Date: Dec 25, 2008
Location: WAIS Divide Galley
Time: 7:30 pm
Latitude: 79°28’1.2”S
Longitude: 112°5’6.0”W
Elevation: 1,759 m
Borehole depth: 700 m
Temperature: -16 °C
Wind speed: 2 knots
Visibility: Unrestricted
Wind direction: 040° Grid
Barometric Pressure: 29.06 mm Hg
Precipitation: None
Animals: None except the dead ones we are eating.
Breakfast: Leftovers (I was sleeping)
Lunch: Leftovers (I was sleeping)
Supper: Leftovers: Veg curry, spinach soup w/ chicken, mashed potatoes.
Merry Christmas to all of you intrepid blog readers from WAIS Divide!! Today was a pretty slow day with everyone recovering from last night’s extravaganza and enjoying a much needed day of rest. I have been working on the night shift (which goes from 11pm-7am), so in order to keep my sleep schedule on track I was awake from 5pm on Christmas eve until 8am (watching movies) on Christmas day, then slept till around 4pm. I got up, made a few phone calls on the sat phone to family, then worked on editing a research paper for a couple of hours. In a little while (at 11 tonight) I’ll head back to the arch and start my workday.
There is one thing that I wanted to add about the Christmas eve festivities. Bess (who provided motivation) and Jonathan (our local weatherman who provided the lyrics) joined forces and put together a mini WAIS Divide choir and we sang Christmas carols to everyone in the Galley just before dinner last night. After that Ben, the camp manager told us that there is a tradition in Antarctica for field camps to sing Christmas carols to one another via HF radio. Our HF radio wasn’t working well at the time, so we called McMurdo on our sat phone and they re-broadcast our singing to all of the other U.S. field camps (including the South Pole station). It is so amazing to me that our little WAIS Divide Choir was broadcast all over the continent!
That’s all for now, I need to get ready for work!
Christmas at WAIS Divide. Photo courtesy of Logan Mitchell.
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