Today it was confirmed that the date we all leave the pole has been changed from the 10th of February to the 11th. The original plan was to leave the pole on the 10th, spend the night at McMurdo, leave McMurdo on the 11th, spend the night in Christchurch, then get back home on the 12th - a plan which none of us were particularly looking forward to with much enthusiasm. However, flights leaving the pole on the 9th and 11th of February were scheduled for straight-through flights - pole to McMurdo, change planes at McMurdo, land in Christchurch late that night. We were quite envious of the people on these days! Then we got an email informing us that McMurdo was quite packed at the moment in terms of beds, since there were quite a few ships in the harbour, and if we didn't very much mind could all the flights on the 10th from the pole be moved to the 11th so they could just push us straight through?? We didn't hesitate in replying with a resounding yes, although Colin was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to stop at the McMurdo shop (it was closed last time we came through). But it's good news all round - a whole extra day at the pole (pressure's off a teensy bit) and no sitting around McMurdo twiddling our thumbs for a day. Sure it will be a lot of flying in one day (most ever for me!) but I have been saving up a nice thick new book for the trip back so I will be all set!

Today Colin and Fred balanced the telescopes on the Gmount. Previous to this, if you left the telescopes in the horizontal position, they would slowly rotate in one direction, obviously because one end was heavier than the other (like a seesaw). Why this should be we have no idea, since they were balanced last year with the aid of a big lead brick bolted to the side of the AFOS (the other telescope beside the Vulcan South telescope which nowadays is acting solely as a counterweight). The only thing that has changed since then is that the camera has been removed and repaired and put back in again - we are slightly concerned that they sent us back less camera than we sent them since that end of the telescope is now underweight!!! But anyway, Colin and Fred worked out a new balance point, and then proceeded to spend a quite significant amount of time trying to drill new holes in the lead brick. According to Colin lead is an "atrocious material" to work with. Jokes were flying around as thick and fast as the lead dust which was prompting them. Fred finally had the brilliant idea of turning the brick over and coming at the holes from the other side and we went to lunch.

After lunch we were tackling software problems again. We have a new kernel (again) thanks to Michael and all of a sudden everything we had gotten working in the last few days was no longer working. We slowly started making our way through the required software, identifying problems and sometimes fixing them! Michael will get another list of questions tonight! He's working as hard over there in Chile as we are here and we would certainly be stuck without him! His solutions are often in the theme of "I had to add this (seemingly random, to us) line to this (again, seemingly random) file, now it works perfectly" - the sort where you wonder if that would have ever have crossed your mind. Indispensable!

Saturday night is pizza night and people who know me know I only like pizza on BBQ sauce base. Take any pizza and change the base from tomato to BBQ and you have improved said pizza beyond measure. Last Saturday when I reached the head of the pizza line I asked the chef if there were any BBQ-base pizzas. He looked at me. I looked at him. His face went blank. I enquired if they had BBQ sauce in the states (where all the chefs appear to be from) and he said yes, they did. I probed as to the existence of BBQ-base pizzas in the states and he said yes, they had them. But they didn't have any here, and obviously from his reaction this was the first time they had been asked for one. So this afternoon, after lunch, when I saw they were starting to make pizzas, I went and put in my request. A pizza, with a BBQ sauce base, containing at the very least chicken and onion. Now this is turning into a bit of a saga but American pizzas contain an average of three toppings, including cheese. Out of the six or so different pizzas that were offered for dinner, none of them had more than three. In Australia, a pizza with two toppings on the cheese is pretty sub-par. A BBQ chicken pizza in Australia has chicken, bacon, mushrooms, onion and cheese and usually garlic sprinkles if you ask nicely. So when I suggested chicken and onion as starters to this chef, I was actually surprised (though I shouldn't have been, in retrospect) that the pizza I got was chicken, onion and cheese! And don't get me started on American cheese......

By they way, today was the first day I saw it hit -50 C with windchill! Picture attached!




- Jessie