31 October, 1998

Today was a long day and a little disappointing one also. The experiment is not going well. Some of the fish have died and I do not really know why. Whether the numbers that died are significant or not I have yet to determine. If they are than that means two weeks of work down the drain with no time to redo it. This whole day was spent in the lab and I did not discover that the fish had died until about 4:00 pm.

McMurdo Station seems to have come alive with people all of a sudden. The weather has been good so several flights with people and cargo has been arriving. Now it seems as if there are people everywhere. I think I liked it better when there were fewer people. I have a little of Daniel Boone in me. When the area he lived in got too crowded with people for him, he just moved on. Unfortunately, I do not have that option.

The weather as I said has been beautiful. It looked for a while this morning like we were going to have some bad weather move in but it cleared up and the sun is brightly shining. Things are starting to melt. The temperatures are still below zero fahrenheit most of the time but in the afternoon when the sun is at its peak some ice melts from the radiant energy it absorbs. If it keeps up like this McMurdo will turn into a mudbath. I do not want to be here for that.

Well this ends my day. Everyone is taking off a little early because it is Halloween here. It is 9 pm so I am going to quit a little early also. That is it for now. Tomorrow is a big fishing day.