Small pleasures

Message from "Sledge Echo" - 31/12/2011:

We have bad weather again today - virtually no visibility and down to -15 degrees C last night. This may sound bad, and indeed it is for the work, but I am actually quite enjoying these days off - so seldom do I have several hours to do whatever I like when at home! Today we woke up at 7am and Roger looked out of the tent door. I knew from the smile on his face that we could go back to bed (he likes to lie in). We have sat, drunk tea, and chatted whilst listening to music on the MP3 players through a small speaker. Every now and then Roger pops out of the tent to adjust the dipole for the radio so he can chat to other field parties elsewhere in Antarctica. We are particularly enjoying talking to my colleague Teal and his field assistant Tom about 300 miles north of us. They are very amusing and tend to get the same weather as us, so are in the tent at the same times. All very relaxing. Yesterday I spent most of the day working so I feel I can at least have some sort of weekend today.

Roger has been working very hard cooking nice food for us recently. Last night he showed his genius with the best pudding yet. I had earlier in the day wondered aloud if we could make ice cream by freezing the custard outside. After dinner he disappeared outside for a while, and I thought he must have gone to the 'doo loo' (more on that later). Then he came into the tent carrying two plastic mugs containing our dessert with two matchmakers sticking out of the top. I think he does very well with presentation! Anyway it took me a while to figure out exactly how he had made the ice cream, but it was heavenly. He had mixed powdery snow with condensed milk, and then put freeze-dried bananas and strawberries on the top. I would love to try this at home (perhaps when I give a talk to Phoebe's nursery in March), but sadly the snow is just not the right consistency at home and there is unlikely to be any in March!

You are probably now wondering about the 'doo loo'. This is a very cosy place to get away from it all....we have put the two skidoos side by side and tied a tarpaulin over them as a protective tent. Then in the middle is our poo bin. So at least we have somewhere out of the wind to answer the call of nature! The petrol smell from the doos masks any other aromas that may be emanating from the poo bin. Fortunately the cold weather helps to reduce those! Roger told me that he even had a wash in the doo loo yesterday - he has gone one better than me then. I haven't bothered with a wash yet at all! But today I did go for a clean pair of knickers....only the third in 2 weeks.....think I have gone native! Actually I have got to the stage where a shower would be really quite nice, but I have another 5 weeks to go without one so I must get those cravings out of my head.

We are expecting good weather for all of next week, and will also move camp - so you may not hear so much from me. It will be a busy time as we try to wrap up a few loose ends with the work and move area. It will be nice to have some new parts to explore and some new views. Then I will be making decisions about where to move to by plane in a few weeks.

New Year Suprise for Jo

Hello, Uncle François here...

I am thinking of a small surprise for the New Year for Jo.

If you want to send her a message, leave a comment in the comment box, it will not appear online but I will gather all the messages and forward them to her.

The deadline is 3pm GMT on 01/01/2012. Thanks a lot.

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update: Behaviour of comments is now back to normal. Best Wishes messages have now been forwarded to Jo.

Ronne Mank

Message from "Sledge Echo" - 29/12/2011:

Hello again. The weather here is gorgeous again today, but we never really got to start work because the clouds off the Ronne Ice Shelf have been encroaching on us from below our camp all day. The first work site was shrouded in it, so we had to turn back. So Roger and I are enjoying an afternoon off (well, he has been sunbathing in the doorway and I have been trying to catch up with the 'paperwork' for my work here). I just looked at my nose in the mirror and it is attesting to the fantastic sunny weather we've been having - oh dear. The sun is unbelievably strong here, and we are putting on factor 50 sunblock several times a day!

We have lovely views when we drive out and about, so I am enjoying sitting watching the scenery this evening...which is always changing with the changes in light and cloud. My favourite time of day is the evening, when the light changes as the sun dips slightly behind the mountains behind our tent. The temperature dips a little (from -10 to -15 last night!) and the shadows get longer. When the wind dies down, it is totally silent. Beautiful.

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By clicking on it, it is possible to print or generate a PDF of the blog entry.

