Wednesday
16th January
From
John Storey.....
Today
was a day of action! With all the hard "thinking work"
done about where we are going to put things, it was time to
do some real damage. For me this mostly involved sawing up
old wooden pallets to make bases on which to sit our heaters
and the Stirling engine. For Duane it meant sawing 6-inch
diameter holes in the plywood panel at the back of the AASTO
to fit our cooling fans. (Duane is getting quite good at feet
and inches now. Tomorrow we'll introduce him to pints and
gallons and, if he copes with that all right, we'll move onto
US thread sizes and nuts and bolts.)
Meanwhile
Tony was making huge progress with the AFOS (Antarctic Fibre-Optic
Spectrometer), and even has it taking data (basically reflected
sunlight at the moment). Unfortunately our "Supervisor"
computer is decidedly crook. This computer is supposed to
control all our instruments and act as a
communications gateway back to Sydney. This heavy responsibility
has clearly taken its toll, and now it not only refuses to
boot up properly but also claims to have misplaced various
important things including its own hard disk. Tony has threatened
it with a forced redundancy - one which includes a not particularly
attractive package.
Today
we got our first blue skies and sunshine. This transforms
the South Pole into a sparkling wonderland, with strong contrast
between the old, packed snow and the fluffy fresh snow drifts.
In fact it's not actually snow - just tiny particles of ice.
The wind whips up these ice particles, and fills the sky with
tiny, flashing crystals known as "diamond dust".
When conditions are just right, as they were today, a spectacular
light show of halos, sun-dogs, arcs and rings fills the sky.
It's not only beautiful
but also quite extraordinary - a rainbow is a simple and static
thing by comparison. We are indeed fortunate that ice chooses
to form hexagonal crystals, that these occur mainly in one
of two forms ("rods" and "plates"), and
that for aerodynamic reasons these crystals have preferred
orientations
as they tumble through the sky. Otherwise, we'd be stuck with
something as dull as a rainbow - which is what you get when
sunlight has only simple, spherical water droplets to play
with.
I'm
sure this also helped lift our spirits. Duane is 100% well
again, and I'm feeling fine except for a bit of trouble sleeping.
After a few days at this altitude everything works fine again
except for the intellect, which never quite seems to come
up to speed - hence the typos. Fortunately our crew back at
UNSW (the Michaels, the Jons and the Jessica) are only an
email away and put their sea-level brain power to good effect
solving our various problems.
Duane
and I now have a third room-mate, whom I'm yet to meet (he
works nightshift, to the extent that such a concept has any
meaning here). I'm sure he is a fine fellow but, even within
24 hours I have noted he has at least two personal habits
that would make him difficult to share a room with on a long-term
basis. One, he has his clock permanently set 15 minutes fast.
I have heard of people who do this but I have yet to hear
a rational explanation as to why. Two, he uses his "snooze"
alarm. I've always
thought clock manufacturers only included these things as
a kind of a joke. Being woken up by an alarm clock is one
of life's less pleasant experiences - why one would want to
repeat the sensation several times in the same morning is
completely beyond me.
Towards
the end of lunch a cry went out over the all-call for "Freshies!"
This means that the pallet of fresh fruit and vegetables has
just arrived by Hercules, and must quickly be unloaded into
the (heated) refrigerator before it freezes. To do this we
all formed a human chain from the pallet to the fridge, passing
sacks of onions and potatoes, boxes of lettuces and avocados,
and crates of apples along the line. It was enjoyable work
- now I can say I know what it's like to be part of the food
chain.
Meanwhile
Mike Whitehead, a CARA technician, has taken on the task of
making bits and pieces for us for the AASTO. His first job
is a set of adapter bracket things so our Stirling Engine
control panel can go where the bookshelves were.
After
lunch a Bassler DC3 came and went. These are reborn DC3s with
turbine engines and skis, and are flown as a tourist operation
from a camp at Patriot Hills. I'm not sure what kind of an
impression people get when they visit the Pole for just a
few hours - at least today they would have seen a super ice-halo
display. I
celebrated the end of my third day at South Pole with the
first of my two allotted weekly showers. Although each shower
is rationed to 2 minutes (total elapsed water flow), it is
a luxury greatly enjoyed and one no doubt one also appreciated
the next day by one's colleagues. Whoever designed the Beaker
Box had style - the shower recesses look out over the vast,
empty Antarctic plateau, surely one of the most amazing views
in the world.
 
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