Sunset - March 22nd. The sun won't rise for 183 days.

The view out my berthing window to the geographic Pole. Look for the big flag between the two building on the left. 

The sun set for the one and only time this year on March 22nd at 6:41pm. We did not get to see it because it was unbelievably cloudy that day. Around 3 days later, the clouds finally broke and we had some amazing colors on the horizon. We won't see the sun again for 183 days when it comes up around the fall equinox - September 21st or 22nd.

 Looking out to our skiway (runway for planes with skis).

A diagram that helps explain why the polar regions have extended periods without sunrises or sunsets.

I thought sunrise and sunset would be like McMurdo where the sun rose and set each day for a month or so before dropping behind the horizon for good. However, because the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the path of its orbit around the Sun, the North and South Poles only get one sunset a year.

The office

My office

Despite the fun adventure side of this job, I am really here to work and this is where the work happens. My desk is the one you can see the monitors on. I share the office with a network engineer who sits on the right. We both cover as a help desk for anyone that walks in the door.

The computer lab right outside my office.

Right outside our office is a computer lab. Most work centers don't have enough computers for all their employees so some come here to do small tasks. Others use it to stay in touch with folks back home. However, the program now lets laptops and cellphones connect to the Internet when the satellite is up so most folks use that to keep in touch with the home front. That is a huge change from when I was on the Ice 12 years ago. Back then, you were really disconnected except for email. Due to some major Internet upgrades, you can now use video chatting like FaceTime and Zoom.

I don't know all the details, but we don't use starlink here. They are using it a little bit at McMurdo. They have tested it here. One person said that it interfered with the science, someone else said it didn't. I don't what is accurate, but having non-stop Internet here would really change the experience for better and worse.

HIIT and closing up the windows

I am struggling to find the time to write the way I used to that really got into the nitty gritty so for the time being I am going to just put some random photos from each day.

 Weekly HIIT class in the big gym

Every Tuesday, our carpenter Andrew runs a HIIT class in our big gym. We have steady group of 4-6 that come out to suffer a little bit, try to stay in or get in shape, and try to keep off the 'Freshman 15' that can easily happen to us in our all you can get cafeteria.  This week we worked through some criss-cross jacks that felt like Irish dancing, goblet squats, sit ups, push ups, lumber jack swings, kettle bell squat lifts, and tossing the medicine ball.

Rawlynn was kind of enough to get a photo of me in the class doing my best lumberjack swing

The big event of the day was the boarding of all the windows on station because of the science that goes on in the dark of winter. We have some very sensitive cameras that would have their data corrupted by having even a single window unblocked. Everyone is issued head lamps with red lights so that they don't mess up the cameras' data.  My view of the geographic pole was good while it lasted.

Given the exacting nature of so much of the science, you might think that we board the windows up with custom blinds or something fancy. Nope. We use cardboard that folks have taken a utility knife too. Lots of them are decorated with fun photos of past friends, dogs, and beautiful places.

My room with a boarded up window.

Until tomorrow . . . hopefully