13 November, 2000

FYI answer for 11/12/00

If you fall into a wet ice crack, holler for help, clamber out as quickly as possible, and roll in fresh snow on the surface.

The idea behind this is that the fresh snow helps absorb moisture and will freeze to form an ice barrier from the wind. Then move around quickly to produce heat from the inside to make yourself warm.

As Antarctica goes, today was a snow day. The wind and snow and blowing ice makes the working conditions impossible to travel. It was like a condition 2 for more than half of today's working hours. We were able to go out and collect a data recorder from one of our adult females and attach another one to a different adult female late in the afternoon when the winds calmed down.

The kind of work you get done on snow days is just like at home. I tried to catch up with journaling and reading some data we've been collecting. I have been keeping track of questions that I've been asking of the people I'm working with. I then log information about their work in one of my journals. I did actually crawl into my bunk for a two-hour nap too.

There is still a regular routine that has to go on no matter what the weather is. We have a hole in the ice where we pour our dishwater or face/body washing water and spit into when brushing our teeth. The water used for that is from the snow. It is put into a ten-gallon pot, which is kept on our heater stove in the living hut. It is not good from drinking though. We still must separate out our trash very carefully and when the bags are full they get stored in hut #11. That hut gets very full in between visits to McMurdo to unload it. We all take turns cooking and doing dishes, and all of us keep things picked up and tidy. With seven adults living together so closely, it is very important to keep things put in their place.

FYI

The most abundant form of __________ water in the world is _______. About ______ per cent of the world's _______ is found in Antarctica.

Tent Island in the background on a not so good day

We have hot running water just as soon as the heater melts and heats up the snow we put into these pots

We take turns cooking and I chose frito chili for my first turn at making a hot lunch