Happy printing... and don't kill too many trees!

Uncle François.

Sun, sun, sun

Message from "Sledge Echo" - 27/12/2011:

We have been having amazing weather here the last 3 days - gorgeous blue sky and no wind. We have been out and about driving the skidoos and sledges to get to my work sites. They are not very far away (a few km) but it takes ages because the snow is very soft following the storm last week. It is quite difficult to drive on anything but flatish ground. Today one of the sledges turned over completely, which was a bit annoying.

The work is going O.K., but I have not found many of the erratics that I want to sample. On the other hand, I have found out what rocks are around here and have taken some pieces that I can probably work on. We have had some really long days - we didn't get our dinner till 11pm last night and there was so much to sort out that we only went to bed at 2am. I am quite tired already and I've only been here a week! I think I need some bad weather so I can gather my thoughts and get some rest....no doubt it will be on its way soon!

Right now I am melting lots of snow to make our water. It takes ages but obviously is the only way we can get liquid here. The snow is very fresh and clean, and tastes fine! The food is O.K. because Roger has been adding 'goodies' to our diet - we had duck breasts for Christmas lunch, and then again in a casserole last night which was quite tasty. Tonight it'll be back to the dehydrated 'manfood' which is rather bland and textureless. Never mind!

No time here, so must dash....

Greetings from the Lassiter Coast!

Message from "Sledge Echo" - 23/12/2011:


You will probably have gathered from my relative silence these past few days that we are now in the field! The weather improved enough on Wednesday 21st for us to have 2 input flights in the Twin Otter aircraft from Rothera to my field area on the Lassiter Coast. The third flight followed yesterday, when we also had good weather. Our exact location is 74 deg 29.34’ S / 62 deg 38.67’ W, and we are about 1010 m above sea level. We were lucky with the weather, because today (Friday) we have been experiencing strong winds (25 knots) and lots of drifting snow, and it’s -10 degrees C outside. The contrast between today and yesterday is incredible – we were sitting outside drinking cups of tea with the pilots yesterday after the plane landed, and now we are struggling to see further than our sledges only about 15 m away.

The flight was O.K., but it made me feel a bit sick flying in such a small plane, and it was quite stressful having to choose where to land. It was also cloudy most of the way! But it was incredible to see the planes landing on skis next to our camp, and they did a low fly-by on the way out. We had to piste a skiway for them to ease their landing, which we did by driving a skidoo up and down in lines to beat down the snow. Because it is quite cold here, the snow is hard on top but very soft and powdery underneath.

We have a lovely view (when we can see it) of what I have called the ‘lower Guettard Range’. Only a few peaks here actually have a name. In fact, I thought no one had ever been here before, but when we flew in, we saw a shipping container and some fuel drums on a small flat rock outcrop not far from here. We are finding out some more information, but clearly we are not the first to come here! Roger and I will go and check out the container when we get a chance – it will be interesting to see what’s inside, although Roger says he thinks I should go in first in case there is a corpse in it....I don’t think that is likely but it’s certainly very curious.

I am thinking of you all getting ready for Christmas, and travelling to see various family and friends. Judging by the weather forecast here (bad for tomorrow but improving later), I think we will be working on Christmas Day. It will hopefully be a very memorable one for me, and I hope for you too.

Lots of love to you all

Jo

New map, Fossil Bluff & Twin Otters

Hello, Uncle François here...


There is a new interactive map to follow Jo's journey. Links on thumbnails have been updated and this new map will be updated when some as new coordinates are transmitted.

When clicking on pins, you have information about the place and/or blog entries related.

If you want to know more about Fossil Bluff or the Twin Otters, follow these links.


Fossil Bluff is (according to my computer anyway), 420km (260miles) away from Rothera and takes (according to the website) 90 minutes flying.


Lassiter Coast is another 400km (250miles) away from Fossil Bluff.

Jo is aiming for either Mount Owen or Mount Lampert which are a few tens of kilometres apart. More as soon as I have been updated.