photo: Kristiina Virkkunen/FINNARP

-John

24.11. A Day Off

Today is our first day off since we arrived at Svea. It’s a bit windy outside, quite mild and misty, a bit like Scotland in good winter climbing nick. Time to catch up on reading, programming, feeding, finding the cricket on the HF radio and fixing the candle to celebrate Aslak’s birthday. Stupid John, of course, forgot to bring any presents.

Traveling through the air strip in the Schumacker Oasis (Novo) on the Iluyshin and then the old Basler was an interesting experience. The staff of the ALCI are mostly Russians and they do a really good job - as is evidenced by the fact that about 15 countries use their plans for Antarctic logistics. But they certainly have their own style - almost every nation’s polar clothing is on display on the guys at the Weatherport hut tents at Novo. One of the Swedes seeing a fellow-Swede driving a forklift unloading a plane went to
tell him that he couldn’t just jump into the ALCI vehicle, but then realized that the guy wearing the SWEDARP windproof was actually a Russian. 

Just next to the landing strip there is another kind of Iluyshin - this is a surprisingly practical bi-plane that was used for internal Antarctic flights (the Finns went from Novo to Aboa with it in 2003). However this plane will fly no more, thanks to the winter winds that overwhelmed the tie downs from the tail and wings. Many planes meet this fate in Antarctica, certainly those that are kept outside eventually must.

FINNARP and SWEARP consider asking for a flight
re-booking. Photo: John Moore/FINNARP

Cheers,

-John & Aslak

24.11. Driving from Aboa to Svea

In earlier post we mentioned the long drive from Aboa Research station to Svea station, which we did a few days ago. Here is some more about that:

The air in Antarctica is vacuum clear, the clarity that makes crystal look cheap and nasty. The sky is blue as at the edge of space and visibility is not even limited by the oblate-spheroidal nature of the planet. That’s because of another factor of looking at stuff here - the Fatima-Morgana.

This is exactly the opposite of a mirage. It’s caused by the air being very cold close to the snow surface and the air a few meters above being quite a few degrees warmer. This difference in temperature changes the refractive index of air (as in a mirage), which bends light as it passes through it. Light from objects near the horizon travels mostly in these layers and are strongly distorted. The net effect is that it seems like you are sitting in the middle of a big bowl, the horizon is up in every direction.

The combination of the great clarity and the Fatima-Morgana means that it’s a bloody long way to the horizon. So for example during the 200 km, 12.5 hour scooter journey from Aboa to Svea, the view changed exactly once. For 3 hours we drove towards a low ridge named Fossilryggen. Visible at about 50 km distance from Aboa. Finally we arrived and pulled up the 100 m or so rise with some reasonably exciting crevasses off to the left. After a couple of kilometers we crested the last short rise and there in front of us - 150 km in front of us, was Heimefrontfjella. Bugger. That was a sloooow crawl to the horizon.
 
Hour after hour sitting on the scooter hearing it drone, drone, drone and drone some more. The only distraction is the weather is, are the clouds going to get to us? Is it getting windy? (bloody hell, it did get windy and coldish). But mostly is looking at the mountains never getting closer and the painfully slow clicking onward of the scooter odometer and the GPS waypoint coming closer very slowly. I mean it’s ridiculous when there are no course changes necessary for 124 km between two waypoints. If I had made the route I would have added a couple just for the sake of keeping awake!  Drone, drone, drone… get the idea, pretty dull eh?

Only 5 hours more of this view and we will be there! Wish I could get the BBC on this helmet antenna! Photo: John Moore/FINNARP

Not the kind of thing to want to rush out and repeat in the near future. 12.5 hours (and that was a fast trip) of scooter driving and you do feel it for a day or two after. And the last thing in the world you want to do is do it again, even though that’s what needs doing to get home, “I don’t care just leave me here” is how you feel. Well, the only thing is that here at Svea there is no water except that made by melting snow. Therefore washing of self or clothes is not easily - or for that matter difficulty, done.

After only 10 days here, the thought of the nice sauna, shower (my hair is getting quite itchy now, but that will pass in a week I know), and not having to wear these same clothes for another week starts to sound quite attractive. Its only 200 km and it only took 12 hours getting here, maybe we can pick up Kristiina when she arrives and take a shower at the same time instead of waiting for Swedarp to bring her here?

Cheers,

 -John 

22.11. Pictures from Aboa & Scharffenbergbotnen blue ice area

For the last few days we have been busy getting things running and preparing for the actual fieldwork. Here is the evidence:

Digging Out the Equipment

The first picture shows John standing in front of the garage at the Finnish station Aboa. We arrived on November 9th and then spent several days opening the station, including digging out buildings, getting electricity, vehicles and water running.

Last season’s team had put a lot of our field equipment in to the garage, so we had to dig it out before leaving for our field site. After digging out one meter of snow from in front of the door, we opened it only to find out there was more snow inside than outside! (Photo: Aslak Grinsted/FINNARP)

Blue Ice Area

In the second picture we are working on the Scharffenbergbotnen blue ice area. Most of the first week was spent fixing up equipment to make it work properly. But the view and the weather were generally fine, which helped a lot when soldering wires outside.
The ice where we are working is from the transition from the last glacial to our present mild climate, about 11 000 years old. (Photo: John Moore/FINNARP)

Cheers,

-John & Aslak

15.11. At Svea Station

We (Aslak and John)  are now at the Swedish Svea Research Station. The hut is in fine condition with only a small amount of snow inside. We arrived Monday at 23.30 after a 12 hour scooter ride from Aboa, which went quite well but was a bit tedious as visibility was so good that we could see the Heimefrontfjella for 120 km before we got to the mountains, where the small station is located in a very picturesque valley that contains the blue ice area we will spend the next 10 weeks working on.

Immediately after arrival a storm came up and we spent all of Tuesday inside the small (12 square meters) hut. We have propane gas cooker and heater working and set up HF and iridium antennae. Wednesday the weather improved and we dug out our drifted up sledges and erected the toilet tent (much to our relief!).

Our travel has gone extremely quickly, as it was only one week ago that we were still in Cape Town! The Ilyushin flight from Cape Town was easy and comfortable, and only a few hours were spent at Novo blue ice runway before we took the Basler aircraft (built 1944) to Finnish Aboa Research Station via the South African Sanae station. After only 3 days at Aboa working to open the station and preparing our gear for sledging to Svea, we left. Now it is snowing and we are going back to our excellent books.

-John

Leaving to Antarctic

Leaving at 23.35 tonight on board the LCI Russian Ilyushin 76 plane. The flight is 6 hours and from the pictures it looks quite comfy for a converted cargo plane with no windows. But we do get a
movie! On board will be 55 passengers from India, Japan, China, Norwegian, Swedish Antarctic stations in addition to the 5 of us from FINNARP.

We will tell how it actually was after we arrive at the Russian Novo blue ice rinway and then take our basler flight to the Finnish Aboa station, hopefully in the next day or two.
Inside Ilyushin plane: Photo Kristiina Virkkunen/FINNARP 2003
Cheers
John

Blog from the Antarctic

Three researchers from the Arctic Centre will make an expedition to the Antarctic and they will write to this blog on their research and life there. The first part of the group will fly there 8.11. 2006 from South-Africa.